Hotel Sofitel Bucharest

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Yes, Romania is inhabited! With Romanians... and rroms...

NO, the capital is not Budapest (and you can tell that to most major artists coming for concerts here)!

NO, we do not have an infrastructure! Only 1 highway and three quarters...

For more detailed information please do visit Wikipedia and other related sites.



BUCHAREST: THE GOOD PARTS!

In the very ...

... dropped the three girls off again and Marius didn't want to park at the parking lot again because we dint have money to pay. There are round-a-bouts in front of the airport and what we did was drive around the round-a-bouts. It was really funny. Marius is a really fun, kind person and we were trying not to think of what was happening because we couldn't do anything about it. We drove around it for 4 times and then stopped somewhere and got in trouble by the police and found another ...

... stick your fancy cocktails up your ****- I like beer and Lonely Planet don't make finding it easy. I have to go into a lot of different places and drink beer until I find somewhere I like and drink several more beers in there- it's a hard life. The obvious solution is for lonely planet to hire me to visit every single city on Earth and find good boozers for them, I'm prepared to make that sacrifice. I finished my Ursus and was preparing to leave when I saw Asahi Dry ...

... company was fantastic and we stayed by the lake until 10pm listening to the 'frog opera' that takes place at this time of year. After our late night in the city the night before, spending the afternoon and evening with Aurel, his wife, and our Rotarian friends was an absolute treat. Thank you very much! P.S. We're looking forward to seeing a new litter of puppies from the beautiful German Shephard dogs in my photos at some point in the next 2 weeks!

... so we were chatting for a little while. They asked me to sit down with them and have a drink. At this point I figured that I was going to miss my train anyway so I sat with them. They pulled some grapes off their vine and gave them to me. I think they're the best grapes I've ever had. They tasted like a tropical fruit! Alexandra is the daughter and she is going to uni up in cluj-najoc which is another town about 3 hours north. She had already done 2 years of an ...

... known!) This church was very plain, relatively small (room for about 200 people at most), but with a very high ceiling, a dome, and wonderful accoustic (but no air conditioning!). There was a large painting of Christ above the altar that was unlike any that I have seen - a more round-faced Jesus than usual (more like the people of this region, maybe) with a more complex expression. At any rate, we had a very nice audience of maybe 100 people ...

... coulda kissed the ground. Navigating here was much harder- as everything is in Magyar and that language simply has no relation to any other language in Europe (Indo-European; Latin roots). And I wasn't at my best at 5 with no sleep. I tried using my lieu, no good. I wanted a Metro ticket but lacked cash! While a member of the EU, they are not on the Euro (I had backup Euro with me)- wouldn't take-directed to the Money Exchange, that wouldn't open for half an hour. Stuck. I found an ...

... them (which I did a few times) but the ****ers don't give a rats anyway. Went to the information counter at the station and as I began to ask my first question in my most polite voice, the woman behind the counter waved me away as if I was some sort of deviate. It would seem that information is only available for Romanian speaking people. You couldn't even get a map, (never saw one at any info desk the whole time I was there) let alone ask where you can buy a tram ticket ...

... missing bag. 1 wallet 10 rolls of film from the first 3 weeks of the trip 3 books 1 photo album containing photos of both our families 1 mobile phone 1 towel 1 bra (!) We share a brief moment of breakdown and comfort each other, reminding ourselves that our travel insurance will cover the financial losses. But the photos are gone. We'll never see them. But they are just photos - we still have each other - we weren't hurt. And we still have our...PASSPORTS?!?! I tap my waist ...

... of Yugoslavia...then Serbia...now administered by the UN Peacekeeping forces there (overnight bus) --2 INCREDIBLE days in KOSOVO...including seeing the recent effects of war (buildings and churches burned by ethnic Albanians (Muslims)...and...STAYING OVERNIGHT AT A UNESCO-WORLD-HERITAGE-SITE-MONASTERY!!! !! Just getting there was AN ADVENTURE! Passing through highly-militarized zones--bunkers, barbed-wire and barricades...Italian UN-Peacekeepers...Passport ...