marți, 16 septembrie 2008

Summer Trip 2008: Romania (The Conclusion)

Lots of people live by the Black Sea. Plenty of peoples speak a romantic language. German architecture can be found throughout central Europe. I’m sure we can all name some nations that claim to be descendents of the ancient Romans. But the fact that each of these elements blend together to form Romania makes it a truly remarkable country to visit. It didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t expect too much or too little from Romania. Rather, my expectations were in the absolute wrong place to begin with. Located in the world where it is, you wouldn’t expect Romania to exist at all.

The incredible portrait-drawing Mizuma

The incredible portrait-drawing Mizuma

Romania from the Bulgarian border to Bucharest has a sort of Depression-era Texas feel to it. It’s flat, grassy, and rusting oil derricks litter the countryside. I passed the time talking to other travelers on the Bulgaria-Bucharest route, and a retired Japanese phys-ed teacher traveling around the Balkans painting landscapes drew our portraits. As the sun was setting, we pulled into the rather poor outskirts of Bucharest. There to welcome our train was a group of children playing in the street. One girl, seeing the train, looked up and screamed something that sounded like, “EEEAAAGGGHHH!!!” Then all the other kids looked our way. Some threw rocks.

The Palace of Parliament

The Palace of Parliament

Initially, I didn’t plan to spend any time in Bucharest and catch the first train to Brasov. But because the train from Bulgaria was so late (about four hours late), we didn’t arrive in time for the last connection. And this is why I spent half and hour wandering the poorly lit streets near Gară de Nord with a Swiss, a Brit, and another American, looking for some obscure hostel. In the end, we found the hostel, got dinner at midnight, and walked around central Bucharest in the early morning hours. I had heard a number of things about Bucharest, but not much positive. However, in those wee hours, I can say the sheer scale of the city appealed to me. The desire to build massive, Roman-like structures in unmistakable. Much of the time, this results in impressive, column-adorned buildings lining piaţas featuring trendy boutiques and restaurants. Sometimes, though, it results in monstrosities. Case-in-point: the Palace in Parliament, the second largest building in the world. Romania’s last and eventually executed “communist” leader, Nicolae Ceauşescu, destroyed a huge portion of historic Bucharest in the 1980s to make room for it. And it is monstrous.

The next day it was off through the lower end of the Carpathian Mountains to Transylvania, more specifically Braşov. There I was able to again use my PC connections to stay with a Romania volunteer, the very hospitable Jason. Braşov, to me, is like a smaller Krakow with German architecture and built between some low mountains. A beautifully maintained medieval old town, a large central square, numerous churches and plenty of cafes make it a wonderful place to visit. A few miles away is Bran, where the so-called Dracula’s castle is located. From the outside, it may look like it fits the part, but the interior is has all the spookiness of Victorian summer cottage.

Town Hall in Braşov

Braşov center

Braşov center

Building facade in Braşov

Building facade in Braşov

Braşov

Braşov

The evil "Dracula's" castle...

Bran "Dracula's" Castle: it may look kind of spooky on the outside...

...but inside, not so much.

Bran Castle

Bran Castle

Voronets Monastery, Bucovina

Voronets Monastery, Bucovina region

My last couple days in Romania were spent in Suceava, in the Southern Bucovina region near the Ukraine-Romania border. The area is famous for its painted monasteries, the two most well-known of which I managed to see via a combination of buses, walking, and hitchhiking. The monestaries were built deep in remote, difficult to access places to prevent them from being attacked by various Muslim armies coming up through the Balkans. The region also features the same beautiful Carpathian Mountain farmer life that exists just across the border, throughout southwestern Ukraine.

Voronets Monastery, Bucovina region

Voronets Monastery, Bucovina region

Bucovina region

Bucovina region

Horse and cart in Bucovina region

Horse and cart in Bucovina region

All in all, Romania was a complete surprise. Imagine a people that look Italian, a romantic language with Slavic influences, and an entire region where villages look German. Oh, and all of this comes together in Eastern Europe, between several nations of Slavs and the Magyars in Hungary. Just bizarre. But fascinating…

My final afternoon in Romania, I went to the Suceava bus station, found the once-daily bus to Ukraine, and took a seat. The bus was about 30 years old. All the windows, which were covered with homemade curtains, remained closed despite the oppressive heat. People were speaking that strange but familiar mix of Ukrainian and Russian. A bleach-blonde girl in front of me, sitting next to her mullet-wearing boyfriend, started blaring pop music on her cell phone (as young people in Ukraine are often prone to do—I attribute it to that same impulse experienced by American youths that feel the need to blast music from small, brightly colored Japanese cars with absurdly overpowered stereos). A grandmother sent her grandson out to collect apples recently fallen from a nearby tree, lest they go to waste. And none of this seemed remotely unusual. These were my people. I was headed back to the homeland.

До дому!

До дому!