Some people call it "Eastern Europe's Paris". I call it Bucharest

Peasant's museum
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I got there with an hour delay maybe and … what a surprise … Eoin was still there, cause his train to Sofia waslate hour and a half or so. This is the moment where my good friend Andrei appears in the story. We “met” at Green Day concert in Budapest in 2005 although we didn’t see eachother. But we started mailing eachother due to the fact that he played on stage with Green Day, blah, blah … He visited me last year in Novi Sad, during Red Hot Chili Peppers show, so it was my turn. He came to pick me up and we went straight to his parents place where I was supposed to sleep over next 3 days. The family is just awesome, we chatted all night long about Yugoslavia, sports, environment and other various themes. Mom Elena made a great dinner. Awesome people. Andrei took everything under control before I arrived as well, so I was fully equipped with maps, city plan and touristic one. So next day I had to choose pants with the most pockets on it. If you are lost in orientation, I arrived to Bucharest on Thursday night.

Village museum
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Next morning Andrei left me just in front of the Romanian Athenaeum which is considered to be the symbol of Romanian culture. He works as an architect just behind the corner, so this was the place where I had to continue on my own. Before we splitted up there was one thing we wanted to check. Last night there was a TV report about the first rent-a-bike in Bucharest, placed just there, in front of Athenaeum but don’t believe the media always. First I visited Museum of the peasant with a big collection of traditional houshold items, ethno clothings and tools. I arrived there even before opening and there were already few visitors. Afterwards I continued to Village museum passing Arcul de Triumf. I was really unfortunate, because this monument, just like St. Mathias statue was in the middle of restauration all covered up! Bucharest doesn’t lie on some big river, but is intersected by two smaller tributaries of Danube - Colentina and Dâmboviţa river. Dâmboviţa flows through the centre going underground at Piaţa Unirii (Union Square) while Coletina makes several alkes in the north of Bucharest where I ended up looking for illage museum. Around the lakes is situated large park called Herăstrău Park after one of the lakes. The lake is surrounded by many cottages, well decorated parks, has few islands and is really relaxing and nice! On the west bank lies the Village museum I was looking forward to see. It is spreaded along the bank divided in several zones according to regions in Romania showing typical and traditional architecture, household items, gates and fences and all the houses and gardens are full of children doing traditional crafts and painting. The park in general is a great place to be during weekend and hot days like this was! After spending some time there I wend back to the centre by metro. Metro is pretty good in Bucharest with 4 major lines well intersected and linked. I was about to visit some of the main squares Andrei has mentioned be the other day. Being in the core of Bucharest, walking on the main boulevards and visiting main squares left me the worst impression on Bucharest. The traffic and culture/behaviour that comes with it is aweful. Fortunately it is not any better than in Belgrade so I wasn’t that much surprised. Cars are parked on the pathways, zebras, drivers doesn’t let you cross the streets on marked crossings without traffic light. What dissapointed me as well were the squares I mentioned earlier. There are several main squares in Bucharest like Piaţa Unirii (Union Square), Piaţa Romana, Piaţa Victorii (Victory Square), Piaţa Revoluţiei (Revolution Square) and few others. The fact that dissapointed me is that these are apsolutely not the type of squares I was expecting. They are actually circular interesctions with no pedestrian zones at all. You can even reach the middle of a square because it has 4 straps around, although the middle area is green and decorated. I wanted to save the biggest square for the end so the last one I visited was the Union Square, one of the products of communistic era. I was expecting to see Casa Popului (People’s House) or Palace of the Parliament novadays. The square is really huge but also with massive traffic. It lies on Union Boulevard and is decrated with numerous fountains that can not be reached as well! When I got there I couldn’t find the Palace. While I was crossing the boulevard I reached the pedestrian island and had to wait for green go. By that moment I had no idea that I was actually standing just in line with the Palace. I looked left and right like everyone should while crossing a street and whoa! On my right side a huge buiding was standing and althoug I was a kilometre away it looked huge! I had to miss one green go and wait for another one just to look at that monstruous building. I was thinking to continue towards it, but I just sat near the square and looked at the fountains that looked quite nice, actually. It was about time to go home too meet up with Andrei and his parents. We had another night chatting, watching Romanian footy, having great time and relaxing my legs as well. Not long after we went to Andrei’s place where he introduced me to his wife Cristina. It’s just 2 buildings away. The main reason why he invited me over his place was to see THE guitar. The guitar belonged to Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong before he gave ti to Andrei as a gift after Budapest show.       Next day was Saturday, but Andrei had some stuff to do so I had “free time” until lunch. So I finally went to face Palace of the Parliament aka Ceausescu’s Palace. The Palace is something that Bucharest can’t be much proud of. It is a product of Ceauşima, period of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s communist presidency when he demolished significant portions of the historic centre of Bucharest to accommodate standardized apartment blocks and government buildings. Constructing the Palace and Centrul Civic (residental buildings) required demolishing much of Bucharest's historic district, including 19 Orthodox Christian churches, six Jewish synagogues, three Protestant churches (plus eight relocated churches), and 30.000 residences. It is the home to Romanian Presidency, Parliament, Government and Supreme Court. A huge square is in front of the palace, turned into parking. Not far from there are the remainings of the historic centre of Bucharest. The most significant are remains of the royal court in Bucharest during the Middle Ages with well preserved columns and statues. The whole area and streets that make the pedestrian zone were in the middle of reconstructing so it wasn’t much pleasant walking on scows. I spent some time on visiting the National Museum, but guess what, most of the exibitons were closed due to reconstruction. Then I decided to visit Botanical garden, so I took a metro there. It is a bit outside the centre, just next to Presidental residence. Speaking of the garden I must admit that the one in Cluj is much better! This one is a bit abandoned. While I was walking around Andrei informed me that he was done with his obligations and lunch was ready if I was interested in. Oh, was I? After great lunch it was about time to see Andrei’s Bucharest! First we went to see the stadium, Ghencea stadium, home to Romanian FC Steaua. Unfortunately it was forbidden to reach the stadium itself, because the first team had training on the training pitch, but bribe is something that is welcome everywhere. After visiting the stadium, we made few crazy photos in Hajduk and Steaua shirts and left the place. Having an idea made me ask Andrei to pull over by the Palace (photo attached). We continued our way to the centre to visit Fire Club, pub where E.M.I.L. band had it’s first notable appereance. We went downstairs to see the place after Andrei pulled out EMIL card, since he plays guitar for that band. The pub itself was really interesting and pretty big. So we started from pubs and small-sized concert venues and ended up at Iolanda Balas stadium watching Massive Attack! Andrei knows some people, who know some people, who have tickets and that’s how we got in. There I met Handrei, guy I met in Novi Sad year before. Almea and Anca from the beginning of this story were supposed to be there as well but Anca got ill and Almea … I couldn’t find her! We actually didn’t stayed that long, just half an hour maybe, because Cristina was waiting for us at the rooftop of national theatre. It’s not strange since there is one of the most famous bars in Bucharest - Laptaria Enache. And it is really awesome! Huge open air place, very relaxing, good atmophere, very artistic, I really felt great there.        Next, Sunday morning I was supposed to wake up real early to pack my stuff and have Andrei drop me off to the train station. That’s where my trip to Ukraine begins, after hour and a half delay.     On my way home from Ukraine I spent one more day and night in Bucharest before taking a train to Belgrade. I had some stuff to do, actually some people to visit. They are fellow volunteers from SCI Romania and I was very happy to see them and tell Mihai hardcore Dinamo fan, one of the vols, that I support Steaua! Hehe … Good old football … Anyway, I surprised them actually, so I added the surprise effect to the visit and I assume they were happy to see me as well. I had just enough time to cruise around the city a bit before going home. And there, reverse surprise effect. As souvenirs from Bucharest I will not take home some stupid figure or something but a Steaua scarf and badge!        So I left Romania with a Steaua badge in my hat and a lot of new friends in my heart. Rich history that still makes me think of people all over the world who suffer different difficulties, threats and pity under various regimes on one side and great experience, beautiful landscape, countryside, friendly people on the other are things that I will always remember and that made my summer unforgetable and ready to archive it along with a lot of beautiful memories. And there is one song by Gogol Bordello that I like to find myself in. Oh, how I miss Carpaty!     P.S. Did I mention that I hold Billie Joe Armstron’g guitar? No. Well, i did!

So I left Romania with a Steaua badge in my hat and a lot of new friends in my heart.