Romania

Rambling River Run Repeat #3

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We just racked up another first for the Child Bride – first time in Bulgaria. Let me rephrase that – first visit to Bulgaria. I’ve been here once, I think. Let me explain. Many years ago a colleague and I came here to sign a contract. I was an observer but still partook of the warm, celebratory champagne at 9.00am followed by copious bottles of Bulgarian red wine until they poured us onto our flight that afternoon. It may have been a dream but I’m pretty sure there’s a (fax) paper trail somewhere to prove it all happened.

Our first voyage on the luxurious boat we now temporarily call home was literally across the Danube River from Giurgiu in Romania to Ruse in Bulgaria. Interestingly Ruse is called “Little Vienna”. I have no idea why. Most of the buildings we saw are what they call panel blocks – typical soviet style aparment buildings made from pre-fabricated concrete slabs with the character of gravel. I guess this is what the crappiest part of Vienna looks like. But at least the buildings in Ruse are habitable. Out in the countryside it looks like the Red Army just passed through like a cyclone through Legoland. Most of the buildings don’t look like they’ve been maintained since before they were built. Then we got to Arbanasi and an area nicknamed “Beverley Hills” where the Bulgarian big-shots including the former communist president (everyone is equal but some are more equal etc etc) have holiday homes. Talk about a contrast.

Speaking of contrasts, we’ve driven through plenty of pristine agricultural land in both Romania and Bulgaria and fingers crossed so far and let’s hope it continues,  we’ve encountered zero of those horrendous windmills. You know the ones. The ones that consume more power in their construction and operation than they will ever generate. And after they die, the poor old landowner is left to deal with the carcass that’s left. Don’t get me started. Fortunately we’re not in Germany because there they’re as common as bums, littering the landscape like empty beer cans at a football stadium. I don’t know about Bulgaria but Romania has nuclear and hydro which exempt them from implementing the incredibly moronic energy policies so loved by equally moronic Australian politicians.

Despite economic difficulties, Bulgaria must be in a golden social age right now. They’ve seen off communism and prior to that had to put up with regular and varied periods of Ottoman occupation, or as present day Ottomans like to call it, “migration”. Then as now, the Ottomans thought of ingenious ways to bludge off the local population. For example, if a Bulgarian offered food to an Ottoman, the Bulgarian would be taxed for the wear and tear inflicted on the Ottoman’s teeth. God help us if Australia’s treasurer Chalmers starts to think like an Ottoman.

Rambling River Run Repeat #2

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Before we leave Bucharest we need to acknowledge something as culturally precious to the Romanians as a ute is to an Australian tradie and a Ferrari is to an Arabian prince, a hockey puck is to a Canadian, a casino is to a Chinese granny and a spiked dog collar is to a German swinger and that’s beer. On our first night in Bucharest, the Child Bride and I found a pub a couple of staggering minutes from our hotel. The choice of beers was as extensive as a Kardashian arse with the minimum alcohol content at a heady 5% and most in the 6-6.5% range. The highest was 16%. Light beer is for communists. After four rather substantial glasses, I was ready for a lie down.

We’re now out and about, or if we were Canadian (there they are again), oot and aboot. We know Romania is famous (infamous?) for gypsies and I thought they lived in brightly coloured wooden caravans pulled by horses or hillbilly trucks. It seems that when they are not on the road they actually live in what were once considered to be houses. House pride is not something that would get them into the culture list above. You can tell a gypsy’s home because there’s a bloke who looks like Borat sitting on the remnants of a couch in the front yard surrounded by life’s debris. There’s more shit outside the house than in it. I know this because you can’t fit that much shit into the Palace of the Parliament, let alone a windowless hovel.

We knew it would be cold here in the Transylvanian Carpathian Mountains but it snowed yesterday and will likely do so again today. This was not in the fine print from what I remember and I didn’t bring my beanie and big coat. I have a Korean winter golf hat which has a fold-down flap to cover your ears, but only half of them so it I bump my head it’s likely my ear lobes will fall off.

We visited two castles in the last two days. The first, Peles Castle is more of a palace, like an ornate wooden version of the Hermitage in St Petersburg, on the inside. The outside is rather more extravagant than the box like Hermitage. It was also built relatively recently, like after the Ottomans had been vanquished although it’s doing nothing to stop the Ottoman invasion of Europe currently underway. Bran Castle or Vlad the Impaler’s castle or Dracula’s castle, depending on your preference, is more your neo-barbarian style. It has the swirling turrets and was built up rather than out to protect a pass at the border between Wallachia and Transylvania by the Teutonic Knights in the 12th century. This was long before it supposedly housed blood sucking ghouls which didn’t occur until Bram Stoker (who never visited the place) wrote his book. Vlad did make a significant contribution to the bloodthirstyness of the areas reputation by inserting sharp logs into people he didn’t like or even didn’t know, such was his apparent indifference. And it was actually built to collect taxes, not the blood of wild eyed, bare necked totty.

We spent two nights in Brasov (preferred pronunciation – “bras off”) after Bucharest and it was from here that we visited said castles. If you ignore the communist influence and focus on the pre – Stalin/Ceausescu architecture it’s a very attractive city, if rather cold. But the CB and I did find a a place in the middle of the town square, serving beers, wine and pizzas with a generous helping of gas heater which made a significant contribution to my “would I like to live here” survey which is conducted everywhere I go, if only subconsciously. The answer was…..

Rambling River Run Repeat #1

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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.