| Contents | May 28 |
Date: Sun, 27 May 2007 13:13:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Of planes, busses, trains, taxis, and trams... (and 2 feet)... (warning: long rants)
Buna Seara,
I've been traveling since Friday night U.S. time, and now its Sunday night
Eastern Europe time. I'm in Bucharest, Romania, and this city is more similar
to an Indian city than any other city in Europe that I've been to so far.
Taking the bus on a hot sweltering day with 90% humidity and looking out the
window, it reminded me more of Bangalore than of Rome or Paris!
More on that later, let me start at the beginning... btw this email will be
having a lot of rambling and rants, so delete now if you want to keep your
sanity!
My flights were from San Francisco-New York, 11 hour layover at JFK airport
(Seen the movie "Terminal"?) Then New York-Zurich, a 3 hour wait, and finally
Zurich-Bucharest.
On the first flight I got a double-upgrade, from coach to first class.. my
first time in 1st class on a 767-200. I actually like the business class seats
on that plane better! Still, no complaints.. . they gave a movie player with
some uninteresting movies, so I just started some music and went to sleep..
JFK airport has a new concourse at Terminal 9 for international flights!! NO
MORE WALKING OVER TO T8 and standing in the long security lines!!! WOOHOOO!
Sorry, just had to throw that in! Anyway, the Saturday's layover went by pretty
quick, and the flight to Zurich departed an hour late and arrived on time.
Again the same movies on the movie player, I actually watched 2 of them...
forgettable.
The flight to Bucharest was showing "Candid Camera" type segments on its tv
screen -- great pranks and it had the whole back of the plane laughing out
loud, including me! More than made up for the extremely bumpy ride!
OK.... so finally in Bucharest after 30+ hours of travel.... First thing of
course were the taxi scams -- for those of you in India you know what I'm
talking about ... I must've been approached by 5-6 people (I forgot how many)
asking me if I wanted a taxi into the city. I turned them all down, went
downstairs and got the bus (#783) into the city.
Hot day, 90% humidity, sweating like a pig.... etc etc....
Bucharest is everything I've read about in tourbooks and websites and what
people have told me (Thanks Dany for the mental prep!) ... It is a poor
country... it is a poor city... and you can still see the signs of its
Communist history -- large and imposing concrete buildings on both sides of the
road, with none of the charm of other cities like Rome or Lucerne or Paris...
The bus stopped at "Piata Unirii" -- basically the main "central square" in the
city. The tourbook says its the second-largest plaza in Europe. I could have
walked to my hotel from there, but instead I chose to take the metro. Of course
I took the wrong one -- the signage in all the metro stations in Bucharest is
some of the worst I've ever seen! Later tonight I read "that part" in my
tourbook -- a caution -- "Platforms sometimes do not have signs of the station
name, instead they will show upcoming stations on that line".
Ugh. Who the hell designed this system?!
I took a few trains in all sorts of directions, occasionaly coming out of the
station to see the streets and finding out from my map where I was, then going
back in and taking a train somewhere else! To make things worse, my tourbook
also had an older version of the map, and one of the stations where I was
expecting a connection didn't have the connection there anymore!
Finally I got out at Timpuri Noi station (1 stop short of Piata Unirii -- thats
the one where the bus had dropped me off 2 hours ago) -- and started walking
towards my hotel. After about 1/2 hour under the hot sun, I stopped at a parked
taxi cab, waiting for the driver to get back -- I think he was "on a break"
somewhere... when he got back I said "Confort Hotel", pointing down that street
-- it was on the same road... He said no and waved me off....
Oooooooookaaaaaaaaa yyyyyyyyy. ......
Started walking again, hopped into a tram to go a couple of blocks (without
paying a ticket), then got off and stopped a taxi -- this time the driver
accepting my fare... 5 minute taxi ride further north and that was the end of
the long journey -- Confort Hotel, Bucharest.
4:00 PM Sunday, 3 hours after landing at Bucharest airport.
My room has a remote-controlled A/C, several english channels on the TV (I'm
watching Jerry Macguire in english as I type this email), and free internet.
I had gone for dinner at a pizzeria across the street, but I've had enough of
Bucharest today -- it is far too similar to India for my liking! The good part
is that everything is damn cheap! The currency (lei) has almost a 3:1 exchange
rate with U.S. dollar. The bus from the airport was $2, each metro ride (10
ride ticket) was about $0.30/ride. The taxi cost me $2. Tonight's dinner (full
pizza of which half is still left for tomorrow's breakfast) was little over $6!
"SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!"
Well, at least I know now what I do NOT want to do next 2 days: I'm not
interested in seeing anymore of this city, so will be going out both days to
other parts of the country (basically Transylvania) -- Brasov and/or Sighisoara
tomorrow, and Sibiu or possibly Brasov+Bran on Tuesday..... Maybe Constanta on
the Black Sea coast.
The only words in Romanian I know so far are (phonetically) "buna, vorbeetsee
engleza?": "Hello, do you speak english?"
Thankfully, that has not been a problem so far ;)
La revedere, (goodbye,)
- Eu. (I.)
(No pictures taken today)
| Contents | May 28 |