Bucharest has been nice. The bus ride from Constanta was long, broken up by a quick rest stop at which we (naturally) found the cache. Our guide, who we had for Friday’s bus ride, Saturday’s tour and Sunday’s ride to the airport, has been middle-of-the-road in terms of quality….a sad commentary on the quality of the guides we’ve had, most of whom could improve considerably on their “read the room” skills to know when critical mass of their audience is bored. On the bus he droned on in great detail about specific parts of Romanian history, especially late 1989, but that was reasonable and we were a captive audience. Providing exactly the same information, almost to the word in parts, on today’s tour was very frustrating.
After the rest stop, several of us played various bus games: Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Woops, Johnny, Woops, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny; “I know” for which two examples are “I know Romania but I don’t know Hungary” and “I know Ontario but I don’t know Canada”; horse horse (one announces “horse horse” when one sees a horse, then counts the # of horses, one announces “bury your horses” when one sees a cemetery and everyone else resets to zero horses….someone was smug about seeing a cemetery but very disappointed when I spotted a horse moments later); and the riddle “The music stopped. She died.”
As we approached Bucharest it was obvious we were near a big city, about 1.8 million people live here which is almost 10% of Romania’s population (19 million). We saw a Subaru dealership (though I’m not certain I’ve actually seen any Subarus) and an IKEA.
After dropping our luggage at the hotel and scrambling to get lunch (David and I ended up eating in the bus), many of us rebounded the bus to tour the Spring Palace, the former private residence of Nicolae Ceausescu. Disgustingly opulent and ostentatious, especially the contrast with how Romanians were living. Not sure if I’m glad I went, but it was interesting on some levels.
Then six of us went to dinner. We found a cafe with an outdoor table. The price of a steak seemed impressively affordable so I decided to get a T-Bone. It was fabulous, and David helped me finish it. Unfortunately, when the check arrived it turned out that the price was probably per 100g, so it was a much more expensive dinner than I’d planned (still less than $100US for both David and me, including beverages)….but part of travel is making amusing mistakes, and this could have been an impressive one. Oops. After dinner the group split up, and David and I walked for a bit as I hadn’t yet reached my daily steps goal, and shockingly (not) we found a few caches. Go figure.
In contrast to yesterday’s tour where I had mixed feelings, I did not have mixed feelings about today’s tour. A total bust. Well, perhaps not bust isn’t exactly the right word. IMHO, the most interesting part of the tour was when we walked behind a statue of a horse (one whose photo is required for a virtual cache) and, in a firm grasp of the obvious moment, and probably not using an “indoor voice,” I announced that it was a “boy horse.” David didn’t dispute my conclusion, but was more than a little surprised that I voiced it, and his blush was rather endearing. I wouldn’t want to implicate anyone, but the “boy horse” might have come up in conversation later in the day accompanied by similar blushes. Ending the tour at a restaurant owned by a friend of the tour guide was the final straw for me.
After the tour David, June and I wandered together for a bit before David decided he’d hit the wall and needed some downtime. June and I found lunch and a couple of caches and also had encounters with two separate non-geocacher couples from our cruise. At the last cache we were looking then noticed three others behaving like cachers so we asked if they were geocaching. Turned out that the three included a woman from France who had cached a bit before, her female friend from Spain who had just downloaded the geocaching app in the past couple of days, and their Romanian tour guide who hadn’t really cached before. June spotted the cache quickly, earning great admiration from the Europeans who were also impressed at how long we’d been caching, and June made sure to share my alternate caching identify with them. They mentioned seeing someone in a white geocaching shirt earlier and I said I though it was my boyfriend. I took and posted a picture of the chancer encounter, we chatted for a bit, then took them to the cache June had just found (David and I had found it yesterday evening) — so fun to meet other cachers unexpectedly, and especially fun to have a group of five cachers from five different countries.
That seemed like a perfect way to conclude the time with June and see if I could persuade David to come explore more of Bucharest. He was quite agreeable. We visited Cișmigiu gardens, a large, well-used park not far from our hotel and as we were leaving bumped into two cachers from our group who we walked with for a bit before going our separate ways. A few minutes later we spied a group of three cachers from our group who were delighted to have just spotted a cache they’d been looking for so we were able to sign that log. Finally we spotted two others from our group shortly before heading back to the hotel. I’ve had a few days like this afternoon, where there are lots of cachers from the same group exploring the same area, and it’s always special to see others from the group. The scientist in me thinks it would be fascinating to use GPS technology to see how cachers move in small groups, combine to form bigger groups, re-form into new smaller groups, etc.
Another first today: date night on a Landsharkz adventure. David and I decided to try Romanian food and went to the same large restaurant in Old Town that several in our group had tried the night before. After reviewing the extensive bilingual menu, we each decided to get the Hunters Dinner, which turned out to be a venison rib steak, polenta, baked potatoes, carrots and pickled beats. Fantastic, one of best venison meals I’ve eaten.
Naturally after such a feast we had to have dessert. We left the restaurant to return to a place that looked interesting on the Main Street. There was quite a line, which we took to be a good thing. The menu on the wall inside was only in Romanian, but it was posted in English outside. We chose to get Scovergă — essentially a hot piece of fry bread surrounding a filling and folded almost like a burrito. David’s peach preserves/jam scovergă was quite good, my strawberry preserves/jam one even better. The perfect street food for a chilly evening, especially one with lots of people around.
Why lots of people? Seems this weekend is the Bucharest International Light Festival. A newspaper blurb describes it this way: “The program includes artistic installations, video mapping projections, holograms, exhibitions, and interactive installations.” But that hardly does justice to it. Imagine a busy street blocked off for at least four blocks with pedestrians filling the streets and sidewalks. Now imagine buildings serving as computer screens for impressive graphics, often accompanied by music. Also imagine a few disco balls well above part of the street, with light shining on them such that the street, sidewalks and nearby buildings seem to have colored miniature flying saucers on them. Imagine a certain boy horse statue that’s “decorated” in lights so that the horse and rider appear to have different costumes on. There were other exhibits, too, but those were the most memorable.
I need to wrap this up now as our bus arrives at oh dark thirty to travel to Istanbul tomorrow. Making the safe bet that I will find a cache there, it will be the 49th country in which I’ve found a cache and (at least) my 50th country as I visited Thailand before geocaching started.
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