Exploring Bucharest on foot

Wednesday, September 11, 2012

It's past 11am when we reluctantly wake up. Outside the sun is shining brightly and we can see a few people moving around in the streets wearing either shirts and pants or jackets and shorts. We conclude it must be a mixture of cold and hot and select our clothes accordingly. On our walk from the hotel we see the first of many charming grafiti paintings

It's 2pm when we realize we haven't had breakfast and, when asked, a young woman in an exchange place suggests we head for the nearby Cişmigui gardens, where we have fresh orange juice, an espresso, and an omelette in the Montecarlo restaurant recommended by Radu Boghan. We learn here that in relation to expressos, 'mica' means small and 'mara' means large, and that whether you take cream with your coffee or not, it will be charged to your bill.

While we devour our food, we watch young kids cavort in rowboats on the lake, and later we marvel at the black - and white - swans similarly cavorting in a busy pond further into the park. Once outside the park we find ourselves in an upscale neighborhood, (a Gucci store and the Plaza Atheneé are good indicators), which we cross through on our quest for a Sim-card, eventually found on a busier thoroughfare. Romanian is a bit like Icelandic. You feel - for various historical reasons - you should be able to understand this, but you don't! Spoken Romanian is soft, pleasing and untelligible. The other remarkable thing about Romanians is that in spite of being invariably courteously they almost never return your smile. Coming from Rio this is very strange, but I have now read a bit of Romanian history, and maybe I wouldn't be smiling either if that was part of my background. Man, these people really suffered! One horror story after the other.

We take a breather at a very cool coffee place, Coffeepedia, because of the humorous graffiti adorning the wall:

Then, refreshed by excellent cappuchinis and freshly bakes 'pains de chocolats', we continue our walk through the historical area. We notice the proliferation of Danish beer, Tuborg and Carlsberg, the latter with the very Danish sales line: "Probably the best beer in the world." Who else would say 'probably?' In any case, at the end of a long walk past several monuments and churches, we find one of the many inviting open-air bars and have ourselves a large draught Tuborg each. Then we head home to the hotel, for a while skirting the Dâmbovita river and admiring the buildings on the other side.

After a rest in the hotel air-co we realize that it is Romanian time for dinner - almost 9pm - and head out to find the Rough Guide recommended restaurant Malagamba in the old city - a surprisingly full warren of table and umbrella covered alleys. We have to walk trhough many streets until we finally find our restaurant, but are rewarded by a delicious Italian dinner and our first rather nice Romanian Chardonnay. While we sit a serious little girl bearing a huge bunch of dark red roses stops at our table. We want to help her by buying one, but are startled by her firm insistence on 10 lei - almost 3 euros.
In the course of our meal we have been listening to the live voice of a female vocalist nearby, and after dinner we cross the road to enter 'La Historia', where a young Romanian woman is seated on a barstool singing American standards, and even some Bossa Nova, accompanied by and excellent pianist.

This is why we decide to have an Irish whiskey, and, when the musicians take a long time to return from a break, another one. We don't know this now, but those two late cups of coffee will wake us up at 3am and never let us sleep again. In the meantime we have our first experience of being cheated by a taxidriver. We've been told to look for a certain number on the side, and the driver we find when we exit, assures us he is legitimate, poiting to the very number. Only thing is he has turned his taximeter around to face the side of his car, and thus a ride, which cost 7 lei coming out turns out to be 30 lei coming back. http://www.flickr.com/photos/siric/sets/72157631519760588/