Bucharest Blues

It was so nice to be done camp and just have three days with the other staff chillaxing in Bucharest. We stayed in a dorm at the Polytechnic university- which wasn’t too far from the centre. Bucharest is a very interesting city and it took me awhile to get into the groove. I think it was because many Romanians are very negative about their country. Many times on the camp the kids would ask me ‘Do you like Romania?’ My answer was always something along the lines of ‘Yeah. I find the culture and history very interesting.’ but the kids always responded, ‘That can’t be true, no one likes Romania’  

Bucharest is a city that will probably undergo a lot of change in the next few years. There are construction cranes EVERYWHERE! Most of them are fixing up the buildings that are in a French architectural style that got run down during the communist era. Bucharest has very little left that was built before communism, now there are just a lot of concrete boxes for apartment buildings. 

I’ve learnt in history classes about the brutal communist dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu, but it wasn’t apparent to me how badly he ran the country until I visited now I see why they executed him. In my opinion Bucharest’s best sight to visit is the Palace of Parliament. This building is the second largest building in terms of volume after the Pentagon. Inside is room after room with chandeliers, marble and gold. Today this building is worth approximately 6 Billion Euros. To build this monstrosity Ceaucescu demolished several dozen churches, 1000s of apartments, a monastery and a stadium. He also starved the people to pay for the construction. I was in awe after the tour, the contrast between his extravagance and the peoples poverty was disgustingly apparent.

There are some nicer areas of Bucharest that manged to survive communism, namely the area surrounding Arcul de Triumf built in 1935 modeled after the Arc de Triomphe. The walk we took along Kiseleff Road to get to the arch was also quite nice - saw the Canadian embassy on the way it was definitely the ugliest building on the street, but is was nice to know that it had more guards out front than the American embassy!

I don’t think Bucharest makes it on to the list of my favourite places to visit, but I’m glad I did go. Also I think in another 10 years it could be a beautiful city – so buying real estate there would be a good investment.

A Bit about Bran Castle and Various Other Visits

After the first week of teaching we had a relaxing weekend in Transylvania. We drove for about 3 hours to Brasov (apparently this is the most touristy city in Romania). We spent the evening there just wandering around. It had a pedestrian area similar in style to Augusta Street in Lisbon. What struck me about the architecture was how every house had a different style of architecture and was a different colour. It doesn’t create the neighborhood/district feel like most big cities, but it is certainly interesting. After the sun set we headed off to our overnight accommodation in the town of Bran. We had a wonderful BBQ with all the trimmings. The mood was certainly set for Transylvania as we were staying across the street from a cemetery, you could hear wild dogs and we were treated to a lunar eclipse.

The next morning after a freezing cold swim and some sun bathing we went to Bran Castle (aka Dracula’s Castle) There is actually some interesting history surrounding the castle. While Bram Stoker did base Dracula’s castle in his novel on this castle, the historical figure that Dracula is named after (Vlad Dracul) actually lived in a castle in Wallachia. The guide said Stoker created this fiction for a more exciting story, as in Wallachia there are mostly plains whereas Transylvania is forest. In real life Dracula’s castle was actually Queen Mary of Romania’s summer house. We also visited another fortification where the plains meet the forest. To finish off the day we had a late night dinner at an authentic Hungarian restaurant. I had this really garlicy fish stuff and some cabbage salad.

Since being here in the province of Moldavia (not to be confused with the country of Moldova), the kids have gone on several trips in the area. Their Romanian teachers have been nice enough to invite us on the trips with our students. The trip I went on last week included a gondola ride in the town of Piast Neamt, a walk in the Keys of Bicaz (a cool gorge) and a boat ride on Romania’s Red Lake. In the second week we visited composer Georges Enescu’s home, a monastery and (in my opinion the coolest part) an old salt mine that has been revamped to have a restaurant, arcade and park inside it – over 200m underground! After leaving when you licked your lips you could taste the salt.

Summer 2008 is coming to an end soon, my last stops include Bucharest for three days, Basque Country for two days and one final day in Madrid. When I get home I have long, arduous law school applications to look forward too and moving into my new apartment.

 

 

 

Random Remarks from Romania

After landing at the Bucharest airport at dusk, we (the 11 English teachers plus our Romanian escort) began our 5 hour journey to Camp Valea Budului which is about 15 mins from the town of Bacau (pronounced Bakow).  We got to see the Carpathian mountains in the west and the plains in the east.  Along the way there was a mix of the new ‘EU Romania’ and the parts of Romania that are still stuck in a crazy Soviet time warp.  We had to slow down to pass a horse and cart along the highway, but yet the highway was all paved and new. A lot of people have mobile phones, but there are also a lot of hitchhikers and fruit vendors along the main highways. 

A have a feeling that not many European tourists make it out this far, based on the fact that there was only 1 guidebook on all of Romania at the airport while there were at least 10 just on Rome.  So far camp seems to have a the modern conveniences of the rest of the EU while still maintaining a distinctly Romanian feel (traditional food and beverage, loud techno music and a MIG jet as a climbing thing for kids)

I start teaching tomorrow. The kids are here only a week and then we get a second set of kids for the last week.