Bucharest(București), Romania - Day 1

     After our long train ride from Sofia, we finally arrived to Bucharest. The city's name in a recorded form appeared during the rule of the infamous Vlad the Impaler. He inspired the Dracula stories. Just over 20 years ago, the city was host to a revolution that overthrew their communist dictator, Ceausecu. He bankrupted the country trying to build a palace to outdo the North Koreans. Priorities. He starved his own people to export food to the world and put forth a positive front. He's a friendly reminder of why one man, no matter the political affiliation, cannot be put in charge of a country. We met our couchsurfing hosts for our time there. They are a fun couple and she has a great project that allows you to experience authentic village life in Romania. They set us up in a bedroom at their apartment and then sent us forth with a guidebook of the city and a list of places to see. We took the metro to the local University. The first thing we found was this nice Russian Orthodox Church. We wandered through the old historic part of the city in search of a restaurant that our hosts highly recommended. 

     After a short walk through the historic part of town, we went to Cara cu Bere. It looks and feels like an old German beer hall. We discovered through reading the Romania book we were given that the local dishes include some things similar to what we have back home. Apparently, Romanians love a dish that is basically grits with cheese. They call it polenta but its more similar to grits than polenta. The dessert was a large doughnut covered with jam, cheese, and sour cream.

     After lunch, we tried to visit the Parliament building but it closed at 4. We decided to try out the other recommendation from our hosts, a village museum in the northern part of the city. The basic premise of the museum was to collect houses and other buildings from villages from all over the country and put them on display in an open air museum in Bucharest. It sits right alongside a park with a lake and is a fantastic place to visit. There are lots of activities for kids too. We found a large Arc de Triomphe modeled after the one in Paris. It celebrates the independence of the country in 1878. The first arch was built quickly and of wood until the current structure could be completed.

     After our long walk through the park, we were pooped so we caught a bus back to the metro. Once there, it was just ten minutes back to our hosts house. When we arrived, we rested for a while until one of them invited us for a bike ride around the park just around the corner from their house. It was a nice way to end the day.

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