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  Galati, Romania
Friday, July 1, 2011

Jake Here Again. Hi.


This is a few days late. As usual.  Whatever. If you really care, write you own blogs about Romania. Yup. that's what I thought.

So ANYWAYS. We drove up to Galati from Neptune, which was a drive of several hours in length. Along the way, we saw various slices of Romanian Awesome, such as storks in nests on telephone poles, Houses with thatched roofs, fields of crops, horsecarts, tour busses, and the ruins of a castle. The Castle was actually SO COOL we decided to go look at it. We drove up a sketchy-ass dirt road, and were allowed into the castle grounds by a gatekeeper. Ya see, It was all part of an archeological dig by Bucharest University, but they had abandoned actually working on it a few years prior, but they still owned the property and had a guy there to make sure not just any random bum off the street could get in. He also handed us Pamphlets, in english. and a map, also in english.  The castle was built in the 3rd century to protect surrounding farms and
villages, and was actively used until mid byzantine rule in the 7th
century. I think. Let me stress that these were RUINS.  but verycool nonetheless.


We got back on the road, and discovered that the little symbol on the GPS which we hadn't understood meant we had to take a ferry to cross the Danube. So we crossed the Danube on a ferryboat. It's not really a big deal.


Once across the River, we were in Galati, which is the Romanian town from which my Great grandfather Hails, If I'm not mistaken. It's actually quite a big industrial city. We went to the Synagogue there [the only one that was left] and it was definately not in use and in slight disrepair. :(

Then, I walked around the block because I could neither stand nor contribute to my family's discussion as to where we would be spending the night. I saw some kids playing soccer in the road in front of a Sex Shop Labeled as such with a big Neon sign, and I saw some little girls playing with a dog, and I  asked some 10 year old boys if they spoke English and they looked confused and then said "no", except for one of them, who said "five" and proudly held up five fingers.

We stopped by a hotel that looked nice and had cool round steps, but didn't stay there. We ended up finding an awesome place with a free minibar and right in town and a connectedrestaurant. the restaurant took forever and had blaring accordion music/ singing the whole time. It was recorded live, but it was not live. and the food took forever and wasn't spectacular. so it goes. we then walked around the city at night, and saw some cool stuff, but nothing really cool enough to remember and write about. lotsa stray dogs and cats.

Then we went back to the room, and I got tipsy on free minibar beer and watched MTV and played magic with ben.

In the morning, we had a nice free breakfast that was really fantastic with coffee and olives and eggs and ham and cereal and toast and pastries and a nice waiter guy. Oh, the have their cereal with warm milk there. and the milk tastes a little cheesy. Not sure If you're into that sorta thing [I am].  The waiter told us the main industry was steel and boatmaking. And there were tons of soviet era looking cement ten story apartment buildings, as one is wont to see in many romanian cities. what does wont even mean? We found out they were actually built in the nineties.

oh, also we met a german guy who was kinda chubby and had an awesome beard and awesome english with an awesome accent who had traveled here from Ukraine on a bike. wait, maybe he was Ukrainian. Anywho, he was probably a Boss.

After Breakfast, we left Galati. And headed towards Bucharest.

Slideshow Share

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Ben & Castle Ruins	Top of Ruined Wall	Mom in the Ruins	moar runz
Walking through the Main Gate	walking to the Roman Baths	Teh Baths.	still the baths, I think.
Ben and I Investigate a Buttress.	Map of the Ruins.	The Gaurd Horse.	On the Ferryboat!
Car getting on the Ferry.	Crossing the Danube.	The Galati Synagogue	On the Synagogue gate.
Mom and Ben looking at the synagogue.	zoomed out synagogue	more synagogue contemplation	dad's artsy synagogue shot

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