We met at 8:40 to catch taxis down to the train station this morning. Our train left at 9:15 and we were on it for about 3 hour. I caught up on all my blogging but other than that nothing exciting happened. We went past the usual rural scenery - sunflower fields, rolling hills, cows, some storks, etc. Greg and Moya discovered they were sitting next to an older man who had competed in a swimming event in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics for Romania. Pretty neat.
We arrived in Bucharest shortly after noon. As soon as we stepped off the train it was scorching hot. Our hotel was walking distance from the station so we got there within 5 minutes and checked in. For lunch we walked back to the train station since there was a lot of different food stalls there and grabbed some pita like wraps and a delicious iced coffee.
We met back at the hotel at 1:30 and went for a walk with Andy. We took the metro to the old town area. The train was really long in length. Good system. We got off by a shopping mall and walked a few minutes to reach old town. Old town was a happening place with lots of cafés and restaurants, of course. Andy showed us the oldest hotel in Romania with an old wooden entrance walk way. We continued along a main road out if old town to reach the parliament building. We walked through a little park and Steve and I had a mini race to a lamp post, and due to my flip-flops (excuses), Steve won. All fun and games. We also saw a huge round about fountain built on request by Nicolae Ceausescu, the communist ruler of Romania from 1965 to 1989, hoping to become a bigger and better version of the similar street in Paris - but I can't remember the name of that one.
You can see the parliament palace from far far away. It's known to be the second biggest administrative building in the world after the pentagon. Ceausescu had it built in the 1980's at a price of what would now be 3 billion dollars. We learned these facts after going on a tour of a part of the building - 7% of the building to be exact, which took about an hour (that's how big it is). The place was just ridiculously big and grand. It seemed like a huge waste of money and space, but it was really something to see. In one of the grand halls Nadia Comaniech (sp?), the gymnast, was married there. Apparently the hall can be rented for 15,000 Euros a day. We got to go out onto the balcony of the front of the building with great views straight down the boulevard. Michael Jackson stepped out on that balcony at one point when he was there for a concert and mistakenly said "Hello Budapest!" - oops. There's roughly 2,000 workers in the building and they charge each tourist about 25 lei each to get in, so they're doing pretty good making money that way. I would hate to be the one who had to clean the place!
It was really hot and muggy out and we were in need of munchies so once that was over with we walked down the street to a supermarket to grab some snacks. I had a delicious snickers ice cream. It was about 5:30 at this point and we were going to meet up with the others at 6 by the fountain for a walking tour.
The walking tour was really good. We walked to the river, and then into old town where we saw an old church, a statue of Vlad and some ruins, Caru cu bere - the oldest beer hall in Bucharest, the ugliest statue in Bucharest (of a naked man holding a dog), a hookah bar hall, revolution square, and ended the tour at the concert hall. We were all so hungry and exhausted and in major need of a beer and a shower by this point. It was around 8:30.
We got right down to business and Andy and I had yet another competition and bought some cold beers from the market and had Karen time us while we chugged a beer. I got a 40 second head start and still lost miserably. Once we reached the restaurant (we went back to the beer hall and it was really busy) we ordered two more beers and did a redo with Brian in on the mix as well. I got a minute head start this time and nearly won! If I hadn't stopped to comment on something then I would've. Since we hadn't eaten yet, the beer went straight to my head. Luckily, I ordered a massive and delicious meal - grape leaves stuffed with minced meat, palenta, and grilled veggies. Yum.
It was quite late at this point and we still had to take the metro back to our hotel. When we got to the station where we had to transfer onto the next train it turned out that the next train wasn't operating anymore for the night. It was just after 11 so it seemed a bit odd. We exited the station and went up and caught taxis from there to the hotel. It was around 12:30 when I got to bed. I never did end up having the shower I so badly wanted. Another awesome, but long day!
Parliament:
View from balcony:
New building next to an old building in old town:
Hookah smoking hall:
Revolution Square:
Monument in Revolution Square symbolizing a spear through communism and a vandalism threw a can of red paint up there a year ago (video on YouTube apparently):
Concert Hall:
Beer Hall:
Beer chugging contest:
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