Bucharest in November

It's been a fun week since the last post! Lots of food, plenty of work, and sight seeing on the weekend. The weather this trip has been just about perfect for exploring the city. The leaves are changing colors, the sun is out most of the time, and the air is crisp and cool. All in all, I couldn't ask for more.

I started working in the Bucharest office on Monday. It is a very nice office building, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures. Luckily, the opening of the office got a good deal of press, and you can read an article about it.

On the week days, it's been hard to get out and do much exploring in the town. That's because the end of the work day in Romania is around 8 or 9am in San Francisco. So, just when you're ready to go home, people start coming on line and asking you questions. That's led to some late nights at the office, but that is the reason I'm here anyway.

Dinners in Romania are interesting. Normal dinner time is around 8-10pm, and when going out to dinner it's expected you'll stay awhile. For example, when trying to go to a restaurant at 6pm you may be told that all tables are reserved, even if that reservation is starting at 10pm.

The food has been a mixture of traditional Romanian food, as well as random suggested restaurants. (Ironically, burgers are very popular here. Much like the craft beer scene in the U.S., everyone is trying out different places burgers.) I've been out to different restaurants every night, some times with just Sam, other times with people from the Bucharest office. Overall, the food has been excellent.

Alright, to the fun stuff, the weekend. Saturday, we went to The Village Museum. The Village Museum is an outdoor museum of old houses in Romania.

It was very interesting to see. They had description (thankfully in English and Romanian) about the house, and how and why they were constructed. They also had old village churches and lots of exhibits on tools used in the 1800s and 1900s.

Pictured above is an old washing machine. You would place woolen garments in the cone (obviously without the leaves) and then redirect water from the river down the chute. That would cause a vortex, which would make your clothing spin. Similarly, there was also a dryer

which would be attached to a water wheel, that would turn the dryer.

It was fascinating. Below is a description of how the washing machine worked.

And another on how a press worked.

Below is a picture of the kitchen area in a home from the 1800s, look at the size of the chairs!

There was a good amount of time spent at the museum, exploring and looking a different buildings.

After the museum, we walked around a nearby Herăstrău Park, which was absolutely beautiful. The leaves were just finishing falling, so the colors lit up the sky. The picture at the top of this entry is from the park. There was a really nice skate park in the park, with kids on scooters trying to do tricks (I was very impressed with their effort, although I think my cousin Josh would've given them a run for their money), families walking through the park, and kids playing soccer in the open areas.

That picture is probably my favorite from the park. It was gorgeous.

After the park, we stopped for what I hoped would be a quick lunch, but nothing about food in Romania seems fast, so 2 hours later we walked out of the restaurant, and continued our day. We quickly saw the Arcul de Triumf, which was basically the same as what they have in Paris, but nothing too special.

With that down, and sleep deprivation coming up on me fast, it was back to the hotel for a quick nap before a late night dinner.

Saturday night, we met up with some co-workers from the Fitbit Bucharest office at Hunal cu Tei, (The Liden Inn), for dinner. We got ribs and some local Romanian beers! It was a fun night, and we learned lots of interesting facts about the country. I think I'm more up to date on Romanian politics at the moment the U.S. politics.

Sunday we started our day with a tour of the palace of the parliament. The palace of the parliament is the second largest office building in the world, second to the pentagon, so the tour was quite interesting. The building was built during the communist era of Romania, and today most of it goes unused. Apparently, the yearly maintenance cost of the building alone cost 50 million euros.

To give you a perspective on size, this is not the front of the building, it's the side. The tour was only an hour long, and consisted of only 4-5% of the building, but the inside was very ornate. Aside from the occasional bare wiring going up grand marble staircases, some cracking marble, and peeling paint, the place was incredibly beautiful.

This an a conference room in the palace that was original built as a theater. It would definitely be a beautiful theater if it were used as such.

That is the chandelier in the theater, which weighs five metric tons! Changing the light bulbs in that must be quite difficult.

One of the most interesting rooms in the building, to me, was the "human rights" room. It was original built for the communist party leaders to have discussions. A custom built circular table circles the room, with a speed camera in the middle to rotate to whom ever is talking. Unfortunately, the room is rarely used. The most prominent usage was for a NATO summit.

After the tour, we briefly stopped at the contemporary art museum which is in the palace of the parliament. I definitely enjoyed the artwork. Here are some pieces that I liked:

Following the contemporary art museum, we went to the Technological Museum, and this time were there well before they closed. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed to be taken inside the museum, but they had very cool exhibits. The entire museum was built on an old powerplant, which remnants have incorporated into the museum. There's all types of tools, from roman times to modern day. They have the whole history of electricity on display, as well as engines and motors. You can see the inside of the old electrical generated the used to be in the building. (It's gigantic!)

As a final stop for the day, we walked to some street vendors in Carol Park (which is right next to the technology museum) and I ended up buying a chess set for park home. At this point, we both went back to the hotel for a breather. Sam wasn't feeling great, so he stayed in the hotel, I wandered through the city.

Bucharest is an interesting city. It has some very nice areas, and some very run down areas. However, the city seems very safe. Apparently, a few years ago they had a problem with stray dogs in the city but we've only seen one or two since we got here. There's graffiti everywhere in the city though.

Those two pictures are taken in regular neighborhoods. Even their university buildings have it!

Then, back to the hotel for some more rest, and writing of this article. So far, I've been very impressed with Bucharest. Tonight, hopefully, I'll catch up on some lost sleep. Looking forward to the coming week!