25 years of Communism

Bucharest, Romania

-From Sarah

Because Andy was up until the wee hours drafting players for his fantasy football league, we got kind of a late start on exploring Bucharest. (To be fair, I was more than happy to sleep in...) After scouring the book, turns out there isn't that much to see, so we narrowed our focus and decided that our goal was to see Nicolae Ceausescu's parliamentary palace and cruise around to get a feel for the city. The palace, unfortunately, was closed until November to tourists but we did walk around the massive structure (2nd largest building in the world, the Pentagon being the first). While it is currently the parliamentary building and civic center, it was built to be the "House of the People" and serve as Nicolae's legacy really. It was completed in time for his execution in 1989. Ironic.

It's striking to see the pervasiveness of the old Communist ways of this country... tennements right next to shiny new buildings, or old 'bloc' housing with Samsung billboards on top, ATMs on every corner and no where to really spend the money (esp lacking restaurants). Every time we ventured out to find a meal we were faced with a long trek to find somewhere, ANYWHERE to eat. It was really odd. A guy that we met at the hostel said that he was here 7 years ago and nothing had changed. It saddened him that in 10 years the progression away from Communism was so slow. He gave countless examples of this including one interesting account about a train conductor not allowing him to lay down on the train (even though it was pretty empty) because, in his opinion, the Communism of the past had forced this man into making the lives of the people just a little harder than necessary.

In Brasov, we were waiting for the train to Bucharest when a little gypsy girl walked over to us and asked for a piece of my chocolate bar (it was sticking out of the side pocket of my bag). I gave her some after a minute of thought (she was speaking Romanian) and she ran away. Ten minutes later a little boy came over (equally as small and dirty) and he had been talking with the girl. He came over to me and rubbed his belly. I gave him some, he wanted more. Then she came over again and I gave them a bit more each and told them that was it (in italian because it is closer to romanian than english). He looked like he was going to hug me, but I flinched a little and he just patted my arm as a thanks, I think. They walked away to look for more food. I wasn't sure if candy was good for them or not. I wanted to give them the whole bar in a way but didn't want to contribute to their malnutrition. They were all alone. No parents, no adults. They conducted themselves like little people. It was sad. No childhood. Lots of stray dogs, and kids walking alone here.... It's really something.

I know this happens in other countries, and my own, but the ubiquity of it makes it much more apparent.

*By the way- the howling of the dogs every single night, all night long, only adds to my feeling that yes, all stray dogs in Romania are in fact rabid. In case anyone was wondering...