Probably the World's Best Blog
Bucharest, Romania, April 27 [since I'll be in transit to Bulgaria most of today, this post is dated yesterday]
One thing I forgot to mention about Romania is that they are currently reforming their currency, knocking off four zeroes from the old bills. So an old 10,000 Lei note is the same as a new 1 Leu note. Unfortunately, both sets of bills still circulate, so you can buy something for a 10 Lei bill and get back a 50,000. What's really annoying is the change, though--is that coin marked "500" actually of much use? What about the "5,000"? For some reason, mentally dividing by 10,000 seems much harder than by 100 or 1000. Probably lack of practice.
I spent most of the day in Bucharest after the train ride from Brasov. The gargantuan building put up by Caucescu as the "House of the People" is quite impressive. It sits by itself on a small hill, with the nearest other buildings across a 6-lane highway, and it's big enough that your perspective gets kind of warped and it's not clear just how huge the thing is until you're right next to it.
Bucharest also has much of its old city left, though, and I spent a few minutes in the square where Caucescu gave his last speech. I'd been told that some bullet marks were still visible on surrounding buildings, but couldn't find any. The building which housed the secret police headquarters was burned by protestors, and the shell is still on display. Inside they've built a glass office building, which has a coffee bar on the ground floor.
Old communist-era buildings decked out with big advertising signs can be seen everywhere in Eastern Europe, but I particularly liked Bucharest's skyline for some reason. One oddity I noticed was that Carlsberg bills itself, in Romania at least, as "Probably the world's best beer." Maybe this sounds better in German.
Romania is clearly poorer than the countries I have visited so far, and this translates (among other things) into having to fight your way through more unwanted attention at train and bus stations. Turkey, particularly Istanbul, will be much more intense, though, so the practice is good.
Tomorrow I'll be heading for Varna, Bulgaria.
One thing I forgot to mention about Romania is that they are currently reforming their currency, knocking off four zeroes from the old bills. So an old 10,000 Lei note is the same as a new 1 Leu note. Unfortunately, both sets of bills still circulate, so you can buy something for a 10 Lei bill and get back a 50,000. What's really annoying is the change, though--is that coin marked "500" actually of much use? What about the "5,000"? For some reason, mentally dividing by 10,000 seems much harder than by 100 or 1000. Probably lack of practice.
I spent most of the day in Bucharest after the train ride from Brasov. The gargantuan building put up by Caucescu as the "House of the People" is quite impressive. It sits by itself on a small hill, with the nearest other buildings across a 6-lane highway, and it's big enough that your perspective gets kind of warped and it's not clear just how huge the thing is until you're right next to it.
Bucharest also has much of its old city left, though, and I spent a few minutes in the square where Caucescu gave his last speech. I'd been told that some bullet marks were still visible on surrounding buildings, but couldn't find any. The building which housed the secret police headquarters was burned by protestors, and the shell is still on display. Inside they've built a glass office building, which has a coffee bar on the ground floor.
Old communist-era buildings decked out with big advertising signs can be seen everywhere in Eastern Europe, but I particularly liked Bucharest's skyline for some reason. One oddity I noticed was that Carlsberg bills itself, in Romania at least, as "Probably the world's best beer." Maybe this sounds better in German.
Romania is clearly poorer than the countries I have visited so far, and this translates (among other things) into having to fight your way through more unwanted attention at train and bus stations. Turkey, particularly Istanbul, will be much more intense, though, so the practice is good.
Tomorrow I'll be heading for Varna, Bulgaria.
posted by jeros | 1:38 PM
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