Day 1: Bucharest and the Lingering Scars of Communism

After a 17-hour travel day with a stop in Heathrow, we finally arrived in Bucharest...which, according to most reports, is a crumbling Communist hole. Though I like to make my own opinions about travel, those reports are right--the city looks like it just came out of a war, with run-down block apartments everywhere and then a very small old town with some of what Bucharest looked like pre-Communism remaining. The old town used to be much larger, until Romania's Communist dictator Ceaucescu decided it would be a great idea to blow up whole city blocks and replace them with block housing. Ceaucescu was the only Communist dictator removed by violent force when Communism fell, and he was one of the most (if not the most) brutal of the dictators, especially after he was inspired by a trip to North Korea to turn his entire country into a work camp. Happily, he didn't get too far with that plan before he and his wife were executed by firing squad.

Because we were tired and it wasn't incredibly picturesque, we didn't take too many pictures other than from the car--the Palace of the Parliament (which is the largest administrative building in the world) and then a random apartment block. Looks like a super cool vacation so far, right??




It gets better, and we did have some great food at Aubergine--Taylor had some lamb chops, I had eggplant pasta, and we also had a starter with hummus, babaganoush, eggplant caviar, and chicken liver.
 

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