Oriental Bucarest experience
Friday 31. July 2009:
I woke up in a shaking train cart, rather suprised that I managed fo sleep as well as I did despite all the noise and commotion. The landscape outside was rather somber but nontheless intrguing. Small and slowly moving oil pumps were scattered accross the land connected by countless wooden posts laid with poorly planned wires. A world of gray and brownish shades, overlayed with just a touch of morning fog, but stil peculiarly beautiful in its’ industriality. Clearly we were not in Bucarest yet, so I took a short nap until we were.
At the station a Romanian friend of Ivor’s going by the charming name of Flavia was alreqdy waiting for us. I proceeded to make my traditional bad first impression by cracking Ceaucescu jokes which can be rather hard to take even when the clock is not well before seven in the morning. Sanjin and Jan of course happily joined in and we were churning out Romanian stereotypes the whole metro ride. All in good taste. Your taste may vary.
Flavia was extremly kind and had already reserved a room for us at the Midland hostel in the centre of the city. It was early, room wasn’t ready and our much needed showers had to wait. Next was the quest for Ivor’s Moldovan visa. Croatia isn’t yet in the EU so he needed one. I wonder why it’s taking them so long to join, poor bastards? 
That took some time due to some senseless bureaucracy, but what doesn’t kills gets us more forms to fill out, as the old proverb arguably goes. That meant the rest of us had some time to look for unsecured WiFi hotsopts in the neighbourhood and a coffe & chocholate-prune mousse. My eyes gleamed with delight when I cast my sight upon a couple of Hoegaarden beers in the fridge. Not to worry, we tried plenty of local ones later on, though, not suprisingly most seem to be owned by the Belgian InBev anyway.
The visa quest took Ivor and Flavia through some more administrative challenges, meanwhile we were intermittingly meeting, exploring Bucarest and were even able to shower to the undoubtful delight of anyone we met.
After a nice nargile outside an Egyptian bar, discussing the various high flying problems plaguing our society and women (not counting the among the former), our need for sightseeing could no longer be ignored. Thus we proceeded to the square of Nicolae Ceaucescu’s last speech, the “stabbed potato” monument to the revolution and ex-communist central cmmitee which now houses 4 government ministries. Our experience then turned thoroughly oriental with a great sushi dinner, beers at the Khrishna bar and Jan’s well spirited, but unsuccessful atempts to teach the waitress Chinese. Another of Ivor’s Romanian friends joined us, Tiberie by name. We continued to cruise Bucarest chanting partisan hymns until we grew tired and my jokes rather stale. A refreshing sleep put us right back on track.
I can’t yet add the photos whch aren’t on my phone, so you’ll have to live just with the sushi photo for the time being.
Leave a Reply