Saturday 17th July

 

17/07/04 - Day 14

As the curse wore off, Heather got better and this morning showed significant improvement (my theory being that yesterday was largely travel sickness). So I was sent out on internet & food foraging expeditions, before we packed and taxied to Elvis Villa Place. The hostel is very hostel-ish, I like it. Heather might pass judgement on it in a moment.Bitesize Bulgaria

Landscape: reminiscent of the agricultural 'engine room' of Europe. (B)

I'm going to the toilet (was Heather's comment) (H)

People:

- Plovdiv - Every single person of the female (B) population of PD is hot. And I mean "every single".

- hotness rating: 9/10

- spattractice rating: 6/10

- Horrible unpleasant - especially the beggars (H) (with some notable exceptions) (B)

Fashion: appallingly outdated. (H)

What is fashion? (B)

Food: appalling. I'm allergic to Bulgarian yeast (H)

- merely speculation, also - complete lie (B)

cheese - rubber. chocolate - tasteless

Tourism: non-existent tourism support.

non existent tourists.

Heather: "I don't like it when I'm not in control of my body"

So, to continue the account of my first day in Bucharest (I say 'my' & because Heather is more like a piece of luggage at the moment).

It was a very knackering day, that much can be said for sure. It was also a very enjoyable day because Bucharest rates as my favourite city thus far. It was a nice half-way between the crazy-crazy-crazy Istanbul and the un-happening Sofia. The Romanians have national identity. Their flag, apparently represents the sky (blue) the wheat (yellow) and the blood of Romanians (red) - the feeling of pride and patriotism in their cultural history is obvious. The streets are busy and 'bustling' - with a host subsisting array of shops, a large proportion being "non stop".

In the blazing sunshine of a fine summer day I strolled the town into town, got engagingly lost in the historic quarter (point to note: huge national history museum - symbolic building) re-converged in precisely the right place yet still managed to struggle to find 'B but Univii' which led straight up to, what can only be described as, straight up to,a very big building. Now, I don't mean big like a skyscraper is to a window cleaner I mean big like the mass is to a lane section of the mas is to a snail. Dawningly big. In fact, to put it in a nutshell, gargantuously big.

So, in my moment of wisdom and clarity, I decided to walk around it.

I then thought I would hike even further to see Palatul (obroaceni (I'm sorry, who was (obroaceni?) which was a mistake as all I could see was a high wall and the tops of some trees. But it did deposit me close to the Botanical gardens, so I tried to cut through said gardens and join up with the main road back into town. Ah no - it would seem that all persons must enter and exit these (to be frank, rather 'naggel') gardens by the same exit gate. Now undersized, I have walked considerably further than the station is from the hostel, I'm hot, tired, and my shoulders ache. Back-tracking was not currently that high in my vocabulary 'to-ten'.

Therefore I undertook a classic 'Notting Hill' moment and scaled, with agility and ease, an 10 foot, not-2 ne foot, ne 400 foot wall.

Then began the long, arduous trek over the top of town taking in some of the less pleasant areas of an otherwise lovely city.

We decided to order pizza for dinner (which took an hour to come), but we were delivered with a nice normal (as-we-get-back-home) pizza-shaped box. Aaah, we thought - something we understand.

Wrong again. On opening the box we were greeted with something resembling an omlette that looked like this. Brian thought delivery guy had got hungry on the way - I thought he had had to brake very quickly. But no.

The Romanians eat their pizza folded up. So, rest-assured the filling was safely resting inside. Brian struggled thus was a great way of doing pizza. I still feeling ill, couldn't care less.