Before we move on from Turkish Airlines, a couple of things. We boarded in Bangkok at 10.30am (that’s “am”). By just after midday, the cabin was darkened ostensibly so people who’d had a tough morning sitting around the airport could get some well earned shut-eye. WTAF!!! In reality it’s so the flight attendants can drink coffee and gossip. I have been known to buck the system (other airlines do this) and raise my window shades. If it’s 2.00 in the afternoon, I want some natural light. But these new fangled flying machines have windows that can be darkened electronically by an unseen, unknown controller. Big Brother has invaded the skies. And then to extend the scam on guests who have been duped into thinking they are waking up after a questionable night’s sleep, they served breakfast at about 5.00pm Istanbul time. To steal a quote from Philip Roth; “You can’t bullshit me Portnoy”. Can’t end on a negative note however. The Child Bride and I were in biz class and apart from the wrinkles mentioned above, Turkish Airlines was great.
Strictly speaking, we haven’t started the River Run yet and won’t for another 4 days after we’ve had a look round Romania. Like most of the countries that spent 45 years behind the iron curtain, they’ve been re-learning wicked capitalist ways for a few decades now. Unlike most of their erstwhile comrades, the Romanians said goodbye to communism with a rather spectacular flourish by putting the dictator and his equally disgusting wife up against a wall, on Christmas Day (1989) no less. You’d think therefore, that anything remotely like our Greens Party would have been long confined to the gulag of history. But I’m here to tell you it survives in the baggage handling system at the airport. The bags come out at a speed suggesting a baggage handler walking them over one at a time from the plane to the conveyor belt. Or maybe it’s just a reflection of the time it takes to rummage through the bags which are inadvertently unlocked.
Yesterday was spent wandering around the old town of Bucharest as well as seeing some of the sights. While I wouldn’t normally consider architecture as “the sights” it’s interesting to see the contrasting styles. There’s the elegant European style of the 1800’s and early 1900’s in various stages of repair – some restored to former glories and some demonstrating Gaza chic – there’s the communist sludge that the Russians left all over Eastern Europe like so many of my childhood lego buildings and there’s the Grimms Fairytales brutalist style like the Addams Family and their relatives moved into the neighbourhood. I wonder if that last one contributed to the foreboding reputation, especially when we’re talking about Transylvania. Oh, and a few more recent glass boxes.
You can’t come to Bucharest without visiting the Parliament of the People or the Palace of the Parliament or something. Whatever it’s called, you can’t miss it as it’s the now third biggest administrative building in the world behind the Pentagon and the Thai Parliament. It should be called Ceausescu’s folly because for a number of years it hoovered up a third of Romania’s GDP on it’s construction. He deserved to be shot just for this.
Anyway that’s not the point I am trying, so far unsuccessfully to get to. The longest corridor in the whole building is 200 metres in a straight line and while we were looking down it, a very attractive young lady in high heels attempted to walk along its length. Another lady in our group and the CB made comments about being young once and not missing doing that and other girlie things which caused me to immediately stop listening. But the sight stuck with me and I later suggested that this country is endowed with an abundance of extremely attractive women. Whilst this comment was purely observational, I don’t think my extremely hot wife let me get away with it.