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Published: June 21st 2007
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Random Park
With Pushpins. Go figure. Well, I spent three days in Bucuresti, which was about two days longer than is needed. I just kept walking, looking for the pretty old city that should be, must be, just around the corner. Oh yeah, that's right, Ceseceau knocked it down to build his Palace of the People, and the Road that is a few centimetres wider, and six metres longer, than the Champs Elysees. But Far, far more deserted.
Finally, after weeks of planning, I met up with Sal and Emile (having slept for most of that day. Do not under-estimate the power of the Overnight transport for zombifying), and we celebrated the birthday of the hostel owner: thirty, and denying every second of it.
The next day we wandered up to the Village museum, with another Aussie, Ben (Hi!). We were a little disappointed by this museum: The Lonely Planet describes it as the best in Romania, but it was poorly organised, so that we were exhausted by row upon row of wooden and gass icons (small pictures of the Holy family and saints used in Romanian churches) before we even got to the giant reconstructed windmills and smiths and cobblers, and the reconstruction
Peoples Palace
Without anything to compare, for size. Just believe me, it was stupidly big. of some random person's Grandma's living room (don't ask me!)
So we went off to the National Museum of Romania, for my money the one museum to see. Avoid most of the other floors (most of them are closed for renovations, anyway), go straight down to the plaster casts of Traian's Column, and read, and study.
Oh, hey, you know that Random column I found in Rome, the first day of my stay there? Bingo.
The museum also has the crown jewels there: heavily guarded by some really cool guards (who left it open an extra twenty minutes after that section was meant to close, so we could look properly). These rock over the English ones. For a start, you can study them for longer, for seconds, they win in the pure weight of gold and jewels category.
No equivalent gem, though.
That night we met up with the rest of our hostel (hey, there are only twenty odd beds), and had a giant party, so much so that I can vagually remember asking for "Aqua plata" (Italian for water, Romanian for Not Carbonated), in the nightclub.
The next day, dragging ourselves out of
Not the Champs Elysee
But a few centimetres wider and exactly six metres longer. bed, a bunch of us headed down to Piata Unirii (Unity Plaza), and to the People's Palace, the Giant monster of a building, built by a giant monster of a man. That Bunch would be Ben, Sal , Emile and I and a brother and sister team doing scarier stuff than even me (Chisinau in Moldova, and Transdneistr!).
The Palace is amazing. Tons and tons of Romanian Marble, carpets, silk, brass, crystal, gold. The entire road budget of Romania for years (Trust me, we had cause to know). The shell was finished in 1989, months before the man hmself fell, so at that point it was easier to keep going, and use the damn place, than to knock it down. Besides, it was impossible to rebuild the medieval heart of the city that had been torn down to make way for the giant symbol of folly.
What was not amazing was the tourist bus we were forced to tour with. Now, I say in the street, "everytime I see a tour group, I am reminded why I don't like tour groups". But then, I am not forved to listen to them. Or stop for an inane ten minute bathroom break barely ten minutes into the tour. The third time the tour guide confirmed that the marble columns were, indeed, marble (having initially volunteered the damn information), I felt sorry for him. Inanae question followed inane question. But the capper was right at the end. Having gone through barely four percent of this opulent waste, One prson asks the guide-- you guessed it-- "Do they have hot running water here?"
I nearly choked, trying to suppress my hysterics.
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Ben....
non-member comment
So they have hot running water but...
Do they have Cold Tap Beer? And you are soft for drink water in a night club. Do they call them nightclubs or is that still the terminology for Strip Clubs. So really you were at a discothèque? Okay talk to you later. Ps. So the Column are they marble?