Bucarest, a new old city.

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The city of Bucarest is interesting because from what I understood has only been free of communism or past conquerors as of 1989. The residential and government buildings reflect this history well, they all look the same but are very large and impressively detailed. Bucarest is home of The People's Palace, the construction of which began by the previous dictator (whose name i can neither pronounce or spell), paused during the overthrow of his regime, and finished in the early 90s. It is currently the 3rd largest building in the world at some 350,000 square meters, has more lightbulbs than any other building in the world, and is home of the largest chandelier, which weighs 5 tons. It hold other records, couldnt remeber them all. Monica and I took the standard tour for 60 Lei (20 bucks) and it was worth every penny. Romania's last ruler was vain and his home grandiose, after spending near 2 hours, we had apparently only explored 1 wing and 7% of the entire place! Michael Jackson did a concert there, and instead of saying "Hello Bucarest", he said "Hello Budapest", and considering the Romanians don't much care for the Hungarians, that was kind of a huge no-no! The People's Palace is now a functional government building and anyone visiting Bucarest must see it. Heck, you almost can't miss it. Less than 30 years of democracy has had its effects, there are plenty of people with money and plenty of people with no money at all. People seem to enjoy their days just as any other country, however it amazes me that the economic inequality occurred in just onegeneration. Our friend, Catalina, told us that more people are upset with their current political situation after the revolution than before, ironically. Our visit was educational, which is a huge "plus", but it was also action packed! Catalina is currently a volunteer at Peaches Hostel (very nice for the money) and took us to the city of Brasov, nearly in the center of Romania. It was a beautiful train ride that took us past small villages and massive hills and cliffs and i wanted to buy a house there. Brasov is just metropolitan enough to have a train station and just small enough to feel "European", and surrounded by the same massive hills we saw on the way. Within those hills is the action-packed experience we had - an adventure park that puts its customers meters high in the air navigating obstacles between treeswhile strapped into harnesses. Its best described as nature gymnastics, and the best workout I have had in a long time (its the next day and we are all pretty sore). Here are a couple photos of our experience in Romania, the rest on Facebook.

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Photos

The People's Palace
The Palace holds several architectural records, inside and outside you are simply amazed

Communist Architecture
Many of the residential areas in Bucarest are identical, but still very interesting!