A Place Neither Here Nor There

Once upon a time in a bedroom somewhere in Northern Illinois, USA, a young girl poured over National Geographic magazines in her spare time (this girl, to be noted, was a bit strange). What fascinated her the most were articles from the early 90s when the Soviet Union and its satellite states were opened up to a shocked world. The pollution, the poverty, the crumbling infastructure, the mass of social problems. She loved it. She couldn't read enough about this part of the world.

Okay, so the young girl was me and it was particularly Russia that I fell in love with. Why exactly? All things considered, it's probably the bleakest place on earth. But perhaps that was the essence of my draw to it (I'm strange like that).  I never doubted I'd visit Russia. However the former Soviet Bloc countries I knew virtually nothing about. I never really thought I'd get to see any of them. They were lost under a sheet of acid rain.

Romania did intrigue me. I'll never forget those National Geographic pictures. Naked kids swimming in rivers near massive sewage pipes, a forest of smokestacks belching in the near distance. Everything lay under a cover of soot and utter filth. And then there were pictures of the orphanages and the mental institutions, where every individual had sunken cheeks and huge haunting eyes. How could this place exist, while I was sat here in my bedroom? I wanted to know.

People that say the world is getting worse perhaps need to check out photos of old National Geographic magazines. In my personal opinion, the world hasn't gotten worse. On the whole it's gotten a lot better as concerns the general quality of life. Why am I rambling on about all this? Because Romania came to a shock to me, in the best way possible.

In Romania, our train passed through stations with names I recognized. It was as if a giant paint roller had rolled across the whole landscape (even if it was just the landscape that had existed in my head). I'm quite sure the countryside has always been charming and pristine—but the cities? The cities weren't much different to any of the cities we had seen in the West. There were modern buildings and people bustling about in fashionable clothes. There weren't packs of dogs or wild kids crouching in underpasses. The streets were clean and the sky was actually blue! Romania, as the rest of Eastern Europe, had picked itself up from the gutter. This dark hole of humanity that I had read about ages ago had new life. Fortunately, the Romanians are eager to share with foreigners their history, and it's easy to see the pride they exude. For good reason. Romania is country with so many layers of history, and it's making history still with its inclusion in the EU.

In other words, Romania made quite an impression on me. And by the way (since I'm rambling freely here) what has happened to the great Soviet athlete; the serious, do-or-die athlete, such as the kind that performed in the Olympics? You know the kind—the one with the engineering of a nuclear submarine, the one that started training from the age of 2, the one that the whole Soviet Union hung their hopes upon to show the world their superiority, the one with a life story of tragedy and dedication (shown in an emotional segment before their Olympic performance), the one that riviled any wholesome smiley-faced American athlete, the one with the Gorbechev-looking coach barking instructions in Russian from the sidelines? I miss that kind of athlete. Russia can neither fund nor train athletes like that anymore, and many that were once trained in the USSR have moved to America or Western Europe. Those that remained in the former Soviet Union have grown soft. They don't have the same drive behind them that they once had. Romania used to dominate in the world of women's gymnastics. What happened there? They were an emabarassment in the last Olympics, and Russia was no better. An era is over, and now China is emerging. Well anyway, that was my ode to the Soviet athlete. Now I'll get on with my travels.

Dracula Country

I'm not a vampire fan. In fact I've never seen Twilight. I did read Braham Stoker's Dracula last year, but other than the beginning and other brief patches of excitement throughout, it was a long and boring read. I don't think vampires are sexy, in fact I think they are utter twats. That said, I do have a thing for Vlad.

I always thought the guy was a bit heavy on torture; afterall his last name was The Impaler. But considering the times, he wasn't as bad as some. Maybe he did ramrod poles up his ememies arses, sticking them out in a field to die slow painful deaths, but were the English any better with their hang-draw-quartering methods? Torture was widespread back in those days, and what Vlad did put into practice he learned from the Turks who had imprisoned him as a child. The Romanians hail him as a hero for keeping the Ottoman Empire at bay.

We stayed in Bran, just down the road from Dracula's Castle. Of course the castle had nothing to do with the real person, it just looked sort of creepy. The tourist section of town was built up around the myth of the vampire, almost a themepark of sorts, complete with a haunted house and a guy walking around in a vampire suit.  My only real memory of the town was the food (my first experience with shwarma—a sandwich wrap of sorts, very kebab-like) and the dog that came to visit us in the park. We threw this poor stray bits of our sandwich. Everytime we made a move he flinched. We could tell he had been through some hard times. Poor Shindig (Chris' name for any scruffy dog we come across).

Our accommodation for the night in Bran was a campervan. We were supposed to be sharing a bungalow-style tent, but were given the keys to a van instead. Our campsite was called Vampire Camping and was just down the road from the castle. This may sound scary (or just tacky), the kind of place that might attract weirdos, but it was nothing of the sort. The setting was gorgeous, tucked in a mountain valley, surrounded by wooden peasant houses and enormous stacks of hay. It was quaint and thoroughly charming. Even when night set in and it turned dark and windy, I journeyed to the outhouse all on my own without a thought of running into the undead.

In reality, Bran has little to do with the actual Dracula (son of the dragon). He may have visited there once upon a time, even spending the night in the famed castle, but he was centered elsewhere. Later we were to see the ruins of his residence, not in Transylvannia, but in the capital city of Bucharest.

The City of False Dreams

The first thing that occured to me when we arrived in Bucharest was “Why are they speaking French?” They had named their main station Gara de Nord. It wasn't perfect French, but it was pretty damn close. I also noticed by signs that I could read or make out fairly few of them, which is extraordinary after visiting countries like Slovakia and Hungary where I couldn't make heads or tails of the language. I learned later, through a guide, that Romanian is one of the Romance languages, along with French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. For some reason this really excited me. I can add Romanian to languages I can vaguely understand.

Bucharest is not an Eastern city; it doesn't have that Communist feel to it. It's not on par with the big Western cities, though it certainly aspires to be. I guess it lays somewhere in between. The nightlife is brilliant. Chris and I were to find that out after checking into our hostel, the Green Frog. The old town was in walking distance so we headed out. The streets were crammed with young people drinking and socializing. We were spoiled for choice in where to go, the drinks all seemed reasonably cheap. We decided on an Irish bar where we ordered nachos and I treated myself a margarita (Chris had his usual beer). I don't know what I expected Bucharest to be, but it certainly wasn't this. I was thinking street children huffing on glue, or gangs of gypsies looking to rob and murder us. We were told that Bucharest is quite safe, and we certainly felt it as we walked the dark streets back to the hostel.

A gypsy woman woke us the next morning, calling loudly as she walked down the street. She repeated the same phrase over and over again in a harsh drawnout tone. Looking out the window, I couldn't tell if she was selling something or putting a curse on the community. It was rather weird, but nobody seemed to mind her. She circled the block, so everytime we managed to fall back asleep, she woke us up again. Finally we just got out of bed and went to breakfast.

The group of young people at are hostel were international, hailing from Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Germany, and who knows where else. Their common language was English, which they all freely spoke (I love how most Europeans are multi-lingual. Makes me feel lingually lazy). They were a friendly bunch, all sitting around on the terrace talking. The Green Frog was a comfortable place where people could come and go like it was their home. I wish we would have spent more time in Bucharest, for this was a good base.

Our overnight train to Bulgaria was upon us. We had tried to book sleepers, as our last experience had been a good one. The lady at the ticket office told us there were none available. This did not bode well, especially heading into Bulgaria. We just hoped for the best and spent our last day in Bucharest trying to soak up the city.

We headed to the most unmissable site in all of Bucharest—the Palace of the People. If you look at a map of the city, the palace takes up the space of about three city blocks. It's the second largest building in the world, the Pentagon being the first. If you've seen the Pentagon, which is on the outskirts of Washington D.C., you can hopefully imagine the scale of this building, smack dab in the middle of city. Also think about how many people work in the Pentagon. I have no idea, but it must be in the thousands. The Palace of the People, despite its name, was built only for two—namely Nicolai Ceaucescu and his wife.

Say what you want about the cruelty of Vlad; he didn't have anything on Ceaucescu. Vlad fought for his people, Ceaucescu fought only for himself. Ceaucescu was a dictator and a megalomaniac. What he built he built soley for his own glory. He had a whole section of Bucharest torn down so he could build his palace. His own people he threw out on the street. He forbid birth control, so starving families that couldn't afford more children had to hand them over to orphanages, or simply put them out on the street. The countless dogs that roam the city—Ceaucescu's responsible for them as well, for when he knocked down whole neighborhoods, the peoples' pets had no place to go. A country that was dirt poor and starving, Ceaucescu took money from the people to build his mansion, so he could live in luxury. It was no wonder that his people turned against him in the end.

Chris and I approached the Palace from the grand boulevard (Boulevard of the People or something like that), the Champs Elysees of Bucharest. Interesting, that. We learned that Ceaucescu actually had fashioned this boulevard after Paris. The street is not only wide, but impressively long, in fact, an inch longer than Paris' Champ Elysees. Ceaucescu just had to make it that much more spectacular. There's a park with fountains in the middle, and from there you can see the full-on view of the Palace. The Palace looks like it's just right there, a short walk away. It's deceptive, for as you start walking, the Palace doesn't get any bigger, and it feels like walking on a treadmill. Indeed, the Palace is so big that it feels nearer than it actually is. It's quite a walk down that boulevard. Chris and I were sweating.

If the outside of the Palace is impressive, the inside is awesome; and I do mean leaving us in awe. Ceaucescu spared no expense. We were given figures from our tour guide, all kinds of numbers and measurements; I certainly couldn't relate them here. But believe me when I say that there is a lot of marble, gold, and crystal in this Palace. The scale of it all is hard to fathom. We had entered at what we thought was the ground level. After taking flight after flight of stairs upward, enough to make us have to catch our breath, we came to a massive entryway. We had walked several floors up just to get to the ground floor. That wasn't what was impressive. What was impressive that high overhead there were skylights, giving the impression that it was daylight. But it turned out to be a trick; electric lighting. There were 15 more floors over our heads, and not only that, there were 15 more below. I really don't know how to impress this upon you—this place is massive.

We saw very little of the Palace, a mere fraction of its rooms. Most of what we saw is used as conference rooms, as the government uses the Palace for their headquarters. But even they don't use the Palace to its full capacity, not even close. Even in the corridors where we stood, every third or forth chandelier was lit. If the building was lit to it's full capicity, the electrical bill would be astronomical. There is more electricity in the Palace than there is in all the rest of Bucharest. It's like an entire city. And half of the Palace can't even be seen, for half of it is underground. Who knew what Ceaucescu had in mind for those floors. We didn't take that tour, but according to Top Gear, one of the floors is used as a racetrack.

The climax of the tour brought us out onto the balcony. This is the spot Ceaucescu envisioned appearing to his people. Standing there looking out over the boulevard and the grand buildings he had built there, I could see his dream. However he never got to appear on his balcony. He never even got to live in his Palace. He was killed before he got the chance.

Later in the day, Chris and I met for a walking tour of Bucharest. And this is where we got more of the story of Ceaucescu. We visited his original quarters, where the dictator had stood from a different balcony, appearing a massive crowd. At first the crowd had been receptive, cheering for him. But it took one negative shout from the back of the crowd to kick things off. Started by a group of university students, the mood of the crowd turned, and soon they were demanding his blood. Ceaucescu and his wife sought the protection of the army, but the army and turned on them as well. They escaped in a helicopter, but were soon captured, brought to trial on Christmas Day, and killed that very day. Lesson to be learned—it doesn't pay to be a dictator. His beautiful palace only stands for his greed and vanity. Our tour guide told us that he wished people would mark the opera house as the main monument of Bucharest, for that should represent the culture of the city more than the Palace. I understand his point.

Our walking tour took us all around Bucharest, lasting several hours. Our guide was a young Romanian guy who spoke perfect English. And he was honest with the history of his city; he didn't try to sugarcoat anything. He brought out both the negative and the postive, and we felt we got a very informative, well-rounded tour. It was the perfect ending to our time in Romania.

Chris and I collected our bags from the hostel and made our way through the dark streets to the train station. On the way we passed several prostitutes in the street flagging down cars. That was a bit of a surprise, especially after seeing the grand sights of Bucharest. But like the gypsy lady who had walked down our street earlier that day, they were every part of the landscape of Bucharest.

Oh by the way, you know that part about Ceaucescu and the balcony? Even though he never got to realize his dream of standing on the balcony of the Palace, waving to the adoring crowds below, someone else did. Who was the first figure to appear to appear on the famed balcony? No one other than Michael Jackson. And as the crowds were cheering and waving their hands and banners around, Michael opened up his mouth and shouted into a mic, “I'M SO GLAD TO BE IN BUDAPEST!” D'oh. Wrong city there MJ. Ceaucescu wouldn't have approved.