Day Twenty-Five/ Twenty Six

Pre-amble

Sometimes in your life you have a tea pot, filled with delicious tea. You know its delicious because you smell it, and tea tastes like it smells. However you can’t/ shouldn’t (its not proper) drink tea directly from the pot. So you decide to pour it into a glass. You are just about to complete the successful pour when your hand twitches, causing the top of the tea pot to slip off of its delicate resting place and fall into the beautiful red tea. Sometime in life you are so close to making it work and then something involuntary happens and you cause a huge mess.

This is our time in Bucharest.

Image result for can you please photoshop the sun between my fingers — Our Time in Romania, Great! But a little mistimed.

TLDR;

We had mental break downs in the airport (budapest)
We spilled some tea
We were grumpy cats
We got locked out of our airbnb twice
We hid behind a car to survive
We grumbled about the politics of Instagram.
We ate to much

Day Twenty-Five

Day 25 started approximately three hours after the last post. We got into our cab, at 3:00am (3:00 military time). We got to the airport and was met with the longest line in the world. We learned we didn’t have to stand in it, so we didn’t, and ended up being twentieth in line for security. Think about that- we were the twentieth and twenty first persons to go through security that day. *dead*

When we got to the front of the line of Visa check, once through security, Alura’s phone decided to shut down, restart, and then start a (what ended up being) fifteen minute update. It was a system update with no way to postpone it. Her boarding pass was on the phone, so we had to wait in the front of the line, lamely letting people go in front of us. One guy asked us what was up, some nice innocent bystander, and when we told him, he went “that’s nice” and then when to the security guard to get his passport stamped. Thank you man for your great insight and help. We could not have done it without you.

19389509_856831684468380_937196306_n — Useful Snapchat

We made it to our boarding gate in time and had a rather uneventful flight, despite it being 6:00 am. We landed in Bucharest and took the bus from the airport. We witnessed a very awkward LDR (long distance relationship_ reunion and went on our way. We reached the air bnb, to learn that we could not drop off our bags yet (this air bnb has proven difficult). Luckily we had planned ahead and knew the best coffee shop nearby.

We arrived at Origo looking like the two very disheveled travelers we were. We ordered our coffee in a daze and decompressed. Hannah washed her face and brushed her teeth in the men/women bathroom. Alura cried laughing/traumatized at the guy we had seen about 20 minutes earlier huffing glue. Here is photo evidence:

We returned at 11 am to the Airbnb to drop off our bags to find out that we had to leave them in the hallway, which is not locked. We are two NYC girls, not locking doors isn’t a thing we do. Taking all our valuables out of the bags we headed to lunch at Caru’ cu Bere (translates to The Beer Wagon). They were still serving breakfast and we were overcome with joy! Still dazed from being up for 7 hours already, we patiently waited for food. It came and that is when Hannah spilt her tea. There was a lot of hysterical laugh/cries involved.

Official check in for our Airbnb was at 2pm, so we wandered killing time. At 2 pm we made it to the Airbnb and pushed on the door that was supposed to be ours. It didn’t budge. We tried again. Nothing. We sat there as Alura messaged the host telling him we were here. There was no response. There was a missed call from the host even though Alura repeatedly told him her phone plan makes her pay for calls abroad. The cleaning lady came in and opened the door no problem. Hannah showered, Alura read, and then we both passed out for 3 hours.

At 6pm we took a free walking tour. We learned a lot about the city and its history.

Fun facts:

If you were planning on going to Bucharest from January-February, don’t unless you like political turmoil and protesting.
The Romanian government tried to sell a gold mountain to a Canadian (who knew we can be evil?) gold mining company [pretty sure it was called Gabriel Resources]
The Romanian government didn’t really get into the swing of democracy until 2006.
Nicolae Ceausescu destroyed the oldest part of Bucharest to build the second largest government building in the world, based off what he saw during a visit to North Korea (more on this later).
The only country in recent history to have zero debt. That being said they only got there because they exported everything and starved their denizens.
Bucharest is on the silk route .
Vlad the Impaler did some pretty great things. Mostly messed up but great things and is immortal because they never found his body.

Some photos:

19244098_856831657801716_1626336687_n — We were those doods being like, yes this is pretty.

After the walking tour we went to got food at a Romanian chain La Mama. Hannah got a cold starter of polenta and cheese with some potatoes. Over all a very white meal. Alura got the Romanian Sausages.

We went to Coffeol to get these crazy ice cream mason jar things that we saw while on the walking tour- Think Black Tap ice cream sundaes. Alura got the sad vegan version that tasted like milk water. Hannah got the snickers version, and subsequently died of a heart attack. RIP.

After that we went back to the Airbnb and continued to read our books.

Day Twenty-Six

After eleven hours of sleep we were ready to start the day.

We returned to Origo, where we were welcomed back. After some joking about being death the day before, we got some delicious breakfast and coffee. Hannah was up sold and got some delicious granola with apple crisps and yogurt. Alura got the banana bread.

After our nice breakfast, we decided to go to the Romanian Art museum. We saw the Romanian and European art galleries. Overall, this was only the side wings of the museum, you could probably spend a whole day there. Hannah made a lot of good classical art memes:

Actual Art:

Afterwards we stopped at Creamier; Hannah got a latte and Alura got some lemonade. We had a late lunch at At Hoc Bistro, which came out to a whopping $20 total. We left feeling energized and headed back to the old town.

Walking back we noticed something strange. The sky was overwhelmingly dark gray. We picked up our pace. The clouds followed. We crossed the river heading to the Palace of the Parliament. The wind picked up drastically and we turned around to see a dust storm behind us. We picked up our pace and ducked behind a car to shield ourselves from the dust. After a minute when it lulled we raced towards the Parliament building. We ran around the entire block trying to find the one entrance.

19357715_856831751135040_766056156_n — Yup. Nothing to see here. #nofilter

After turning the last corner, Hannah decided to look back. That is when we saw what we are fairly certain was a funnel cloud. We continued to run to the Parliament building and made it just in time for their last English tour of the day.

Some facts:

The palace has 1100 rooms total, but only 440 of them are used today.
It is the most expensive government building ever built (3 billion euro).
99% of the building is made with products from Romania. There are a few random doors that are wood from other places but that’s about it.
There are 2,800 total chandeliers.
Each room is themed differently so none of the rooms have repeating decorations (no identical rugs, wallpaper, chandeliers, etc).
Micheal Jackson said “Hello Budapest” from one of the balconies. He messed it up but a lot of other stars have too.

Some Photos:

In total we saw about 3% of the building, and even afterwards it seems impossible to grasp the size of the building. When we got to look out over the balcony it was completely storming. We could hear booms of thunder from within side the palace.

When we left however, the skies had cleared and it turned into a beautiful summer evening.