BREAK part 2--bucurești.

part 2: bucharest!

wednesday night, the 29th of june, we took a train from brașov to bucurești. i personally wasn't as excited for bucharest, especially after how charming brașov was for us. but never fear. it's still something new. and therefore exciting. let's start at the beginning, shall we?
after our rather pleasant train ride that may or may not have lasted a few hours longer than it should have, and involved a stop at one station for over an hour, we arrived in the paris of the east. a huge, big, scary, fraud capital of the universe (i made that up. but it's probably not far off.) around 11pm. it was a little scary. i won't even lie. particularly because we had no idea where we were going. and looked like deer in the headlights as a little huddle of huge backpacks and bags. high stress environment? no sweat. never fear. after a few turns, and encountering a completely ripped up road, and a few other fun moments, we at last found our hostel! i don't think i've ever said such a constant prayer in my life. it was terrifying. big and foreign city. nighttime. alone with 7 other americans that don't know the city. but don't worry, bucharest is much less scary in the daylight.

thursday, june 30--day 5.

we started our venture in bucharest as almost anyone should. by touring the people's palace. aka parliament palace. aka the second largest building in the WORLD. second only to: the united states pentagon. yeyahh! i honestly wasn't expecting that. but i guess it's true. well, in our grand tour in which no photos were allowed, we only saw five percent of the building. FIVE. ok, and yeah what we saw seemed huge. in other words, the building is ginormous. literally. in every sense of the word. and never before have i ever heard so many ceaușescu jokes in my life. i think it was owed in part to the fact that our tour guide was so young. but still. it was almost creepy. especially because the building itself is full of so much empty space. the ceilings, walls, and floors would be immaculately designed. every detail made from purely romanian materials - except for two doors. but then in the room itself, there was very little furniture or anything. and anything that was there looked pathetic in comparison to the size of the room itself. and in the 'theatre,' the stage was significantly too small to be a real stage. and the chandelier is the largest in europe, containing 7,000 lightbulbs. and to change a lightbulb in said chandelier? four people! it's insane. the funniest detail of all: she would turn lights on and off as we went through the rooms with our tour. regardless of the fact that there were tour groups only minutes behind or ahead of us. and the lighting was awful, with hardly any of the lights on.  then again romania would be broke if all those lights were on all the time. apparently the amount of electricity required to have everything on in the palace is absolutely astronomical. and after seeing just five percent of it and doing the math for the rest of the palace, i seriously don't doubt it.
and now i must tell you the story of the pink umbrella. thursday morning it was raining cats and dogs in bucharest, and luckily i was armed with my cheapo, small, and wonderful pink umbrella. it was enormously effective. and highly useful in every single day up to this point. yes, it did rain every single day. loved it. well, this handy dandy umbrella of mine broke when i went to close it upon arriving at parliament palace! i know. i was dying. and not willing to pay obnoxious prices for a new umbrella. so i figured i'd just get over it and either break and buy a new umbrella or use my jacket with a hood whenever it rained. don't you fret. it never rained very hard again while we were there/while we were out and about. tender mercy? yes.

the little courtyard area outside our hostel. aka, the tables for smokers.

parliament palace! from a side corner. don't even worry. it's huge. you can't fit the whole thing in one frame unless you're coming from the side. otherwise there are buildings across the street blocking it. my point? it's ENORMOUS.

the piața in front of the palace. behind where that green fence is, and over to the right is where concerts are often held.
for example, bon jovi was in bucharest in that exact location on july 10.

the girls.

cutest couple award? check.

the view from the balcony that michael jackson stood on and said, 'hello, budapest!' cultural fail, he knows. knew. he's dead now.

after touring the enormously ostentatious splendiferous display found at the people's palace, we went to the patriarchal church. it's apparently like the 'mecca' of the romanian orthodox religion. kind of like what temple square/the salt lake temple is to mormons. it was essentially the same as all the other orthodox churches we've been in, except more nicely kept up. and the artwork was still colorful and vivid. in all the other churches, it's duller and blacked out from the smoke from candles used over so many years inside the church. beautiful and clean stain-glass windows, and really, the frescos on the walls/ceiling were beautiful.

palace of the patriarch.

romanian patriarchal cathedral.

these guys are 100 percent the real deal. neat? yes.

i don't have any pictures of the inside, but here's part of right outside the door to go inside. (the white in the bottom right corner is the top of the door)

the building behind the fountains is the people's palace. we were at the other end of strada unirii.

just a few romanians on a thursday afternoon in bucharest.

after visiting the church and people's palace, we stopped in an enormous mall of sorts and had a classic mcdonald's lunch. in the nicest mcdonald's i've seen in awhile. ha. it actually reminded me a lot of the one i went to when i was in spain in 2008. sometimes some american food is a nice break from the fact that every restaurant we went to was practically the same. romanian food is not necessarily something to rave about. especially having it so often that week from restaurants. anyways. after lunch we took the metro to the museum of the romanian peasant. and we were there at the same time as a big tour group of senior citizens from FRANCE! it was so exciting. i may or may not have slightly followed them around just because i felt cool and i liked listen to them. the most hilarious part was the old men at the back of their group laughing and making jokes with each other. it was like watching a bunch of little kids on a field trip. bahaha. i really liked the museum itself, as well. it was really big. a lot bigger than i was expecting it to be, especially because whenever i thought i was near the end, i realized there was a whole other wing to visit. but i really liked going, and i feel like it gave a better idea of the romanian identity. so fascinating.

after visiting the museum, we walked through the streets of bucharest, ultimately arriving at the romanian athenium on our way back to the hostel to buy tickets for the symphony friday night. and then headed back to our hostel for some rest and chill time. butterfly villa hostel was nice, but wasn't quite as friendly as rolling stone. and our room was much smaller, and constantly smelled mossy. it was a little gross. but we survived. anyway. thursday night we walked through the old/historic part of bucharest. kind of like old main street in park city. it was cute. and then had dinner at 'cara cu bere.' translation? beer cart. don't worry. it was seriously like a big beer house. don't worry, we didn't get beer with our food. it was a huge restaurant. and there were dancers later in the evening. classic.

museum of the romanian peasant.

the romanian athenium. (more on this later.)

street musicians in the historic quarter of bucurești.

friday, july 1--day 6.

friday morning was cloudy, but beautiful. scratch that. all of friday was cloudy, with occasional sprinkling. nothing big though. mostly just cloudy. anyway. we started our day by visiting the jewish museum, which had gotten bumped from our original intentions of going on thursday because of the fact that it closes at 1. and we didn't realize that until too late. thus we decided to start with it first thing.  it was honestly fascinating. granted, i have a secret obsession and fascination with world war ii/the holocaust. but still. inside the synagogue was a museum of the history of jews in romania, and the most recent portion was essentially the holocaust/the creation of the jewish state in israel. i think that's what made everything so much more real for me. being in this city. in that place. and our tour guide said that while the city itself has changed, the synagogue looks identical to when it was first built. it sounds so silly from an outside perspective, i think. but there's something about being in a place with it looking the same as it did to those people that were killed. there were photos from the holocaust taken right outside where we were. in addition, in iași in 1941, the iași pogrom was one of the most violent pogroms in jewish history. and as a part of that, iaşi was the location of some of the most brutal antisemitic actions during the holocaust, because of the iaşi pogrom. there were death trains in iaşi that were the cause of death for between 13,000 and 15,000 jews. trains that left from the exact station we traveled from. the very one, that hasn't changed much in the past 60 years. hearing that, and seeing the photos made everything infinitely more real. anyway. there's actually an exhibit about the pogroms in the museum inside the cultural palace right now. so we're going next week. i'm a little excited.

the river that crosses through bucharest.

the outside of the jewish museum.

after visiting the jewish museum, we went towards the big mall place to do some shopping for a bit. more souvenirs. the usual. and then walked over to where the art museum is, which is right across the street from the revival's memorial, which is the monument to those who died in the revolution in december of 1989. all of which is inside revolution square, which is where the revolution started during ceaușescu's speech/where the balcony he was giving his speech from is located. once again, it was one of those moments where it was neat to actually be where something so big happened and to see it first hand.
we then walked through the art museum. one side was european art, the other had romanian art. personally i preferred the european art side. i liked the simplicity of the way it was displayed. the romanian side was quite overwhelming, because there was so much of items that were enormously similar. either way, i quite enjoy art museums. so i liked it. from there we headed back to our hostel, and had some time to nap/relax before going to the symphony!

the largest circles represent the men that died under communism, the medium sized--the women. the smallest circles--the children.

the man we chatted with a bit who told us about the monument. and then told us he gave tours.
we didn't take a tour from him, but he was fun to chat with.

just above where the flags are is the balcony ceaușescu was giving his speech from on that december day in 1989.

the balcony.

names of those who died in the revolution.

'national romanian art museum.'

the outside of the museum.

the doors into the museum.

oh the symphony. where to begin. most the group was a little skeptical about it, but i'm grateful they were willing to humor me. i loved it. and by the time it was over, most admitted that they really liked it. the george enescu symphonic orchestra performed works by giuseppe verdi. and it was incredible. not the best i've ever heard, but it was good. most of all, the athenium is gorgeous. roslyn and i decided it's on the list of things that doesn't really belong in romania. kind of like peleș castle. but really, it was absolutely stunning inside. and we thoroughly enjoyed it. i felt so at home just listening to them and watching them play. love. and then we ended our evening by going over to the historic quarter for dessert at chocolat--a french desert place. the lemon sorbet? to die for. mmm.

shaorma stop for dinner!

the lobby of the athenium.

the ceiling inside the theatre.

seat buddies/music nerds. rosles and me.
our tickets were spread out in a group of 4, and then 2 groups of 2. luckily, the two of us that cared the most got the best seats. :)

the pictures obviously don't do it justice. but you get the idea.

french dessert place? don't mind if i do. :)

saturday, july 2--day 7.

our final day of our trip we woke up to blue skies! the first clear day of the entire week. it was beautiful. and we had a chill day planned seeing as we were all tired, and let's be honest. 24 hours a day together 100 percent for an entire week? stress levels might have risen by this day. thus a more relaxing day was excellent. and the sun coming out to visit? even better. though i must say, we are all extremely grateful that we had an overcast week for our retreat. having it be as hot as it usually is while traveling together? someone might have died. or been killed. i'll let your imagination do the rest.
we started our day by taking the metro to the northern part of bucharest, and then walking to the arcul de triumf--the replica of the arc de triomphe located at the end of the champs élysées in paris. beautiful? yes. make me wish i was in paris? check. pretty much everything about bucharest made me wish i was in paris. it wasn't once named the paris of the east for nothing. though all in all, bucharest was quite lackluster, besides a few things here and there. that's the thing i'm noticing about romania. there's not much to see that's touristy. it's a place where people live and work. any resulting attractions are only the result of that life. and i used/saw more french in our few days in bucharest than i have in the past three months being in iași.

after visiting the arch and taking the necessary photos, we walked a small ways to where the romanian village museum is located. it reminded me a lot of this is the place state park. a whole bunch of houses, designed and set up in traditional romanian fashion from different time periods and locations in romania. to top it off: it's the largest outdoor museum in europe! how neat. in all honesty, my favorite part of it was the fact that it was located by a lake, and there was a little pathway in the trees by the lake. and at one point i just sat on a stone bench built into the wall lining the pathway and watched the lake, listened to the sounds of 2 women singing in romanian from afar, and watching across the lake as a willow tree brushed across the top of the water in the wind. a magically peaceful escape from the city. across the lake, is a big park, kind of like central park which we walked through after going to the museum. bikers everywhere. families. tall trees. i loved feeling like i wasn't in the city, if only for awhile. and i like seeing romanians of all walks of life walking through. the fact that it was a saturday helped out in this regard, because people were out enjoying the day off and the sunshine. loved it.

my view of the lake.

my beaten down shoes. they've served me well these past few months.

hollyhocks!

michael jackson was the name of the street in the park. so naturally they had a little tombstone of sorts. haaa.

watching this man park his bike and eat his ice cream was probably one of the highlights of my life. it was charmingly adorable.

beautiful park? don't mind if i do. :) 

yeah, yeah. i guess you want to see my face every now and again.
this is how i feel about a summer in romania. :)

we left from the park and went straight to the hostel to pick up our backpacks and then to the train station. we were a bit tight on time, but never fear. we made it! and then enjoyed a nice long saturday night train ride back home to iași through fields of millions of sunflowers on both sides (yes, it was like a dream. yes, i loved every second. and i might have screamed when i was notified of this.) and the most gorgeous sunset you ever did see. it was literally orange and lavender colored. as usual, the photos don't do it justice. upon arriving in iași, we ended our trip at the mcdonald's right by the train station. judge us all you want, but we were STARVING! so we stopped in for some food, before taking a taxi home and to bed! thus ending our weeklong retreat and tour of beautiful romania. :)