Our stay in Bucharest

7th March 07

Woke up at 6.30am. Had breakfast and caught taxi to airport to go to Bucharest. The taxi driver was funny and nice. Caught the 10,55am flight to bucharest with LOT polish airline. Got to bucharest at 1.45pm. Caught a taxi to hotel. Driver was nice and told us about bucharest as we drove to hotel. Checked in to hotel. Very nice place. Nice big room which we werent use to as the other rooms have been small. Walked to Palace of the people (Where Ceaucescu used to live) Was told there are tours from 10am to 4pm. So we will have to go back tomorrow. Went for a walk to the shopping centre. and looked around. Lots of people around. The traffic was vey busy and lots of people were blowing there horns at other cars and you could see that no one could move anywhere. People park there cars on the footpaths if there are no other car parking places. Very hard to walk if they were parked there. Went back to hotel and watched a bit of TV and then went down for dinner at the hotel. Phil got a starter which it had chicken liver on it. I tried some as we didnt know what it was and it was nice to begin with but then it didnt taste the greatest. We didnt fin our what it was till after as we asked the waiter what it was. Not going to ahve that again. The other food was nice that we had. Went back to room and went to bed.

Will write more soon. Take care xxxx

8th march 07

Woke up at 7am. Had breakfast at hotel. It was nice. Walked to palace of the people. (where Ceaucescu ruled) at 10am as told yesterday. Waited in side the foyer til 11am until tour started. No one told us that we had to wait that long. We didnt know what was going on. Had to be scanned and xrayed before the tour started. Also had to pay to take photos in there. Tour guide was Dana who spoke at best broken english. The buliding is pure opulence. Second biggest gvernment buliding in the world apart from the pentagon. Has a 1000 plus rooms. 3000 plus chandilers. Most walls stairs and floors of solid marble. All doors made of mahoghany wood (as dana called it "ood"). During the tour ceaucescu's name was never mentioned. The revolution that toppled him was in december 89. The buliding is 12 stories high and bulit on a artifical hill to make it look more impressive. The tour only went for around 30 mins. And we were only shown 10 or 15 rooms. After the tour we walked around the bulidings fence line,which took 50 mins. 1 fence alone being nearly 2 km long. Walked up to "info building" across the road and armed guards shouted no photos on this side of the street as the "info building" was the secert service. Walked around the city til about 4.30pm. There was a lot of beggars on the street even children were asking for money. I got shat on by a bird. Lucky I had tissues to clean it as it landed on my forehead. Caught taxi to airport for 9.05pm flight. Airport has armed secruity guards, armed police and armed anti terriost guys carryin half cocked machine guns. Arrived budapest an hour later, caught taxi to hotel went to sleep.