Golden Tulip Bucharest

... br><br>The next day, we set out to find Cea&#537;escu's grave (the hostel worker asked, "Why do you want to go there?"). It is not really centrally located, but given that we had already had some troubles with the public transport here (more on that later), we decided to walk, knowing we would have a total of about 10km of walking ahead of us. Ghencea cemetery was somewhat small and his tombstone was not hard to find. For those who do not know, Nicolae Cea&#537;escu was the dictator of ...

Romania April 23-27, 2009 Romania is the hospitality capital of the world. We know this to be true through our experience in Bucharest, where over a 24 hour period of time we were dined, chauffeured, and toured around the city, all by people we have never met before. Our Neighbours in Saskatoon, Vali and Mihei and their two children Maria and Stephan have been regulars at our block parties, and skating parties. Our block is very special. We know most ...

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... my rounds I was approached by a police officer just after I'd taken a photo of an interesting building. In the bottom corner of the shot was one of many of the parking control gate checkpoints manned by cops. You see them throughout the city and I have no idea why cops run the things. A car comes along and they open the gate, that's it. In what were shades of a bygone era I guess you can't take pictures of the cops or these gates or something ...

... a continuation of our head-ever-souther plan to get warmer temperatures - was the coldest day yet (thankfully not soul destroyingly windy like Poland though). I got confused looking at the weather reports online (surely its colder?) until I figured that the minus three figure was the daily high at noon. Minus six to minus ten was the ballpark, and a delightful minus twenty overnight, which I got to experience firsthand by falling asleep in front of the ...

... trucks thunder through these small towns, along with shiny black BMWs. There is money, lots of money, in the few big cities, which are as western as can be. But in the small towns, don't try to buy anything more interesting than a potato and some soap at the market "Non-Stop". For some reason, "non-stop" is what they call small shops, presumably a variation on "quick-stop", but faster. Another fun phrase I don't understand is "Drum Bun", sometimes on a big sign leaving ...

... help me find my cabin. I managed to grab my ticket back but he still insisted on leading me there. When we had found it I thanked him and expected him to leave. Him - I helped you, give me 100 lei. Me- I didn't ask for your help and I didn't want it. (100 lei is about 40 dollars) Him - No you give now. He was standing in the door blocking the exit. There were lots of people outside and I even heard some English being spoken down the hall. I didn't ...

... was that we saw sophisticated sound and video equipment being set up and apparently there was going to be a wedding at the monastery the next day as part of a hit Romanian reality TV show. The next day I was off to Brasov with my new travel buddy. The hostel was overbooked again, but they could not offer me even a mattress this time. Instead, they put me up at this little old lady's house, on a pull-out sofa bed with 4 drunk German guys. She spoke absolutely no ...

... teacher', and I'm fairly chuffed (that word isn't used nearly enough in daily conversation in my opinion) to say that almost all were positive. I'll be sure to keep in contact with my favourite students (I know you're not supposed to have them...but how am I supposed to like that rowdy student down the back who sits watching porn on his mobile?) Favourite things about Romania: -Jukebox on a Friday night, and our friend Daria who works there. -Fornetti (yummy bite ...

... one... So I mentioned I went camping this past weekend, right? There were about 10 of us on this trip and we only had 3 tents between all of us. Anyway, so we arrived late afternoon, set up camp, started the fire and cooked dinner, during all this one of our Romanian friends Danny came by on his dirt bike and since I would never break PC rules I didn't take a ride with him...ANYWAY. We actually had marshmallows (can't spell this!) from Switzerland so we were glad to have picked up ...