Blogs from Bucharest, Muntenia, Romania, Europe - page 19

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 find a booth that was open. Too late we saw the last bus of the day disappear into the night! We didn't feel like going back to the taxi drivers and admitting defeat so we ... read more

Got up a bit before 6am to get to the station for the 6:40am train. Said good bye to Julia and timed a bus to the station pretty well. The board wasn’t yet saying what platform my train was going to be on, just that it was late. But of course the dickhead taxi drivers were everywhere and hassling the shit out of me. After walking up and down a few times I went and grabbed some Maccas for brekkie. By the time I finished the train was up on the board and I checked out the platform. There was a train there but no one getting on or off so I wasn’t sure what was happening. There was supposed to be a 30 minutes stop here, so I walked up and down a few times ... read more

I was up a bit before 7 in the morning to go driving out to the ruins of the real life Dracula’s castle. Now I had made a big mistake in hiring this car that I hadn’t worked out yet. 1. they drive on the other side of the road, which means the rest of the car is to your right not to your left 2. the car was a manual and I drive an auto, so I was changing gears with the wrong hand 3. the map that the hostel had provided me was not so good for driving - you could only read the main roads in the middle of the city, anything else was too small or not on the map - and I was going 200km out into the countryside 4. I ... read more

Its officially here….winter has arrived in Bucharest ....and with it the first snooooow.Who cares about bad traffic, working hours and all that? Prisoner in my office, I find my self staring on the window looking how all changes when it snows…..looks brighter, cheerful…fun....makes u feel u r reborn...for me is a great spiritual journey.. In the meantime: * reports r waiting to finished, * the desk is a mess.. * and I decided I cant miss this moment. * What can I say? I enjoy winter... and snow. Every year I hardly wait for that big one when roads r closed, 50 cm snow, perfect time to go with the sledge and after built a snow man... (I beleive in every adult's body a child's soul is traped in).... everything stops like it forces u to ... read more

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 rigorous austerity programme in the 1980s since Ceausescu wanted to pay off the country's accumulated foreign debt within a short period. The standards of living plunged considerably as Romania exported much of its food and fuel production. The populace was controlled by the secret police (Securitate) an... read more