Ambassador Bucharest

... br>(on the Travel&Living Channel, Anthony Bourdain) made a mess in all
the viewers' heads.

Long story short: this is where the civilized West meets with the adaptive South East.

Yes, we do tolerate and house the gypsies (rroms) within our boarders!

NO, they are not Romanians!



Yes, we do have an amazing country (I can honestly say that, because I
believe that based on experiences ...

... 74. hmmmm. Not that I am complaining about being warm but I do hope to be able to use my long underwear sometime before I get to Qatar and on to the South Pacific. Oh right, be careful what you wish for, yes? It will probably snow on me now somewhere in Uzbekistan or Unkraine.

... of the country (viewed mostly from the Transylvanian Express!). But as soon as you cross the Hungaro-Romanian boarder the poverty line smacks you in the face and spits in your mouth. It's common to see villages comprised of little more than forty or fifty dirty shacks in severe disrepair and serviced by an equally sorry looking road inhabited by dusty urchins. Contrast this with the buzzing capitalism of Bucharest and the sickening opulence of ...

... as she bought in Calgary then shipped to Bucharest as it was cheaper that way. I asked how his son became interested in American football and it was through the internet. Bucharest ended up losing (not sure of the score but Minsk scored 4 touchdowns whereas Bucharest scored 2 touchdowns but they didn't kick for the extra points) but it was still interesting to see. Never expected to watch a football game in Bucharest but then lots of crazy things happened in ...

... going to cope sitting there on my own every night with no one to talk to, no tv, no radio, no alcohol. And i was SO thankful for my birthday present from Mark which is a portable DVD player. At least i'll have something to watch at night. Chris was coming to pick me up this mornign at 10am. I woke up at around 6. I had 4 hours to kill. I figured id get up and go for a walk around the place, but found that it was pouring with rain. So i read for a bit, opened my other pressie and ...

... even discovering where either the Senate or House of Representatives were located! It's no wonder that he bankrupted the country in the process. We then set off around the perimeter of the PP to find the entrance to the Museum of Contemporary Art, only to discover it was closed, being Monday. We went off to the Old City and found the Hotel Hanul where I'd desperately tried to reserve a room since the website looked so appealing. Discovered that the website omitted to ...

... connecting flight but got stuck at security, we ended up jumping the queue and heading through the first class line so that we could make our flight which we didn't realise was waiting especially for us! Finally we arrived in Bucharest at 12.30am and our hostel owner was waiting to pick us up, he told us that if we could be up before 7am he would give us a lift to the train station, which for us and the time difference would be before 5am! Next day Well we got ...

... green hills with endless fields of sunflowers and corn. Arrived in Bucharest at dusk. The area around the train station is not exactly the most charming place I've seen. Imagine crumbling Parisian-style buildings interspersed between 1960's era concrete high rises and apartment blocks, all unpainted and in varied and advanced stages of decay. Thankfully first impressions aren't always accurate. Today we spent the morning seeing the downtown area of Bucharest. Much of ...

... life at home. School has been less than exciting, to say the least, because the kids can speak such good English and are so similar in age to me that it is difficult to act as a teacher and even harder to motivate them (or me) into actually doing something. But I guess I'll keep trying but I have the feeling that is going to be a very long 4 months as far as work is concerned. The only real positive thing on that front is that I have a second job at one of Bucharest's only private ...

... and went to the park to eat it and catch up on my journal. the rain is back, more thundershowers and lightning shows... AHA, to share the insanity of the romanian circular thinking.....so we have a 15% discount at the bar downstairs in the hojo, it called centro. others call it the fish bowl, because one wall is made of storefront glass...it could be a dept store window at macy's furniture store or something....anyway, we have all the key people staying ...