Where We're Going

We are staying in Barlad, Romania for the majority of our trip, but for a day on either end we will be in Bucharest. We arrived in Bucharest this morning after a day of travel. When we went outside to look for a shuttle to our hottle we were bombarded by offers of taxi rides. We said no at first, and attempted to find a shuttle, but when no shuttles could be found we ended up taking a cab. They overcharged a bit, but that's the usualy for airport cab companies.

When we got in the cab we realized that the driver spoke no English, and we don't speak Romanian, so conversation was difficult. We also realized that we only had the name of the hotel, not the address, and that the cab driver had never heard of it. We drove around for a while and eventually we spotted a sign for it. We went down the road, more like an alley, and saw the hotel. The hotel itself looked nice from the outside, but as we got out of the taxi dogs from all the neighboring yards began to bark like crazy. The dirt lots with dogs that surround the hotel is definitely NOT advertised on their website.

We went inside and were met by the people who work at the hotel who were very nice, they even exchanged money for us. We walked up to our room with all our luggage, no elevator, and found a room that looked nice on first glance. Then we noticed that the toilet was duct taped together and that the t.v. didn't work (luckily we have internet). There were also some dirty glasses and a beautiful view of the dog lot. For those of you not familiar with Romanian dog lots they consist of large dirt areas surrounded by a fence containing mangy dogs tied to stakes. We were happy to find a computer with free internet, and later that they actually had wireless too (and that all our converters and adaptors worked). We decided not to nap, but instead to go on an adventure.

The guy at the front desk was nice enough to call a cab for us; one that wouldn't try to rip us off. But also one who was a very "special" driver from our experience. He was a fan of not being in the correct lane, or really any lane at all, or really the correct side of the road for that matter. He liked to weave in and out of traffic at high speeds and "save time" by going on back roads that looked more like tracks for ATVs. It was our first experience of Romanian rush hour, and one that left us very nauseaus. He ended up taking us to a different museum than we had asked, but it turned out to be one we had read about in our guide book.

The museum was outdoors and consisted of hundreds of houses/buildings from all the regions of Romania throughout history. We walked around for a while, but after our long cab ride there wasn't much time before closing. Many of the houses were still closed for the off-season, but there were a few other visitors. We particularly liked the treehouses and underground hut ones. After the museum began to close we decided that we wanted to eat somewhere other than our hotel. We walked down the main road looking for a cab but couldn't find any vacant ones. The first thing we saw was a sign for Hard Rock Cafe, hey at least it wasn't McDonalds. We were surprised to find that we were proably the only tourists in there, everyone else was local. After a quick dinner we decided to ask the guy at the desk of the restaurant to call a cab.

After about 20 minutes of him talking to all the cab companies, he told us he couldn't find anything. We walked outside and sitting right there were like four taxis. We got in one with a guy who seemed quiet at first, but then had a long conversion with Mommy, in French, about American politics and how he thinks American government is screwing up Israel. He told us that he doesn't hate us at least, just our government. Then we got back here and found the wireless internet and bought some bottled water. We're probably going to go to bed soon after not sleeping much on the plane. Tomorrow we meet up with the group!