So this is officially my three month traveling mark. I have (nearly) two more months to go, but I wish it was twenty. Part of me can’t believe it’s been three whole months, because it’s flown by so fast, but part of me can’t believe it’s been only three months because I feel like my life has completely turned upside-down and in a lot of ways I feel like a different person. I’ve met more people in these few months than I would normally meet in a year back home, and in this time I’ve traveled to fifteen countries, none of which I had ever been to before. I’ve completely changed my plans (I’m in Eastern Europe, now, kids- was never on the menu!) and done a lot of things I was scared to do.
But before I get too sentimental…Yo yo yo. This is Bucharest, yo. It’s been an adventure and a half here, so I guess I can tell you what I did or something. If you’re interested, or whatever. *passive aggressively shrugs*
AHEM. Day one: I slept in until noon because I’m a piece of shit and felt terrible and exhausted. I missed the walking tours so instead I thought wandering around would be a good compromise (it wasn’t). But the cool thing was that I took the metro (only slightly scary) to the market, which was nuts. There were tons of huge buildings and absolutely no signage, so I could only find where I was going by guessing. There were booths upon booths of fresh produce, and meat, fish, the whole shebang. And then there was like a giant building that was filled with zillions of booths of stuff. Scarves, handbags, clothes, off-brand shoes, even some booths filled completely with toiletries. I didn’t buy anything; I just wandered and looked.
I grabbed some food at a supermarket and headed home to read, snuggle with one of the hostel cats, and drink some tea (they have a TEA ROOM WHAT). I met a couple of cool cats (not actual cats, human cats that were actually human Aussies) and we bonded over a mutual love of reading. All the hostel employees are BAMF; they’re not only super nice and helpful, but fun and great to talk to and hang out with. It seems like every hostel I go to becomes my home; it’s always so hard to leave and I can never believe how quickly I get close to everyone. Anyway.
That evening we basically drank and played cards and had a grand old time. I wasn’t supposed to drink because like, I was sick and that was probably from drinking too much, but whoops sometimes things happen. I stayed up much later than was intended, but it’s all good.
I was really proud of myself because I actually woke up for a 10:30 walking tour. I learned some cool stuff about Bucharest, none of which I can recall at the moment for your reading pleasure, so you’re just going to have to trust me that I actually went on it. OH I remember something. There was this crazy ruler in the 1400’s called like Vladimir the Impaler or some shit, and in order to keep them from being overrun, he impaled some 20,000 people. I also learned what impaling is: they stick a fucking giant stick into a live dude’s ANUS, put it up straight so they slide down because of their body weight, and somehow it misses all their vital organs and they can live up to 48 hours WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ANYONE OH MY GOD.
After the walking tour, I was tired because walking around for three hours earlier than I normally wake up is, well, tiring. So I read in the tea room, cried that the cats didn’t want to snuggle with me, and accidentally fell asleep for a bit because apparently that’s all I do.
And that evening was a very intense night of cards. Specifically my favorite game in the world, Egyptian Rat Screw, which I haven’t lost in ages. And won many times in a row which was super exciting. We ordered some food, I ate half of a veggie pizza, and we had a great night. Especially because 2.5 liters of beer is like, $1.50.
The next day, I went to the Holocaust museum and memorial with my two Aussie friends. It was really tiny, just document-covered walls of one of the only two synagogues in the city. But as always, it was really hard to look at all the photos and just to remember what happened. A lot of it was in Romanian so I couldn’t understand it, but the one thing that really got to me was a document of a list of names of people that had been killed, and their ages. There was a three year old. Fifteen, sixteen, twenty-six. A little boy was listed as “zero.” I can’t understand how anyone could have enough hatred in their hearts to be able to ruthlessly murder so many people – especially children.
We sat down in a cafe for awhile to discuss and reflect, and my friend was given the wrong smoothie, which was disgusting (beets instead of berries). We went back home for lunch, and then a couple of us went to Therme- which is the thermal baths in Bucharest.
It was a little bit of a pain to get to – we walked to the metro, to get to a bus stop, which had a direct shuttle. But once we were there? Ho. Ly. Shit. It was without a doubt one of the nicest, fanciest places I’ve ever been in (and it only cost $15USD). The main part was a beautiful, clean warm pool, with little jacuzzi areas that were connected to it and a swim-up bar. There was a revolving door you could go through while still in the pool, which took you outside. There, they had some more jacuzzi pools, jacuzzi chairs, and showery things. Plus, the whole thing had beautiful underwater lights, and the inside part had palm trees everywhere, zillions of reclining beach chairs, and a glass ceiling so you still felt like you were outside. The other part (that we went into) was a WATERSLIDE PARK. There was a wave pool, and like five huge water slides, a couple medium sized ones for a little bit younger kids, and a couple of kiddie ones also. All of this was still indoors, and all of it was spotlessly clean. And the water slides were SO GOOD.
Full disclosure: as much as I love rollercoasters, water slides always have (and probably always will) scare me. But I say yes to EVERYTHING. I went on every single big slide, having no idea what they even looked like because it was hard to see the slide trajectory. One of the tube ones was TERRIFYING: part of it was a near vertical drop and I was positive I was going to die. But…it was also fun. I even went on a (VERY SCARY) body slide, which scare me even more than tube slides.
We spent about four incredible hours at Therme, and it was one of the best places I’ve ever been. Yeah, it was super touristy and resort-y, but I don’t get to do that kind of stuff a whole lot. We had so much fun, and didn’t even spend a lot of money.
While we were there, we were hanging out with a couple of American guys we had met at the bus stop. Both of them were traveling- one of them for quite some time, about seven months. We were staying at hostels pretty close together, and when we finished up we decided to split a cab together, and there was a long line of them outside. We asked the first one if he spoke English – he didn’t. But then he was like (in Spanish) but I speak Spanish! And everyone kind of looked at him blankly. THIS IS THE PART I’M SUPER PROUD OF AND IF YOU CONGRATULATED ME ON IT I WOULDN’T BE MAD: I started talking to him in Spanish. Like, not terribly. Even though I’m totally out of practice. And we understood each other. And I was the ONLY one who could speak any modicum of Spanish out of the four of us, and it was so cool to be the one like, communicating and translating- that’s NEVER me. We ended up going with another driver after he wouldn’t haggle with me, but it totally made my night knowing that I could do that.
In the cab, things got uncomfortable. Basically, we started talking about something that shouldn’t have been controversial at all: privilege. Like, obviously we are all privileged to the extent that we have the ability to travel. And for some reason he couldn’t understand that. Also, being an American, and white, and a male, you are like the MOST privileged. He argued that the reason he was able to travel was that he worked a lot and made his life so he could, which is true, and which is what people do, and that’s great. But so so so so many people never have that opportunity, through no fault of their own. It kind of blew my mind that this concept was so foreign to them.
When we got home that night, we just crashed; not only were we exhausted from our day, but we had to get up super early for today! We (me, the two Aussies, another American and a Romanian) rented a car and drove up to see some castles and shit!
Our morning start was kind of a dud: we ended up having to take the metro to meet our friends at the airport where the car rental was, because traffic was so bad. We got separated and we don’t all have internet on our phone so it was a whole thing…ANYWAY, we eventually made it, all five of us piled into a tiny car, and away we drove.
Our first stop was this old abandoned prison which was cool and definitely not open. We snuck in through a wall with a huge hole in it and climbed through a window to get all the way in. It was super creepy, which wasn’t helped by the constant sound of a chainsaw (which we were grateful for because it helped to hide our sounds). The whole experience was very exciting, especially because we got found and yelled at and had to quickly leave. LIFE IS EXCITING THAT WAY.
Another hour down the road lay the Peles Castle. It’s…a fancy shmancy castle. So beautiful. Plus, we got in for a quarter of the normal price because we were “students.” There was so much ornate detail, and a harp was just sitting in the middle of one of the rooms (???). I’m not explaining this well because I’m quite exhausted, but it was truly such a cool experience to walk through. Except the tour guide spoke in Romanian so we were mostly like …
We drove up a mountain to a lookout point, which was breathtaking. Snowcapped mountains, icy tree limbs, evergreens dusted with snow…it was surreal. And then we got some good eats from a Romanian guy barbecueing up there. Good times.
Tonight I’m just…trying not to die from this cough and sore throat (thanks tonsillitis!) and packing my bag for yet another flight tomorrow. I’m sick of flying. Someone make it stop. I need to be somewhere for like, a few weeks. Anyone care to host me?