The Matt & Mom Excursion Team took on Bucharest on its own. Doug had a meeting so the Fearless Okies got a taxi and took off. Observations From Today: Immersion is the Best Way to Learn a Culture: The Team thought we would go out and immerse ourselves in the city and see what life was like as a Romanian. Even though we thought we were immersing, the Romanians saw us floating on the top—or the bottom. Doug says they can spot an American easily by things like MY HAIR COLOR, my shoes, Matt’s shoes, etc. Mom covers her gray [View Full Entry]

---

---

A Long Way The Team had a Board meeting and decided we would make blog entries separately so here we go. Mom's Entry Sitting 8 hours, whether in a plane or in a classroom, isn’t good! (I now know why God created beds on the 3rd day.) Fellow educators, I have a new appreciation for the “movement” piece in the classroom. I am officially running for the position of TPS Ambassador for Movement—I will run for that office on the platform of removing all desks from the classroom! The Chicago to London fl [View Full Entry]

---

---

The First 2 Hours in Bucharest Europe » Romania » Bucharest By Son and Mom Excursion June 6th 2007Just some quick pictures of the arrival and the city. Appreciate Matt's photo skills and keen eye. [View Full Entry]

---

---

We’ve already come to have a deeper appreciation for our country. Several significant, non-planned events today made us rethink our lives in America. First, a little about Romania. Briefly, Romania was under the Communist rule of Nicolae Ceausescu until 1989. He was the people’s ruler until his latter years—people were starving and without much. After a revolt, Ceausescu fled Bucharest, but was tracked down and killed on Christmas Day, 1989. So Romania has been a “free” country only 18 years. Because The Team has never been to a young, democratic countr [View Full Entry]

---

---

Just 3 comments for this entry: 1. You can go 29 hours without sleep and still function SOMEWHAT 2. The Team didn't know there were so many languages spoken in the world--we thought everyone spoke English 3. The sun set and rose within 2 hours on the Trans-Atlantic flight...a glorious work of God's hand One more entry: The Team is going to sleep and will post pictures tomorrow. Ciao [View Full Entry]

---

---

We had a wonderful couple of weeks in Romania as you can probably tell by our inability to choose between the photos we have taken (sorry I know there are a lot for this one!) First stop Bucharest what a random city it is! It is Chisinau's grown up prettier sister! By that there are amazing Parisian avenues, albeit a little rough around the edges, but there are also blocks and blocks of communist concrete disasters. It was once called the Paris of the east, a claim made by most of the Eastern European cities we have visited, but after [View Full Entry]

---

---

It's a lovely spring day here in Bucharest, a perfect day for new beginnings, so I got set to start-up a blog about this summer's travel expedition: Bucharest-Budapest-Vienna-Aachen-Paris-Amsterdam-back home While searching for tips from fellow travellers, I'll post here all the inspiring insights, my top 10s, my must-see lists, well-seasoned with images from local Bucharest. It's nice to have a place to collect all the ideas and then, in August, you read my footsteps while I'll be live blogging from all the wonderful places I'll be visiting. To a wonderful travel experience to begin! S [View Full Entry]

---

---

Our first stop on Spring Break '07 was Bucharest, Romania. We left Alexandria at 9:00pm, drove to Cairo, took a 4:00am flight to Milan to catch a connection to Bucharest. We were exhausted and nearly incoherent by the time we arrived at 1:30 in the afternoon. After much ado, we rented a car, sat in rush hour traffic and finally made it into the city to look for a hotel room. Unfortunately, every hotel we had bookmarked in our Lonely Planet was either full or closed down! By 7:00 in the evening with the rain pouring down, we must have [View Full Entry]

---

---

Midnight Arrival Capers A cheap flight from Budapest saw us fly into Bucharest, Romania, at midnight. We had for once pre-booked a hostel and had noticed that they offered an airport pickup service for E6. Being the adventurous types we decided to make our own way to the hostel; that's when the fun began! After collecting our bags we ran the gauntlet of the taxi drivers and made our way to the buses. We had been told that you have to purchase your ticket from a booth before you get on the bus but try as as we might we couldn't [View Full Entry]

---

---

Got back to Europe and back to Romania, the first thing that hit me, leaving apart Austrian's rudeness and their total, absolute lack of communicativeness, was the cold weather. Romania is pretty much the same as I know it , not much has changed, got back to a sad-looking, depressing grey image , so familiar and somehow so remote! I miss people smiling to me on the street, talking to me out of the blue sky and just being genuinely happy and cheerful. Yes, weather does influence our state of mind! I hate this grey, bleak winter, it is so demoralizing, [View Full Entry]

---

---