Bucharest
Bucureşti
Bucharest
April 3, 2004
We caught the 9:00pm overnight Marshrutka from Chisinau to Bucharest, having no
idea what we were in for. An overweight gentleman, about 250 pounds sat next to
me and another bigger guy about 180-200 pounds sat on the other side, putting me
and crystal in between, rotating on who is allowed to place a single shoulder blade
against the back of the seat. It was at best uncomfortable and as the trip went
on it got hotter and much smellier as the guy next to me got fatter (he was eating
the entire trip).
Our driver was classic, he had a mullet and the 80’s mustache, tapered jeans, and
brought his girlfriend along, who seemed to act more as an accessory than a girlfriend.
We made a few stops along the way and I failed to notice him at all stops, but one
stop I was glued to him. We stopped at a small café on the edge of the road, he
leaned cock-eyed in his chair, his back angling from bottom left to top right, cigarette
in left hand, coffee in the right, his girl across from him, and his mullet glistening
in the neon light of the coffee shop.
We arrived in Bucharest at about 5:30am, after only getting a couple hours of sleep.
We got into town itself by 6:00 and were greeted by unfinished buildings beside
cranes, which are a constant reminder of the fall of communist when buildings were
started without money to build them. The main street copies the Champs Elysees in
Paris, but is a couple inches wider and the fountains haven't been running water
since 1989.
The house of the People is enormous, but closed so we continued on to Dunkin Doughnuts
or so the Lonely Planet said. They had recently closed however and this was my first
sign that a people not ready to accept Dunkin Doughnuts was not ready for the European
Union. We found a nearby pastry shop and ate there, then caught the subway to the
train station on the north end of town.