Ah, Bucharest

Sorry, folks, for my lack of post yesterday. I thought pictures of the inside of an airport as well as a few landmarks I knew nothing about would be boring for you, although exciting enough for me. The Amsterdam Airport...if you've never been I suggest you avoid it. Most miserable airport I've ever had to maneuver. BUT. i made my flight and enjoyed my first full day in the "Paris of the East" today.

The free walking tour I took began a good distance from my hostel, which is located in the area of town that most tourists try to avoid...unless you want a cheap bed for no more than $8 a night. Then come to The Funky Chicken. Which is about as funky lookin as it sounds, mostly because of the age of the building its located inside. Perfectly respectable though!

My walk to the meeting place (as well as my dinner destination last night) had some pretty spectacular sights, however, strewn along the Victorei Boulevard, for victory. We talked about them, mostly, on the tour, so now  I know why they look so grand!

Anyways, our tour began in Unirii Park, across the River Dambovita, and in the center of a square built during Communist Romania. The city itself, walking through it, was not at all what I expected. Being a capital, I'd imagined it being large and bustling, with a tight energy buzzing through the air, similar to Paris, especially given the nickname. I expected people rushing everywhere and tourists gawking, yet that wasn't to be seen either. Instead, grand, French-inspired, colossal buildings decorate the streets, but their glory is dampened slightly by the more modern ones, unkempt and stained by weather and grafitti. The  mark of communism is still all around in this country that was unlucky enough to have a ruler that didn't care for its history or its people, only his own grandeur and fame. It's almost as if the city is still waking up, trying to rub the red sleep from its eyes while gaining its footing in a world moving too fast for it to keep up. 

Unirii Park is a pretty excellent example of most recent, and final, communist ruler in Romania. Nicolae Ceausescu was an extremely elaborate ruler and wanted to show off to the Western world what "Communist Romania is doing," which always involved the building of some great, ugly place and tearing down of some of the oldest and most cherished landmarks in the city. Surrounding Unirii Park are some of these buildings, all to show off the glory of the great Palace of Parlaiment, originally intended to be Ceausescu's palace, but now holds the record as the world's heaviest and most expensive administrative buildings in the world and is the second largest administrative behind The Pentagon (HAPPY INDEPENDECE DAY, BTW!!!!). Looking down from this building, many apartment buildings surround the Unirii Square with beautiful fountains and a grand boulevard to match. 

Here are the fountains in front of the park. The buildings circling it are apartment buildings and the small looking building in the distance is the Palace of Parlaiment overlooking it all. Except, it's not at all small. Interesting how now, after communism has fallen, the fountains are no longer filled with water and the buildings are run down. Apparently, despite trying to look glorious, the truth is that communism is a crumbling wreck inside its facade. The proof is everywhere in Bucharest.  

We visited this beautiful, old inn, one of the few things that was not destroyed during the reign of communism. It's entirely wooden, as well as part of the "cobblestones" that line the ground so the horses hooves wouldn't make too much noise as they came in at night. 

These are of the oldest church in the city, and the site where all Wallachian Kings were crowned, one of the reasons terrible Vlad Dracula is situated here. The other reason is because he was the first person to ever list Bucharest as a city, in a document in 1459. So he's considered the Father of Bucharest. 

The above are French Street, the Bank of Romania, and the Royal Palace (now an art museum) and are all in the French style, as you can tell. These, along with sooooooo many more are why it was called "Little Paris" prior to WWII. I'm sure she was a beautiful city then, before being ravaged by fires and wars and evil. 

Stavropoleos church is above, another of the oldest in the city, surprisingly saved by one of the few men who stood up to Ceasescu. And the churches who were destroyed to make way for gaudy boulevards and needless structures had their tombstones sent here, to be preserved and respected. 

At last we have University Square (the first) and Rvolutionary Square, two of the most important places in the city. In 1989 December, during a speech that would be Ceasescu's last, communism came to an end in Romania, with several bloody days and people killed. And it all began in this square, ending in University Square bone, remnants of the old regime can be seen everywhere, but the city is slowly making its way out of those ways and into more modern, democratic ones. Only time will tell what will become of it, but there is much hope that good things are to happen. 

Tomorrow, I embark on my journey to Murighiol! There, I join a dog with 34 other excited people (mostly young) who are wonderful, intelligent, nice, and enthusiastic! Hopefully, I'll have lots to tell tomorrow night, but for now, good night! 

A reminder that home is everywhere, if you only look around :)

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither and lose both."-Ben Franklin

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA! The greatest country on earth :)