A Room with a View

It’s very often true that the best, most original ideas in blogging are blatantly ripped off from another blogger. In this spirit, I will blatantly rip off John Scalzi for the totally original idea of taking pictures out of my hotel window when travelling. To begin, I’ll give you 4 of the 5 hotel views from my recent trip to Romania (I missed the first hotel in Bucharest).


Here’s the view from my room that I had for only 1 night in Hotel Edinburgh in a city in southern Romania that shall remain nameless since I’m not supposed to talk about where I was working in Romania. I will say that this city is known in Romania as ‘The City of Stupids’ (not an exact translation I’m sure) due to such things as building a building around a crane and being forced to leave the crane inside the courtyard. It's very curious that this hotel has been re-done to look like a castle and is named after Edinburgh. This place is far off the tourist map and yet it seems to be going after a distinctly 'Western' clientele. Well, we kept it full for a while, so I guess the owners know what they are doing.


This view is from the Hotel Primavera where I spent 11 lovely nights in the same city as above. There was a nearby gyspy house (I was instructed to not walk in this neighborhood at night) and many, many roosters. Did I mention the roosters? What a wonderful way to experience dawn every morning. Did I mention it was every morning?


The view from the Ramada in Sibiu. I would have preferred a more ‘backdoor’ style hotel, but there are few options when arriving in one of Romania’s biggest tourist attractions on a Saturday night in August with no reservation and needing a parking space along with the room (and wanting to be within a short walk of the city center). It was a nice place, if a bit more expensive than I was looking for.


My final hotel in Bucharest – again a Ramada. I only stayed here for a few short hours as I had a 3:15 am wake-up call to get to the airport for my trip home. A wonderful view of the media building in Bucharest, constructed by the communists to let everyone know that Big Brother is always watching.

In Sibiu

Work ended yesterday so I immediately took off for someplace a bit nicer. After a few insane hours driving, I ended up in Sibiu in Transylvania. This is a very nice town to be in and I’ve enjoyed my time here. Tomorrow I fight the traffic back to Bucharest for my flight home on Tuesday (which is quite a bit earlier than originally planned). I’ll leave you with a few more thoughts/observations I’ve had while in Romania.

• I really have no idea how women can walk around in high heels in Europe – especially someplace like Romania where cobblestones tend to be even more uneven than usual. And the cobblestones are often better than the beat-up pavement and gravel you get elsewhere.

• Meek Romanian drivers are more aggressive than the most aggressive American drivers.

• There are no meek Romanian drivers.

• Driving in Romania is a really bad idea.

• Many of the best places to visit in Romania are much more easily accessed by driving.

• …?...

• Men’s fashion in Europe will never make sense to me.

• After spending so much time in Bucharest and the south of Romania, Transylvania is very pleasantly cool.

• With club names like Envy and such Romania sometimes feels like it is stuck in the ‘80s.

• I actually enjoy that a pop radio station cannot go more than 20 minutes without playing a Madonna song.

• Observing an awkward double date needs no translation.

• Never be in a hurry in Romania…trust me.

• Can anyone argue more passionately than Romanians?

• I will never get used to horse carts on the roads.

• I really wish I had gotten a picture of the complicated maneuver or one horse cart passing another.

• Driving through the Carpathian Mountains/Transylvanian Alps was awesome.

• My Lonely Planet guide to Romania feels incomplete. I really wish that Rick Steves had a travel guide to Romania.

• It’s strange just how often traditional Romanian food and traditional American food match up (especially Southern food).

• Travelling alone is both empowering and lonely.

• It’s absolutely criminal that nutella isn’t more popular in the US.

• Drinking at an outdoor café is one of life’s greatest pleasures (at least when the weather is nice).

• Arriving in Sibiu on a Saturday night in August without a hotel reservation (and needing a parking space) is not a good idea.

• More people should be visiting Romania (but not so many as to make it yet another generic European destination).

• Romanians really need to learn that smoking is bad for them…and the people around them…especially children.

• Some Romanian beer is quite nice. So why do so many Romanian cafés feature bad German/Austrian/Danish beer instead?

• Ice cream in Romania isn't as nice as it is in other part of Europe (especially Italy)

A Few Observations/Comments While in Bucharest

• Romanian men are so manly that it’s not uncommon for them to carry purses of their own.

• Many women carry around fans, though I doubt they still use them to speak another language like was done in places in the past (but I could be wrong since I don't speak fan). I used to think that fans were just for young girls in tourist shops.

• I watched a guy ask for salt to put in his beer. I’m not sure if this is a strange cultural thing, something to do with it being really, really hot, or if the guy was just weird. It bothered me.

• Adolescent courtship is the same everywhere – guys doing really stupid things and young women somehow pretending they don’t.

• I really like that women in Romania ‘check me out’, though it’s quite strange. This city is so safe that when passing a young woman on a street at 11:00 at night when no one else is around she looks at me, and not because I may be a threat. It’s probably the beard – it seems that in Romania only priests, Roma, and American tourists have beards.

• I went for a new experience tonight – I went to an ex-pat Irish bar. There were a bunch of old(er) guys at the bar and a few younger people on the patio. The most exciting thing was the cricket on TV. Engrossing, but not actually exciting. Tomorrow I think I’ll go back to Lipscani.

• I have now drank in Irish pubs in 8 different countries – none of which are Ireland.

• Brandon Sanderson writes books that are far too heavy to carry around. Shorter books are much better reading for the park.

• I thought rollerblades were something of the early-90s. This is not true in Romania.

• Subways everywhere smell the same – some are just stronger smelling than others. Romanian subways are actually not anywhere near the strongest smelling I’ve been around (I’m looking at you London).

• My feet hurt.

Bucharest

I’ve now been in Romania for about 24 hours and I’m loving it so far. The adventure begins at the airport – not quite what I was expecting from what is supposedly the premier airport in the country (but they seem to be working on that). Thankfully I waited to get money from the ATM outside of security and didn’t change with at the ‘official’ places (who have the worst rates). And I think I managed to not get too ripped off by the cab on my way to the hotel.

After cleaning up a bit I headed down to the old city center – Lipscani. This required using the metro, which is rather nice and convenient. Immediately the contrast of this city leaps out. I was in Prague less than 10 years after the fall of communism and it was far more ‘western’ at the time than Romania is over 20 years after the fall. And it makes for a great energy (or perhaps vibrancy is the better word?). The old and new are mixed together. This city is only now going through its facelift (lots of restoration is happening, but it still has a ways to go).

You have the monstrosity know as the Palace of the People (or Parliament) that was a communist debacle that destroyed about 1/6th of the city and bankrupted the nation (it’s the second largest building in the world). And then only a few hundred meters away, off the main street you find buildings in ruins or beautiful little churches and monasteries that somehow survived communist eradication. These are places of peace – where I had one man who shook my hand simply because he realized I was American (which was really quite odd, but rather uplifting as well).

And even though Rome ruled Romania for less than 200 years about 2000 years ago, the people here still hold on to that unmistakable Latin character – I can’t help but think of Italians with thick Slavic accents. This city comes alive at night – well, at least Friday nights as I haven’t seen any others. Oh I wish I were 10-15 years younger, single and with a group of friends. This city must be a single’s dream come true. Everyone is out parading around to be seen – the men openly eyeing the women and the women only being slightly more circumspect about eyeing the men. I honestly haven’t seen the like since I was in high school and college. I grew up in Austin going down to 6th street, I’ve experienced Bourbon Street both during and out of Mardi Gras, I’ve done Vegas, I’ve been to Soho on a Saturday night and none compares to the young energy I saw in Lipscani (of course it could just be that I’m old and out of touch – but I choose think it’s just that great here).

If only it weren’t so damn hot and humid. Nothing’s perfect I guess.

Anyway, I’m off to get a cool drink.

Ciao!

Travel

One of the many things I enjoy is travel. Sometimes it's for work, more often, for fun. Anyway, I've found that I enjoy blogging about it. It doesn't fit into the 'mission' of this blog, but I don't care, I can post what I want on this blog. So, below are the entries that lend more to travel tales.

Europe

• A Room With a View
• In Sibiu
• A Quick Note from The City of Stupids
• A Few Obersvations/Comments While in Bucharest
• Bucharest
• Ahh...Prague
• Ahh...Olomouc
• What Day Is It
• Homeward Bound
• A Few Pictures - Germany and Czechia
• Nothing Lasts Forever
• Neth International

Hawaii

• Aloha
• Ahh...That Was Nice