Bucharest

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Bucharest day 12 (June 18)

It was a short train journey to Bucharest the capital of Romania. Our hotel was actually 3 star and a nice surprise.

I took the metro to the down town area with a friend who had volunteered to help me get an external hard drive. He shook his head at the idea of going to an electrical store and then proceeded to show me how things worked in Romania. Using a web site we found a couple of hard drives that looked promising and arranged a meeting with the seller of one. We took the metro a bit further out of town and met a guy on the street corner and after inspection and exchange of the cash I had my new external hard drive. It was new and light so I was happy with the purchase and it was a great chance to see everyday life in Romania.

There is still some dependence on the black market in Romania to obtain goods not readily available or to get them at prices people can afford. Similarly there is work that is performed without it being official and therefore without taxes which is a result of people trying to get by and support their families the best they can. This is despite the more recent statistics appearing to show Romania doing well, which is quite a contradiction to some of the things we saw and heard. Maybe it is the difference a year of two can make with the Economic crisis.

The unofficial job market and corresponding black market is a catch 22 really, as without the taxes it is hard to afford the government services that are needed. Medical care is expensive and not readily available, and there are so many empty shells of factories and other industrial buildings everywhere which costs money to pull down.

Many of the disused plants were going to be sold to investors who hopefully would do some of the rebuilding, but all is on hold with the coming of the economic crisis which hits countries like Romania so much harder. You can really admire people for how they do get by though. I hope one day that Romania gets through this stage, they seem to really be working hard to do so but lack often the means.

After my electronic purchase (which I needed because I liked having the ability to watch some TV or movies on the longer trips and my netbook doesn‘t have heaps of memory). I took the metro to meet up with the others in the group. Unfortunately I took the wrong train and as it was an older style and crowded I couldn’t tell that it was not the right one until I arrived at the last station. When I got out I found myself in an industrial park. Lost again.

I walked a bit in both directions thinking I might get to the station I wanted but saw nothing familiar from my small map (I think I was off the map). So I returned to the station and asked the policeman there which way to go, pointing at the station I needed on my map. He pointed back at the platform and I went to go in, but grabbed an expired ticket but before I realised what I had done I heard a loud sound as the policeman had banged his baton against a wall to get my attention. I thought that I needed to buy another ticket and tried to see where there was a ticket vendor but none in sight, and the policeman looking very annoyed at this stupid tourist. Perhaps it was just frustration that he couldn’t understand English and annoyed I couldn’t speak Romanian.

I then realised what I had done and found the valid ticket. I caught the next train which was a new one, with electronic and verbal announcements of the station and returned the way I had come, and then onto the station where I was to meet the others. I was over an hour late and glad that they had not waited around.

I walked around the area going up a large boulevard thinking I was heading back towards the older town area. I noticed a heavy police presence and helicopters and wondered what was happening, when suddenly I spotted a protest. I decided to avoid it (as we are cautioned to do) even though it looked fairly orderly. After going around the protest I got to an area and saw a metro station name and realised that I had been walking in the opposite direction to what I had thought.

So back on the metro, I finally reached the station close to the older area. There were a lot of impressive buildings here, but many were still to be restored. The scale of Bucharest is smaller than Budapest, except for their parliament building which is the largest in Europe built by Ceausescu. It was very hot and I purchased quite a few drinks along the way.

Walking is a great way to get to know a city, but eventually I was too tired and not entirely sure how far it was to the hotel, so again I caught the metro back to the station near our hotel. Once there I found a note from the others that they too had been late and were worried that I’d been waiting for them!

That night I had a late dinner going through the nearby gypsy area (Romanians don’t like to call them Roma) without any problems to a shopping mall, which was a new thing in Romania. Dinner was at a café restaurant called Grandmas something and I had a great meal of beans and sausages. It was a fun day getting to see some of the ordinary parts and ways of life in Romania and not just the tourist spots.

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