Bucharest - just a business trip, that was all I had in mind.......................

Just a short trip to Bucharest, that’s what I had in mind when I left Austria for a business trip to Romania (had to train a few people there). I have been to some eastern cities before (Moscow, Prague, Budapest, ...) but Bucharest is different. When the airplane was landing, I saw like 300 small construction yards next to the airport. Who would ever build a house next to an airport? (For all Australian lovers stop at this point and watch the movie “The Castle” ). After discovering that the bus doors are defect, I saw that 1/3 of front window was taped with ordinary brown tape -  then I arrived at the airport buildings .............

……….. Yes I am still at the airport, I approached THE band-conveyor. It was the second smallest I've seen in my life - Next to the one which I saw in Proserpine (There you picked you belongings directly from a trolley parked at the car park. The small luggage car drove to the car park and people took it from there - but back to Romania). The band was about less then 8 meters long and over 150 people where queuing around of it. Yes your are right, it took me a while until I got even close to my bags. That's why you have small hand luggage for business trips only (another movie recommondation: Up in the air).

I decided to take a cap to the hotel, which was nice, the taxi driver drove me along a couple of huge villas and some interessting places. Then the surrounding turned darker and darker and darker and darker -  until the concrete of the buildings had the same colour of the road. I had an little unpleasant felling that I have arrived my “final” destination.

It took less than 15 minutes form the airport to my hote. And the cab rates was a little bit cheaper than back home. (Next day people will tell me that I payed about 4 times more than necessary for the taxi ride. I really though 20 Euros was okay :-) On the way back I’ll discover that I can have a 45 minutes cap drive for about 10 Euros as well. The hotel itself was like any other business hotel, which could have been anywhere else like Austria, Netherlands, England.

Most surprise I got a "room with a view" , really - on the opposite side there was an abandoned house, with broken windows - good that the assistent booked the right house on that road - it looked very uncomfy. (The reason why quite a number of buildings in Bukarest are abandoned ore in bad shape - has to do with the past of the country. Romania was ruled by a dictator, he expropriated many owners and some ownerships haven't been cleared since that time).

Two friends of mine which moved to Romania a few years ago, showed me a little bit around. If you just want to see the major buildings you will pleased to know that you’ll be finished after 1 hours (when driving with a car). We walked through the old part of the town. We ended up in restaurant called "Cere cu Bere" which is probably one of the nicest and oldest restaurant in Bucharest.

On the way to backto Austira  I had a long chat with the cab driver, about 45 minutes. He couldn’t speak German, English or Russian and I didn’t understand Romanian or Italian, but still it was one of the funniest conversations I ever had. I somehow managde to understand that his president was studying together with a former Russian president (not sure if he said Jelzin or Gorbatschov) and he told me where he was standing during oen of the demonstration during the revolution.

I like unperfected places and that’s why I enjoyed Bucharest. So thumbs up for Romania, looking forward to see more. Next time I’ll try to spend more time in Romania. I am thinking of 2 weeks, one travelling around and another week on the beach.