Rain In Romania

Lipscani (Bucharest's Old Town)

After a pretty horrible overnight train from Belgrade, I was in Bucharest, Romania! The train was very old, unreasonably loud, and either sweltering hot or freezing cold. At the Romanian border, the customs officials performed the most rigorous search I’ve ever seen; it included pulling apart the seats and even using drills to peer inside the wood paneling! Crazy! Despite not sleeping very much at all, I think I lucked out – I heard that a girl who’d taken the train by herself the night before was disturbed most of the night – made to feel uncomfortable by two Serbian men...

Bucharest: I liked this city. There were a lot of charming old buildings in an architectural style I can’t quite identify. I spent the first day walking around in the rain, the second day seeing the sun shine over Bucharest, and the third day relaxing in the park until it started raining :) It was Easter (again) that first day in Romania – the Christian Orthodox version that occurs a week after the Catholic holiday. The day wasn’t so great because it rained heavily all day, everything was closed, and the only places open for dinner were KFC, McDonald’s, and Burger King. On the upside, I went to all three! (Light snacks from each because they were next door to each other... Happy Easter to me!)

Athenaeum

Palace of Parliament

Bucharest is famous for such sights as the Athenaeum, its national theater, the Old Town, and Parliament. The Palace of Parliament is the largest government building in the world second only to the Pentagon! You also see a lot of old juxtaposed with the new: 

The parks were probably my favorite part of Bucharest.... I remember being utterly charmed by a group of young people in the Cişmigiu Park: One of them had downloaded song lyrics to their handphone and the group of them sat singing songs like Adele’s “Someone Like You” to each other. It was so sweet! I wish my friends did that! I spent a lot of time in that park, engrossed in The Hunger Games :)

Cişmigiu Park

Romania was fairly interesting from a food standpoint with a lot of things to try. Sarmale, cabbage rolls, are very popular. The store-bought version I tried was pretty terrible, but the very kind woman at my hostel gave me some of her homemade sarmale. (She was rushing out to bring lunch to her son and then sort of gave me some of his lunch….) 

Sarmale

I got to try grocery store versions of mamaliga (polenta), mici (spicy and oily sausages), and moussaka – they were okay. One of the most famous restaurants in Bucharest is Caru cu Bere; there, I tried tochitura – a meat stew with polenta and eggs:

It looked and sounded a lot better than it ended up tasting unfortunately… sour cheese... sour stew. Eh. I have mixed feelings about Romanian food because although tochitura wasn't so good, the lunch special at another famous restaurant - Hanv Berarilor was great! I enjoyed their rooster soup, baked chicken legs, and mashed potatoes. I felt a little guilty about the rooster soup (because a good friend of mine probably wouldn’t approve), but the chicken was so tender it came right off the bone with a spoon!

Brasov: Bucharest was a nice break from the former republics of Yugoslavia; it was also the only part of Romania I really enjoyed. Brasov – gateway to Bran (Dracula’s) Castle – on the other hand, ranks close to one of my least favorite cities. Although Brasov has an old town with a charming little BRASOV sign that looks like the HOLLYWOOD sign in LA, I didn’t enjoy the city much because of the annoying combination of wind, rain, and cobblestone streets. I was also really mad at myself for going to see the Bran Castle:

Basically, I knew nothing about Dracula and didn't particularly care much about him at all…I’d never read the novel or seen any movie’s based on the novel but I thought I should see Bran Castle anyway. The castle ended up being pretty lame and, as it turns out, has almost nothing whatsoever to do with Dracula (or the guy Dracula is allegedly based on)! I guess I’m still figuring out how to enjoy myself and learning to let go of the things that don’t interest me… 

Transylvania

All in all, I enjoyed Romania. I think I would have enjoyed it a bit more if it hadn't rained so much, but the people were lovely, the cities were beautiful, and the food was at least interesting when it wasn't delicious :)

Up Next: Hungary!