Hotel Crystal Palace Bucharest

Pe la sfarsitul secolului XIX si inceputul secolului XX, pe dealurile molcome ale Prahovei si Dambovitei si-au facut aparitia cativa samsari de pamanturi. Cautau mosii mici si asezate in vale, in luncile umede ale raurilor, starnind uimirea localnicilor prin pretul ridicat pe care il ofereau pentru cele mai proaste pamanturi. Erau agentii veneticilor sositi prin targul Bucurestiului, ale unui soi nou de venetici , popositi aici de prin Englitera si Francia sau nemti ...

... 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 ...

... in the centre of the massive roundabouts on the main streets.

We checked out some of the more impressive buildings including a palace that is now a bank and other palaces that are museums. We also passed by a few churches, the university and the theatre.

We headed back to our hotel by foot again through a large park with lots of fountains. We both have found Bucharest to be pretty fabulous!

... price and I was quite desperate so I said ok. It was a pretty good hair cut though involving shampooing and head massage. I got back and talked to Stellio, a dutch guy staying at the hostel who said that he and a couple of others were going out to a rooftop bar in about 15 minutes if we wanted to come for a drink. We were not sure what we were doing as we only had 1 night to see Bucharest but after a moments thought we said we would come for ...

... sight of Ceausescu's "People's Palace" - the 2nd-largest building in the world - and we went to the Patriarchal Cathedral, the seat of the head of the Orthodox Church, where Sunday Mass was in full swing but no matter since there are no pews - we just milled in with the crowds. We then went to the National Village Museum where they have imported building from all over the country. It transpired that I'd joined the tour part-way through, so when the Swedes had gone full cycle ...

... CD's, free breakfast but unfortunately it wasn't that good. The staff were rude and swore all the time and continually just told us to come back later, the other tourist - the Americas were loud especially after 12am and there was only one female shower in the whole place, which by 8am was running cold water, breakfast was just toast, and the curtains in the room didn't go to the bottom of the window, and we only had one blanket and was freezing!!! Saturday And ...

... an encore. Anyways, he finished that, and this time the applause stopped before he was behind the curtain. As soon as he got beyond the curtain, he came back out. Anyways, people started standing to leave, and they clapped at the same time. So somehow this guy had fandangled himself into a standing ovation. He should write a book. Such a great day though. I am off to Brasov tomorrow, which is dubbed, "The New Prague" by Lonely Planet, so here goes!

By the sixth day in Romania, I had heard enough horror stories about Bucharest from fellow travelers. One night, sitting at the dining table in Rolling Stone Hostel, people started to talk about the experiences they just had there (unlike me, they traveled northbound from southern Romania.) The stories unfolded like this: 1) Two Americans booked their hostel beds through hostelworld.com and paid 10% fee online, but surprised that Funky Chicken Hostel had overbooked ...

... off at was down this dark seedy looking side street and Simon hadn't come out with us but Hayley and Em were certain this was the place so I once again trusted their judgement. In short, it turned out that the place we thought was a club was in fact an very dodgy illegitimate casino with five pokies and this gaunt looking man wandering around it all alone!!!!We all bolted back outside only to find ourselves stranded in the blizzard-having just got off the most recent bus-in less ...

....so we've been dishing in the bar downstairs about how hard its been trying to communicate with the locals on this here movie...lets just say the all american attitude of "...just get it done..." does not translate...i've heard stories such as...." ...i remember you not saying you needed that..." to "... there is not such thing as sod in romania..."...thats where most of the problems have been ...