People’s palace and the long and winding road to Chisinau
Perhaps you’ve noticed I’m falling behind with my live blogging. By live I of course mean with a few days of delay. Energy/alcohol related reasons usually keep me from writing before going to bed, thus making me fall behind. I apologize to you, my cherished readers. Both of you. 
Saturday, 1. August 2009:
Still in Bucarest, previous night and the hardships of travel took a toll, extending our sleep almost until the early afternoon. We managed all the necesseties, grabbed a coffee at a bar full of locals. They could easily tell we were tourists. You might think that the cameras, Lonely Planet guide, lack of knowledge of the Romanian language or our inquisitive looks were a giveaway. No. We were the only ones not drinking alcoholic beverages at 12.00.
We split up with Jan and Ivor going to the national history museum, where, according to them, practically all the items were replicas and the biggest attraction was the massive neoclassical building the museum was housed in. Sanjin and I went to the Ceaucescu’s Palace of the people, where we first started with the part housing the Contemporary art museum. Since we didn’t get the right entrance right away we had to take a 5-10 minute walk to the other entrance. Yeah, it’s THAT big. The museum itself turned out to be a dismal experience for the most part, much of it comprising of 50-something year old “artists” discovering Photoshop for the very first time believing they have something to offer. While that might be just fine otherwise, the problem is that they are embraced by the “artistic establishment” and hosted in galleries accros Europe. There were some rare gems though in this sea of self-congratulating manure. Rare.
The teracce cafe on the top revealed the true vastness of the palace estate in the heart of Bucarest and the slight chlorine aftertaste of the Romanian filled Kinely Tonic. My outpouring of criticsm might not have gotten that message through but the visit was quite an entertaining experience in whole.
We signed up for a guided tour on the other side if the palace where the parliament is housed, but we were running a bit late, which we could not afford since it was the last one that day. We therefore took a taxi which brought us to the other side of the building. Crazy, I know. Ivor & Jan were already there, the guide led us through the tour. Just a few facts, read the rest on Wikipedia. 4 billion $ to complete, 10% still not finished, all the materials had to be from Romania, 400 architects worked on it, already falling apart in some areas due to shoddy work, maintenance, a looot of houses destroyed to build the boulevard in front of it, second largest building in volume – after Pentagon…
After that we met with Flavia once more, slowly got to the bus station where we booked a trip to Chisinau. It costs 65 Romanian Lei or 20 € (it’s a bit more in Euros) and takes app. from 20.00 to 7.00 in the morning to get there. It was a bit hot on the way, mostly because of the low powered air conditioning, but also because of the beautiful ladies which seemed to all have found a way on our bus (more on the reasons in later posts). The guessing which one of them might be a lady of the night during the stops, combined with tech/political/phillosophical debates during the drive kept us entertained throughout the journey. Black humor helped us during the unnecessarily long but otherwise uneventful border procedure. In the morning we discovered how wrong our preconceptions about Moldova really were, but more on that next time. Don’t you just loooove cliffhangers? 
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.
