Bucharest

12/26/2011-12/27/2011: From Chisinau through Bucharest

My trip began at 7:00. I took the rutiera from my village to Chisinau. As usual, my rutiera barreled down the poorly paved road. When I got to Chisinau, I bought my ticket and then made my way to Peace Corps. I showered and then bought some supplies for the road. Around 3:30 we tried to go to a restaurant, but it had closed down. Afterwards, I grabbed a pizza from a nearby store. Then all of us made our way to the train station. First we changed our Moldovan lei to Romanian because other countries do not accept Moldovan money. 

 The first train trip started on a train that reminded some of us of Harry Potter. We left in the evening. We were all excited about our first trip out of the country in about 7 months.

 The corridor of the train. It was not very wide.

 When we got to Bucharest, we headed to the metro. I took a picture of some of us in the metro station

 The subway tunnel looked like pretty much any subway. It was very clean like the subway stations in Boston or DC. The train was very cool too. You could walk straight from the first car to the last.

 Once we got out of the subway, we made our way to the Palace. On the way, we saw a fountain. I guess it was turned off for the winter.

One of the many differences between Moldova and Romania was the presence of a bike path. It was a pretty nice one too. 

We didn't have much time in Bucharest, but we managed to see the Palace. The top was obscured by the morning fog.  It was built during communism in Romania and finished after because it was easier to finish it than destroy it. The building is the second largest in the world. Apparently the largest building is the Pentagon.

 We walked quite a ways from the metro stop to the palace, but on our way we saw a limousine with a Florida license plate. Given that we were in Romania, it was surprising.

 After we went to the palace, we went to the old town to find some food. There we took a group photo. From left to right: Dahnika, myself, Anton, Justin, Maggie, and Jim. Dahnika was only with us while we were in Bucharest and then she went to the airport to go to Ireland.

 We ate lunch at a pub and we explored the area. We found an old church that was still active. It was like any orthodox church. People were standing at the service to receive a blessing from the priest.

 This building was interesting so I took a picture of it. I think it was just a hotel, but after looking at soviet style architecture for 6 months, it was nice to see something different.

 We wondered around the city some more and found some monuments. I don't remember what they represented but they were interesting.

 There were a lot of old churches in Bucharest. This one is interesting.

 This is a close up of one of the statues.

 King Charles was important in the early history of the city. This statue is outside an institute connected to him.

 We were in the center of the town when this picture was taken. This is some sort of economic building.

 We ended up near a park. This building is important, but I can't remember what it is. Either way, it has interesting architecture.

In the evening we walked to another part of town and found a Christmas market. There were a bunch of booths selling food and souvenirs. I tried some hot wine. It had an interesting taste, a little like the spices in hot cider. Near the tree was an ice skating rink. When we first got there they were cleaning the rink, but by the time we left, people were skating. We walked around the market for a little longer, and then headed toward the train station. When we got there, we had a little problem with our tickets, but luckily we got there in plenty of time to fix it. Unfortunately, our Bucharest-Sofia train did not have beds. I was able to get some sleep, but I was repeatedly awoken by border patrol people and other people wanting to see my ticket. The train car's lights were on all the time, but I had my sleep mask so the light didn't bother me that much. The following day, at about 11, we arrived in Sofia, tired but excited to explore a new city.