I’m packing again. Can’t you tell?
Actually, I think I have every right to sit here and heal a bit before leaving again in 36 hours. I finally slept last night, completed a shockingly challenging strength workout in (guess what happens when you travel for five weeks and only run?), and I even managed to smash toes on both feet on separate occasions while walking around my house and trying to remove the surface layer of dust and neglect. So with all of that considered, I have been motivated this morning.
I’ve just not been motivated to pack again.
Poor me, right?
Before I leave again, I did want to ensure that I put up on more entry on Romania. If you are like me, probably the only things you ever really associated with this country were Count Chocula Transylvania, Nadia Comaneci and the gruesome end of Nicolae Ceauşescu. That’s pretty bad, so I’m going to provide a superficial window into my week’s adventures in this beautiful country.
Ahh Bucharest. It was funny converging onto this city with scholars from other regions because we all had different takes on the city. Scholars in Western Europe thought it was rather dirty, while some- ahem- Africa scholars thought it was clean and kinda neat looking.
Before and after the wedding, we wandered around the Lipscani area, essentially Bucharest’s old town area. It’s a neat, clustered area to wander around, which we kind of kicked off with an early-ish morning refreshment.
I mean really, it’s probably the best restaurant in town…we just weren’t hungry.
I’d say that this is two Navy scholars corrupting the Army scholar- but Lou on the left is studying in Bologna- and consequently knows more about wine than I will ever know about myself.
Rolling out from our post-breakfast beer, we checked out some churches. This is in the Stavropoleos, an Eastern Orthodox Monastery (Romania is predominantly Orthodox Christian).
The Bucharest Russian Church, which had many onion shaped domes. You’ll just have to take my word on that.
St. Nicholas Students’ Church. Shhh….I kind of miss Christianity.
Apart from churches, you have the poetic bar scene…
We meant to go to this night club, because Hermès is synonymous with class.
I know you don’t believe me, but Bucharest’s power grid is far superior to Dakar’s.
The Palace of the Parliament (People’s Palace). This was built and nearly completed by the Ceauşescu regime. By the time of his disposal, it wasn’t done- but would have cost just as much to destroy as it would to continue building. So here it is- the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon).
We took a tour of this place that only showed 5% of the rooms. The tour in itself was rather fact laden in an uninteresting way, but I was definitely blown away its sheer waste and decadence.
The view from the main balcony of the Palace. As we went through room after room without any majorly interesting description provided, at last I figured that this balcony would hold much significance. And as it turns out, it does: this is the place where Michael Jackson moonwalked before throngs of adoring fans.
I don’t know what this ad says- I just liked the architecture of this building. You can really tell that this city has a soul, in addition to an emotionally-charged past. I’d love to someday sit down and chat with Scott (the Olmsted scholar living here), and get his thoughts on Bucharest.
So, it would appear that I have way more photos to show you than my attention span can support at the moment. I am going to go and continue packing, and then I have great plans to come back and complete another posting that covers our adventures outside of Romania’s capital.
Given my propensity for procrastination, the odds are goods that this will be accomplished long before my suitcase is repacked.