Bucharest and Good-bye

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Geo: 44.0833, 26.6333

Our trip home began with flights to London today, by way of Vienna on Austrian Airlines. However, before we left, the last stop on the tour was to Bucharest, Romania for a drive around the city and a visit to the second largest building in the world, Parliament Palace, aka Ceausescu's Palace.

Ceausescu started construction on it in 1984 when many of the people in the country were poor and hungry. He worked on it until his death in the revolution of 1989. The dictator never planned to live in the palace, in fact, he was probably afraid to stay there. He installed ventilation holes in the ceiling in case anyone tried to murder him with poisonous gases. Ceausescu simply wanted a showpiece. And it is showy, including the one million cubic meters of marble in the building and the drapes with gold and silver threads sewn by nuns. Now the palace is used as the offices of Parliament on the upper floors and as a trade, meeting and convention place on the lower two floors.

When we went into the palace we had to go through the metal detectors and give up our passports for them to retain during our visit. We were issued passes to wear around our necks while we went through the rooms, and we were warned to stay with our guide at all times. She was knowledgeable and spoke English well. However, she stuck rigidly to the rules of the institution. One of the women on the tour uses crutches, but she was not allowed to use the elevator on the over 120 steps up and down. The guide just said, "We are not allowed." Okay. Sounds like talk reminiscent of the previous regime.

While we were in the security line at Ceausescu's palace, I had a chance to look through my passport. I found that while our passports have been in possession of the cruise line, they have been stamped at each port where we stopped. The immigration officers enter the ship to go through the passports and clear the ship to enter their waters. They do have the option of interviewing individuals or everyone on the ship, if they choose, but we did not have that happen. When we took our first river cruise a few years ago, every passenger on board did have to appear to the immigration personnel when we first entered Slovakia.

As we toured the city before the Palace opened, we drove to a small Orthodox church. Our guide, Claudia, asked if anyone wanted to see the inside of the church. Of course, most of us did. This was a tiny church, but built in the same shape and style of the larger ones we had visited. Outside the front door were two metal bins for candles—one on each side of the door. One side is for candles and prayers for the living and the other side is for the dead. Claudia said that it was okay for us to go in and look while the service was going on. As we learned a few days ago, it is okay to come and go during the service. What a surprise we found inside—beautiful stained glass and the interior completely covered with paintings as we had seen in bigger churches. The service going on was very small and particularly for the deaf. The priest had an aide standing by him who was signing as he spoke, and the few people in the audience were signing to each other. (It's a good idea to take advantage or every tour opportunity offered. You just can't predict what you'll see next.) Also, the priest was standing at a right angle to the door, rather than facing the door as I am used to in other churches.

After the city tour we found Hans, the cruise director, at the Hilton greeting and organizing all the passengers. Most everyone, maybe all the other passengers, are staying there for a few more days. We have to get home and back to work. Hans recognized us and immediately took us to our bags which had been delivered while we were touring. He found us a bellman that then took us to an ATM for local currency and hailed a taxi. Arriving at the airport several hours before the flight, we had lunch as the only customers in a full-service restaurant. The waiter was especially attentive, and seemed eager to talk, but not in an intrusive way. People have been friendly throughout this whole trip. The pizza was good, too, and cheap for airport food.

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