2009/02/03-06 westernization of the east

the main impression that i have from the city is that two cultures clash - the old communist east and the new capitalist west. a big part of the city still consists of block buildings from the time of ceausescu..

..which makes a rather depressing impression to me.


but westernization is moving on..


..and when east and west merge, it looks like that:

nevertheless some parts are already highly modern,

..which in fact is not always appreciated by the inhabitants either.

i would have never thought that there's people who miss the times of the communist regime, as they cannot cope with the speed of life and the output orientation. it was also fascinating to learn that - what it felt like - a majority of the inhabitants does not really like the city too much. they try to escape as often as possible and see bucharest simply as the location of their employer. despite all of that this was exactly what fascinated me: the mixture in terms of both architecture and lifestyle.

2009/02/03-06 couchsurfing

this time i chose a fascinating way of travelling: i couchsurfed. this means that a kind person [vera, in my case] let me sleep at her couch and bed and give me some interesting input about bucharest and romania in general.

living room & couch

view from balcony

besides meeting her i also got to know andreas from berlin, who surfed their couch, too at the same time [no worries, vera shared her bed with me..]. we hung out together for lunch & breakfast and will certainly keep in touch.

andreas, vera & me

besides i got to go to a cs meeting in the city, where i got to know even more interesting people. thanks to all of them i won new perspectives and more information about bucharest than any travel guide could ever prepare.


the only thing no one could tell me was why the traffic lights are so badly organized that even when its green for pedestrians, cars have to cross..


but anyway, now i know for sure that this is the way i wanna travel in future!

2009/02/03-04 the green side of the city

in bucharest you can also find several parks, which i bet are even more appealing to hang out in summer. nevertheless i spent some time discovering the green heart[s] of the city.

parcul cismigiu


parcul & lacul herastrau


and here's the other side of the story..

2009/02/04-05 palatul parlamentului

the palace of parliament is worth a mention itself. i visited about 5% of the world's second largest building [square-meters-wise] after the pentagon, which still took us almost an hour. it mainly consists of unused fancy halls. those are used for the senate, trade fairs and exhibitions.

the materials exclusively derive from romania and are manually produced into meaningful symbols. e.g. the birds on this carpet stand for peace, the tree for recreation.

the museum of contemporary arts can be found on the backside of the building.

the two elevators lead to three exhibitions..

..and a stunning terrace with a great view.

during the tour i learned some interesting details about the former dictator nicolae ceausescu, who apparently was not the smartest. besides the fact that he could not write and only read badly, he planned the building himself. as it is so big, maps were needed.. and they can be found everywhere:

good luck finding your way!

furthermore he did not want to become tired when using the steps to his private chambers. therefore they were only half as high as the rest.. that he consequently had to take twice as many stairs apparently was no issue.

ceausescu also suffered from a weird form of paranoia.. he was afraid that people could poison him with gas in the halls. hence he let build holes in some of his halls' ceilings, so that in case the toxic gas could unwind rapidly.

what he considered too late was the fact that now he could be intoxicated exactly through these holes. so this idea did not pay off quite well, either.

the balcony was finished 1994, when ceausescu had already been dead for 5 years. therefore he did not experience two major american faux-pas..

both michael jackson and george w. bush used this great view for their speeches to greet the people. two years in a row the citizens of bucharest were addressed with 'hello budapest!', which kind of rocked the boat; twice.

2009/02/03-04 first impressions

5 minutes in bucharest and already breaking the law!
after being annoyed by all the cab drivers at the airport, i jumped onto a bus to ride to the city. well, on the bus i figured that i had not bought a ticket yet [!], and therefore i asked a nice lady for help. she not only told me what to do, but also that i was going outside of the city. so i was sitting there, being afraid to be caught without a valid ticket on a bus that was going in the wrong direction. a classic.
thanks to people's helpfulness i figured out both in the end.

after finally arriving i dedicated a major part of my city trip to the historical center; if there is such a thing, anyway.

the old monuments can mainly be found between the piata unirii and the piata victoriei; i walked along all different 'bulevarduls' and passed by the university,



..the atheneaum,

and the arcul de triunf.

culinarily speaking i discovered cafépedia,

..where they have about 3o different kinds of hot chocolate with the consistency of pudding *awesome*.

i also followed the recommendation to have lunch at the famous caru cu bere, which has both impressive cuisine and interiors.