Birthdate Abroad (third consecutive year)

Weekend 4 - May 21 - 24

Last workweek was very short as I took Wednesday and Friday off (Thursday is a holiday) and my roommates and I in Kehl flew to Bucharest, Romania until Sunday. We’ve booked a hostel and can get pretty reasonable flights on discount websites. So – this year, with another ring around the tree, I celebrated Romanian style and arrived back in Switzerland for the remainder of the day. This was my first trip to Eastern Europe and it was memorable – definitely had the best Shaorma there! I had traditional Romanian food, which included chiorba, soup with a side of hot peppers and lots of meat and potatoes.

Best shwaorma to date - Take5

Cismigu Park near our hostel

Parked cars in Bucharest - I am perplexed how they get out of their parking spot

I went to a Romanian theatre production even with a language barrier and apparently it was a comedy. Later, we went to the roof top bar of the National Theatre and drank Ursus beers and Fanta. It was especially good to meet the locals because they have pride in their country but are juxtaposed in the EU debacle having been recognized as an EU country, but have not converted to euros yet due to the instability of the Romanian lei. The old people speak French as a second language and the young speak English. They were identifying with what they call the ‘crisis’, referring to the world’s current economic situation as the real estate and land ownership has crashed. It was most enthralling and appalling to hear about the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu’s destruction and relocation of people to build the parliament building in Bucharest, the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon, resulting in massive national debt and starvation. The current government is run by the some of the same communist leaders as before under the new title of ‘opportunists’. I’ve only hit the tip of Romania’s cultural, political and economic iceberg having only been there 5 days, and it seems much deeper.

Parliment building

Revolutionary Square

We also went to Vama Veche, a ‘more liberal’ town near the coast of the Black Sea for 2 days. We were a little pre-tourist season but could lounge out in the sun on the ‘liberal’ beaches and ventured really close to Bulgaria where we were confronted by border guards. We ate ice cream on the way back and I had lots of chocolate because that is what is served on Swiss air flights.

Poppy blowing in the wind near the Black Sea

Sunrise in Vama Veche over the Black Sea