In the 1960s, under the leadership of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and his successor, Nicolae Ceausescu, the Communist Party of Romania began to implement a foreign policy independent of Soviet goals. Socialist state ownership and central planning fostered the rapid growth of heavy industry and forcibly turned Romania from an agrarian into an urban sociey. During the 1970s, Ceausescu attempted to modernise the Romanian economy further, by investing huge amounts of money borrowed from Western credit institutions. Due to his grandiose development projects, the Romanian people were submitted to a rigor [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday, a few of us took a walk and stumbled on a park very close by. There was a huge lake and lots of bridges and sculptures and walkways. As I mentioned earlier, there is a huge convention of French speaking nations coming to town next week. Workers have been digging up the roads, installing marble or quartz stone curbsides. I thought I procrastinated, but they take the cake. The park was buzzing with workers cleaning up the parks, trimming trees and planting flowers. There has been a litter problem here, and maybe the big clean-up will give people the inspiration [View Full Entry]

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today after much waiting and travelling >> finally arrive in BRASHOV, ROMANIA. it could've been a mistake leaving Bulgaria >> I really loved it there. the Romanians slag off Bulgaria and the Bulgarians slag off Romania, I have to side with the Bulgarians on this international battle >> no fence sitting. this hostel is also bland after Hikers Hostel. write more soon [View Full Entry]

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The Food The food in Ro is very good and an Akins Dieter’s dream. There is meat at every meal and quite often there is meat-stuffed meat available! It is common to have an assortment of cold cuts in the breakfast buffet each morning. Also found at every meal are red ripe tomatoes, cucumber and potatoes. Lettuce is rare, but cabbage and slaw are plentiful. At the Hotel Cocor at dinner each night, we were entertained by a live band. They had an amazing way of transitioning from Elvis to the Carpenters to Captain & Tenille very smoothly. One evening, the [View Full Entry]

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The Black Sea After crossing the beautiful Danube, we arrived at the Black Sea, the seaside spot for most Romanians when on holiday. The first city we saw on the coast is Constanta, Romania’s largest seaport and third largest city. Although our bus did not stop here, I was lucky enough to return Monday evening for dinner with some new and old friends. Believe it or not, we dined at the “Irish Pub” restaurant, where I have had the best meal, so far! Neptun Our journey ended at Neptun resort on Saturday in the late afternoon. Neptun, until 1989, w [View Full Entry]

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Believe it or not, I am back in Romania. I am setting up this TravelBlog so you can keep up with my adventures. Mom and Dad have created a blog for their trip out west and Alaska, and I have enjoyed keeping up with their journey. Mine will not be quite 7 months like theirs, more like 10 days. I am traveling with MBA students from Kennesaw State University as their alumni advisor. I hope to have more time to site-see and send back pictures of this beautiful country. After a long plane ride from Atlanta to Paris, we changed planes [View Full Entry]

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Two festivals Chris: Taking a break from our increasingly full schedules, Alecia and I speant the last two weekends visiting two very different festivals. The first was the Rosia Montana Fan Fest to raise awareness about a proposed mining project and the second was the Homorodalmas Barlangfestival (read Almas Cave fest in the little village where Agora works). Rosia Montana: The Project: the Rosia Montana minig project proposal aims to put Europe’s largest open pit, cyanide extraction, gold mine in place of a mountain in the western carpathians. There has been a gold mine there [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, There are an estimated one and half million Gypsies in Romania. It is politically incorrect to call them Gypsies here. They are now called The Roma. Their origin is not clear, but it is thought that they came from India in the 13th century. They have the colouring and features of people from India. Many are still nomadic, but many are trying to fit in. Some are well-off, but most live on the fringes of society. They often set up camp close to landfill sites and mine plastic, metal and copper for resale and recycling. The government gives them [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, If someone asked me what stands out about my visit to Romania, it has to be Ceausescu Palace in Bucharest. It was built in the 1980's, but Ceausescu was executed when it was 70% finished. At 3,000 plus rooms, only the Pentagon is bigger. Some rooms are the size of a football field. There are 280 chandeliers; one weighs five tons. All 600 doors are solid wood, many elaborately carved. Ceausescu felt strongly about using only materials from Romania. He liked silk, but their climate doesn't lend itself to silk worms. So he built a lab for the sole [View Full Entry]

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The easy answer is that he never existed but I did find out about a very disturbing character called Vlad Dracul Tepes who had the nasty habit of sticking people on spikes and leaving them to die a slow and painful death. Dracul is derived from "son of the dragon" and Tepes means "impaler", thus you get the charming name of Vlad the Impaler, son of the Dragon. This bloodlust led to the myth of the Vampire Lord we all know as Count Dracula. Sadly this was one of the main reasons why I chose to visit Transylvania but after seeing [View Full Entry]

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