Tessa and I contentedly devoured a solid breakfast of muesli, poached eggs, cherries and coffee. Our English host sat with us and chatted as we ate.
During my time volunteering in Ireland and England, I learned something about people from the UK. In general.
They know how to make spaces cosy. They know how to make nooks. They understand "cute". They've got "charming" down.
English people make me feel at home, with their tea and biscuits (which I can't eat, but still add to the quality of "home") and quirky, homemade decorations from someone's grandma from someone's birthday quite some time ago.
We had planned to leave the Balkan Hostel at 10:00, but we stayed an extra half an hour because we were so pleased by our poached eggs and cute coffee mugs and talkative English host with patches on her jeans.
One of our many conversation topics was service in the Balkans.
This was a conversation topic because service in the Balkans generally verges on deplorable (and it was cathartic to be able to whine about it).
"People here just aren't paid enough to care," Mandy observed. "When you go into a shop, you feel like you're a nuisance. If it weren't for you, they could've been outside enjoyin' a cigarette."
This has been the overall vibe of Balkan service.
"Could you please hurry up and finish whatever it is you're on about so that I can smoke my cigarette?"
Another topic was hitchhiking. A twenty-year-old American girl passed through the hostel last year. She was hitching alone with Turkish truck drivers. And the like.
At least we're not that silly.
Our host took our picture for her facebook page and wished us luck on our adventure.
"I think that's one of the nicest places we've stayed so far."
We'd considered taking the bus across the border, but decided to try our wished for luck at hitching first.
We'd never hitched across a border before. We weren't quite sure what to expect.
Then again, I'm never sure what to expect these days. Except not to expect.
We walked outside of Ruse.
"What is it with these countries and their unforgivable lack of cardboard?"
With a heavy heart, I wrote on the other side of my watercolor paper with black, permanent marker.
I'll just have to keep it and transform it into hitchhiking art one of these days.
We walked for ages. We're becoming quite accustomed to walking for ages. My shoulders have even stopped complaining. Now they just go numb. My feet are a solid callous. I occasionally catch a muffled grumble escaping through the alligator hide (blurghandpainandSITDOWNALREADY), but it's usually easy to stifle with promises of picnics and naps in parks with views.
After half an hour of walking and half an hour of walk/waiting, a semi truck with Turkish plates pulled over in front of us.
Is this our Turkish truck driver? Are we really doing this? I noncommittally questioned the intelligence of this decision.
"Giurgiu?" we asked after opening the door.
"Evet, yes," the mustached Turk with dice in his window and Besiktas football paraphernalia decorating the interior of the cab.
I sat in the back on a clean, soft mattress (minus extra brooding Russian). Tessa sat in the front and enjoyed the view from way up there.
We both geeked/freaked out a little when we realized that our ride had a tea kettle he could plug in to his cigarette lighter.
"Cafe?" he asked ten minutes into the ride.
"Evet, tesekker ederim," it made me smile to actually use the smattering of Turkish I know.
"Cafe?" he asked Tessa.
"No, I have water," Tessa patted her bottle.
You don't understand! I furiously thought at Tessa. Turkish people are worse than Italians. The average Turk is worse than an Italian GRANDMA. They will happily offer you everything in their fridge, and if you don't accept something, they'll --
"Energy drink? Cola?" Pasa (pronounced "Pasha") rummaged through his fridge.
"No, I have water," Tessa took out her bottle to show him.
"Water," Pasa rummaged through his fridge and took out a bigger bottle than Tessa's.
"No, but thank-you."
Tessa will have a very hard time in Turkey. Everyone will think she hates them.
"I love how we're discovering this whole new world of trucks," Tessa looked around as Pasa went to deal with passport control and pay the hefty fee for crossing the mighty Danube. The people taking his money looked at us suspiciously. Pasa laughed.
"Tourists! American. New Zealand!" he motioned to his truck. "Minibus!"
I hope we don't cause him too much trouble, I grimaced. There are few things I dislike more than being an inconvenience. But he did pick us up... he must know what he's getting himself into. Even if we don't.
Getting across the border took another half an hour and was full of "minibus!" and quizzical/annoyed looking guards.
Pasa offered us gum.
I accepted the gum.
Tessa did not accept the gum.
We stopped an hour or so later at a truck stop just outside the massive ring road surrounding Bucharest.
"Call your friend?" Pasa asked.
"No, we will meet him in the city center."
"What sector?"
"Ummm... this is the address."
Pasa scratched his head and tried to zoom in and out on Tessa's map. Then he stood up and engaged in an angry, friendly argument with two other Turkish drivers, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
Turks are also worse than Italians in their angry, friendly arguments. You think they're about to kill each other until you somehow realize that they're just discussing how much they paid for cheese at the market that morning.
We waited at least half an hour. I didn't know that truckers are required to take timed rests before they're allowed back on the road, but their breaks are far more regular than my naps as a child (although not as regular as my naps as an adult).
Pasa dropped us off at the ring road and apologized for not being able to drive us to the city center.
People. I love finding good people. Mostly, I love how EASY it is to find good people.
The outskirts of Bucharest are not picnic material. Had we been planning to munch lunch outside, we would have walked nearly as far as we walked to avoid Turkish food in Skopje.
Dead, bloated dogs on the side of the sidewalk.
Puddles of greasy, grimy sludge on the sidewalk.
This is the part of the city tourists generally don't see. We not only get to see it -- we get to SMELL it." I wrinkled my nose as we passed something that smelled worse than (or comparable to) my shoes. I wonder how this smell will affect our taste of the city center.
After walking for eons (ages are cake, but eons still take a bit "you can do it!" and "there could be bacon at the end of this!" self talk to lift my spirits and my feet), we found a tram.
We had no local currency, so we tried to offer the driver euros. He either didn't know what we meant or he couldn't be bothered, so our tram ride into the city center of Bucharest was free.
(we learned later that no one pays for the tram on weekends or after six pm. No one can be bothered to work on weekends or after six pm. Hence, there's no one to administer the fine on weekends or after six pm)
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| While sitting on the tram, smelly and exuberant and hobo-esque (and Tessa was having an Asian day), we were accosted by a Romanian chap who told us we were beautiful and asked if he could give us his number. I told him thanks, but we wouldn't be in Bucharest for very long. |
The metro system in Bucharest is reminiscent of Skopje spaghetti though, so it took us a couple of tries before we managed to board the correct line.
Google maps directed us to an Iskender Kebap place around the corner from our host, so my friend ordered a coke and we messaged Stefan from there.
We're in Romania. Romania. What do I know about Romania? Ummm.... Dracula. Dracula and... Roma people?
Our host came to meet us a few minutes later and after sweaty hugs, led us to his small, clean, African themed apartment.
Wherein he proceeded to spoil us with white wine, beer and tupperware after tupperware full of mouthwatering meals his mother had prepared for him before flying off on vacation.
She must have anticipated being gone for weeks, I wiped my fingers on a napkin after messily, awkwardly eating a chicken wing. Chicken wings, you be delicious, but you're nearly as challenging to eat as half a watermelon without a knife.
Stuffed to bursting with Romanian home cooking and sensation timidly making its way back into my shoulders, we ventured out towards the old town of Bucharest.
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| The Romans lived in Romania for about 200 years. From a historical perspective, this is equivalent to a weekend. However, Romanians looked around them and found that they were rather different from the rest of the Balkans, so they thought that claiming Roman heritage would be a very find thing indeed. Every major town in Romania has a statue of Remus, Romulus and the She-Wolf -- just in case the residents forget who they're claiming to be. |
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| Vlad the Impaler, aka, Count Dracula. |
Vlad the Impaler, member of House Draculesti, was a Romanian sent east as a hostage to ensure his father's loyalty to the Ottoman Empire. Whilst there, he was educated and became to be educated in the heart of the Ottoman Empire. Whilst at the Ottoman court, he became friendly with the upper class. After his training in logic, warfare and Turkish, he was sent to Wallachia to rule and extract taxes from the peasants.
The ruling part suited just fine.
Vlad the Impaler wasn't so keen on the whole "handing over the taxes" part of the deal.
So he didn't.
Vlad the Impaler tended to avoid doing things he wasn't so keen on.
The Ottoman Empire sent 20,000 troops to extract taxes.
Vlad ambushed them. Captured them. Imprisoned them.
The Ottoman Empire sent exponentially more troops to extract taxes.
Vlad hadn't the resources or allies (he wasn't exactly the most diplomatic fellow) to combat this vast number of angry Ottomans.
So he decided to scare them.
He scared them by ordering the 20,000 prisoners impaled and staked along the road through which the army would pass.
This act of impaling = staves inserted up 20,000 anuses until they emerged (avoiding the vital organs, of course) out 20,000 mouths.
The incoming army suddenly lost its appetite for battle, dispersed and went home.
Vlad the Impaler ruled for a few more years. He ended up killed in battle against the Turks (once again, lack of diplomatic skills) and his body was never found.
But his head went to the capital as a prize.
And this is the story of Dracula.
Merry Christmas.
Stefan showed us around some of his favorite parts of the city. He was an excellent guide and his enthusiasm for travel and CSing was refreshing and contagious.
We randomly ended up at a beer festival wherein one of the most famous hip hop bands in Romania happened to be playing.
Tessa broke out her hip hop moves.
I tried to engage my hips, but my knees got in the way. Then my brain got all foggy from lack of sleep and I gave up altogether.
Tessa's moves more than made up for my lack thereof.
We all stumbled back (some more than others) to Stefan's apartment.
"We will wake up at seven tomorrow, okay?" Stefan asked as he set the alarm on his new phone.
"I'll wake up before seven. It doesn't matter for me."
"No!" Stefan was surprised.
Tessa was not surprised.
"Aimee doesn't sleep or eat. She's like this weird hybrid."
"You won't wake up before seven," Stefan was adamant. "I'll bet you a beer."
I woke up at five thirty the next morning. An hour later than I normally wake up, but well before seven.
Stefan woke up to his alarm at seven.
"You win. When did you wake up?"
"Five thirty."
"What did you do all that time?"
I looked around the room...
"You were protecting us," Stefan supplied.
"Yes. Umm... From the elephants," I gestured to the elephant statues decorating the countertops and cabinets. "I'm actually a superhero in the morning."
Tessa and I went to a park for a picnic (complete with CRUNCHY PEANUT BUTTER). Stefan went to work.
I felt mildly sympathetic when he said, "I hate you."
We joined a free tour at ten thirty and slowly ambled through the sprawling, mishmash, what-the-hell-am-I anyway? city for well over two and a half hours.
Things that stuck from this tour:
When the Romanian communist leader wanted to demolish old churches, they were demolished.
When his fancy changed and he just didn't want to look at them anymore, they were simply (or not so simply) picked up and moved somewhere else.
When he wanted to create the biggest boulevard in the world, he created one a few centimeters wider than the Champs D'Elysees.
At one point, Romanians thought they would be better off being French (instead of Roman... which they weren't anyway). So they tried to transform Bucharest into a little Paris, giving many of their streets and shops French names and speaking Romanian with a French accent.
The History Museum has been closed for twenty years. It's not undergoing renovations or anything of that sort. No, the Romanians just can't figure out how to portray their history yet, so the museum is closed whilst they ponder.
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| An old inn turned restaurant and soon-to-be hotel. This is Bucharest. It was and now it kind of is but wants to be something else. It is a city in constant transition... but it doesn't really know what it's transitioning from or to. |
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| The cafes and bars in old town Bucharest are unique and just the right amount of dirty. However, they are not the right amount of cheap. |
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| My sunglasses! I anticipate my hair will look like that shortly. I'll just have to borrow someone's beard. |
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| Voted ugliest statue in Bucharest. No one understands why the dog looks like it's standing on its own (it appears to have been designed separately and then glued onto a morose/hungover Trajan). The bizarre shape emerging from the back of the dog's head is supposed to be a snake's tail (which is a symbol of Bucharest). |
Walking through Bucharest is mind-bogglingly confusing. I haven't seen so many boulangeries since my month in Nice with Baris. I haven't done so many double-takes, squinted my entire face and exclaimed, "wait... what???" in my entire life.
There are several monstrous glass buildings with contrived, old facades. The government didn't want modern hotels to distract from the... umm... continuity of the street, so the hotels were built in a glaringly modern style with a couple of old fashioned arches pasted on.
"Does that building have a tumor?" was Tessa's exclamation when she saw one of these monstrosities near the Revolution Square.
More like a parasite.
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| Tessa says this looks like a little Barcelona. |
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| Revolution Square. I would explain the revolution itself, but the Romanians are still coming up with the official story, so only opinions are available at the moment. Check back in twenty years. |
Stefan introduced us to Romanian chocolate that evening. I introduced Stefan to acro yoga.
I believe we were both equally pleased.
