Bucharest, Romania
Trip Start
May 10, 2007
1
19
33
Trip End
Jun 15, 2007
Bucharest, Romania
Monday, May 28, 2007
We made one last stop at Veliko Tarnovo. Driving into this town, we'd wished we had of stayed here. It was a lot smaller, but had about 10 times the character. Veliko was the medieval capital of Bulgaria. There's a big old fortress there, but there's not much left of it because the Turk's destroyed it when they invaded. At the top of a fortress is a revamped church (decorated with very abstract paintings from the Communist era. . Did I mention we made the climb in +41 C weather? We were very tempted to peel off our clothes and continue in our underwear.
We then made our way to Bucharest in Romania. Our stop at the border was pretty short again. Romania joined the EU this past January as well.
We had a driving tour as soon as we got to Bucharest. Our guide's name was Sebastian, and he ranked up there with our guide in Istanbul. We started the tour in Revolution Square, which is where the democratic revolution took place in 1989. Until then, Romania was a strict communist country with corrupt leaders. In December of 1989, after an uproar of the people, their president (Ceausescu) ordered the military to control them by any means (shoot em' if necessary). About 800 people were killed (the bullet holes on the buildings have only recently been repaired). Fearing the people of Romania, the military stopped listening to their leader. Soon after, Ceausescu was arrested and tried for fraud. The trial was short, and he and his wife were executed-on TV-on Christmas Day.
During Ceausescu's rule, he built the Parliamentary Palace (our second stop), which is the second biggest building next only to the Pentagon. It has 16 levels, 1100 rooms, and 330,000 square meters of space. It also has underground tunnels connecting all of the other parliamentary buildings. Ceausescu had 9000 19th century houses destroyed so he could build this monstrosity.
We then went to what Sebastian called "ABC", Another Bloody Church. Greek Orthodox. Again, we disrupted their mass. This one was eerie because all of the women were kneeling.
We then went over to the neighbourhood where all the Communist Fat Cats lived. Back then, the people of Bucharest weren't even allowed to walk through it. Now it's mostly international embassies (including the US, which you are forbidden to take pictures of!).
We then checked into our hotel. The beds were real hunks of crap. Brittany nearly fell through the floor when she sat on hers. Another uncomfortable nights sleep to look forward too.
We went to a restaurant called Burebista Vanatoresc, which specializes in wild game. We had bear and wild boar for supper! Don't worry, neither are endangered here. The boar tasted like a tough steak, and the bear was minced like a hamburger. For all we know, it may not even have been bear. There are an awful lot of stray dogs in Eastern Europe y'know.
That was enough adventure for one night. We went to bed (or tried to) at 10:30.
