Looking to reserve a hotel in Bucharest I went to Expedia.com. I found the Rembrandt in the historical section and signed on. Just before we left Mpls I found it mentioned in the National Geographic Traveler as a great place to stay. Boy is that true! Great room 25' X 30', super breakfast, good price and the most helpful staff I've ever experienced who speak flawless English. It's a little boutique hotel owned by the Dutch, thus the name , in a historic bank building.
The taxi ride in the from the airport was a triiiiiiippp!!! Wildest thing since the airport to Hanoi trip in Vietnam. That driver could really make his ancient Dacia go even with the un-synchronized transmission. Drove the wrong side of the road an played chicken with the oncoming traffic. I glanced over at Joanne and she was looking out the side window, knuckles white... When the driver heard us debating the exchange rate he opened his newspaper as he drove and point out the exchange rate to us. (I have synapse missing in my brain when it comes doing currency conversion. So now I just ask Joanne.) He'd do great on the NASCAR circuit! Way better than an amusement park! Adrenalin time!
Rick & Carolyn Nelson, Rick's the son of Audrey Nelson from St. James, joined us for dinner last night. What a blast. We went to a traditional Romanian restaurant near our hotel as recommend by the hotel staff. No fear of bird flu here with alive chickens, ducks, geese, etc. enclosed at the entrance. It was a big place with seating at picnic style tables and live band featuring traditional dancers. I have a picture to prove that I joined the dancers on stage....recruited by pretty girl who left to find another recruit soon after she'd received her tip and I found myself in a circle dance between to Romanian guys. The food was traditional...Joanne had the national cornmeal mush with cabbage rolls and I had Carpathian bear...tasted just like chicken...no actually more like beef. Had some wonderful wine which the waiter said could only be found in Romania. Would someone please ask Jim Verlautz if it is true that Feteasca Neagra can only be found in Romania?
This morning we walked to the Palace of the People and had a tour. It's the building that Ceausesca had built in 1982, second only in size to the Pentagon. 16% of Bucharest was bulldozed for it leaving 80,000 people homeless. One of the effects today is that the dogs displaced went wild so that there are huge packs on the outskirts of town today. 3 million cubic meters of marble, all from Romania, was used, 5000 tons of crystal for chandeliers, and it is 365,000 cubic meters in size. Parliament meets in it and it is used for conferences but much of it is empty. We saw one drape that weighed 2000lbs.
This afternoon we visited a villages museum which is a park with villages re-constructed from the various areas of Romania. Could have been a lot worse. Weather is superb...perhaps 80 and sunny!
I can see why Bucharest is called little Paris. Wonderful avenues, beautiful architectural gems, where they haven't been bulldozed for ugly Communist construction. Unfortunately the traffic is very bad. Seven yeas ago, no cars, and today....constant traffic jams.
1 comment:
"Feteasca Neagra"
Not sure if that's precisely the right spelling--it probably varies a little bit depending on where you are, but what little I know about the grape is that it is grown only in Romania (although for all I know it may have a genetic cousin in another country under a different name--Carole Meredith, a very nice grape geneticist who recently retired from UCal--Davis knows as much about that stuff as anybody), but small amounts of the wine are exported to the US and can be purchased here. Of course there will be many different makers of wine using that grape, so who knows if the ones available here would be just as good, and besides, unique wine like that is always at its best when accompanied by local food and culture.
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