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travel

A few days in bucharest

August 4, 2016

Hey everyone!

Due to a mix-up with my train to Sighișoara, I now have some time to write about my stay in Bucharest!

The first thing I’ll say is that it was hot. Ridiculously so. I thought I was dying in Baia Mare but it turns out I’d never felt true pain until a few days ago, when I was roasting in a park with temperatures hitting 37°C. Grim. This kind of weather also led to me developing some rather fetching tan lines, namely a horrendous flip flops/slip-on plimsolls combo.

Anyways, I’m sure for you non-Brits, the heat isn’t an issue, so let’s move onto fun things to do in the capital!

As you probably all know, I’m a bit of a sucker for art galleries. One of the best-known galleries in Bucharest is the National Museum of Art of Romania (which is housed in the former royal palace, so the building itself is lush) and I spent pretty much all of Sunday in there. It contains a mix of medieval and modern Romanian art, but there’s also the European Museum Art Gallery, which has some pretty cool international works- my favourite was their selection of Rodin sculptures.

Just opposite the museum, in Revolution Square, there was also a small pop-up art exhibition. Some of the pieces were a little odd, e.g there was a plastic butt sticking out of a hole cut into a portaloo, but I really loved the painted installations with little integrated windows.

On the last day, whilst we were looking around the parliament buildings, we also came across the Romanian Contemporary Art Museum. It’s spread over four floors (but there’s an elevator!) and has various exhibitions by different artists. My favourite exhibition was one entitled ‘Normality, such a brutal word!’, which was an exploration into disabilities and ableism. To give the visitor a more immersive experience,  there was an option to ‘assume a disability’ before entering- I chose a wheelchair. having restricted movement and trying to navigate the exhibition space really makes the visitor think about the prejudice disabled people face day to day. 

I honestly enjoyed the exhibits in this museum a lot more than I thought I would. Usually, I don’t like contemporary art as much as modern art because it feels more contrived and conceptual and I tend to struggle to understand it. However, every exhibition in this museum was beautifully curated and it felt like most pieces had a thoughtful and meaningful story behind them.

Apart from visiting galleries, we spent our time chilling in various parks. We ate lunch in the gardens in front of the Romanian Athenaeum one day and on another day, we visited Cișmigiu Gardens.

Nevertheless, my favourite was by far Herăstrău Park. It was quite far away from where we were staying, so we had to get the metro (v cheap- a 2 trip ticket is 5 lei/£1) but it was definitely worth the out-of-the-way journey. The lake was huge and we only managed to walk around half the park. I saw people cycling past and I’m sure if we had found where to rent the bikes, we could have seen the entire place, but we didn’t because we’re amateur tourists lol.

One of the things I liked about this park was that there were busts of famous historical figures dotted around. It was quite nice to have a series of things to spot as you meander through a 1.1 km² grassy expanse.

There was also a skate park fairly near the entrance to the park, so I wasted a lot of time watching teenage boys try and fail to do cool tricks. There was one particular boy who was stuck on the highest ramp because he was too scared to skate down. I ended up wasting 45 minutes watching him, only to see him eventually climb down the ramp without even attempting to skate smh (I posted the entire saga, disappointment and all, on snapchat so if you add me, you’ll get more updates from my trip!)

Aside from nature, Bucharest is also beautiful in terms of architecture. A lot of the buildings have a decidedly Roman feel to them with towering colonnades and sweeping arches but in addition to that, there are some beautiful churches and obviously, the enormous parliament building is a must-see.

Now, onto the most important part of the trip- food. For breakfast and lunch, I grabbed something small from a bakery near my hostel, but for dinner, we went out and ate traditional Romanian food. 

We ate at La Plăcinte one night, which is a chain restaurant that serves traditional Romanian dishes. I really enjoyed my meal and mumma liked her mici, but I have to admit the sarmale weren’t as good as the ones I had in Cluj, or the ones my host family made. We also had to wait a ridiculous amount of time for our food to come, so even though the food’s good, you’re going to be too ravenous to savour it by the time it arrives.

Another night, we went to a pub called Primus, which in hindsight may have been a bit of a tourist trap. They served Romanian specialties as well as typical UK pub food so it wasn’t the most authentic experience ever…

The ribs I had were amazing though- the meat was so tender and just fell straight off the bone and my mocktail (Summer Rain) was also so nice I ordered two. However, I did try my mother’s salad and it was actually horrendous. The lettuce was dry; the cheese was weirdly tasteless and crumbly; and there was no dressing whatsoever. I guess that’s what you get when you order a salad in a country that prides itself on meat and potatoes?

Our final taste of Romanian cuisine in Bucharest was at Caru’ cu Bere, the famed restaurant in Old Town, which has been around since 1898. This time, we both stuck to meat and carbs and it treated us well. I was ridiculously full and struggling to walk by the end of dinner, but it was totally worth it. I will say that considering how busy it was, they did serve us our food exceptionally fast. The only problem was that when it came to paying for our food, we had to ask 5 different servers before they finally gave us the bill. I think it took us a full 40 minutes after we finished eating to actually pay and leave, which was mildly irritating.

Anyway, I guess that’s it!

I had a lot of fun and I’m glad I decide to come and see the capital instead of just staying in the north of the country. I would say that the layout of Bucharest is fairly odd as it’s pretty big (over 2x the size of Paris), but everything’s spread out, meaning that although you could theoretically see everything in a couple of days, you physically can’t get yourself to all the places within such intense time constraints.

The other problem is something I’ve noticed throughout my travels in Romania- the country really doesn’t have its shit together in terms of tourism. Even though they have beautiful sights and interesting attractions, they’re generally awful at websites and tourist information.

For instance, I asked the lady at the ticket office in the National Museum of Art of Romania where the European section was and she directed me across the road. After I still couldn’t find the museum, I asked a passerby, who then directed me halfway across the city to a gallery that was completely wrong. We eventually found our way to where we were supposed to be, but we were back in the same building we started in; it was just a different entrance. Ticket lady, wyd?

I also wanted to hit up some of the smaller modern art galleries on my last day in the city, so I googled them all and found a list of addresses and opening times. However, after trying the first three on my list and finding them all to be inaccessible, I decided to give up.

We arrived at the address of the first one (418 Contemporary Art Gallery) and it looked like a residential area. We were a bit confused, so we asked a passerby where the gallery was and she said that the building had been vacant for over 3 months. Great.

The second one we went to (H’Art Gallery) seemed to be on the 5th floor of an office building, but when we got to the correct floor, we rang the bell and no one answered. Another fruitless effort.

The third one (Galateca Gallery) was probably the most disappointing because when we got there, the art we could see through the windows looked really promising, but the gallery was closed because of an event. Why was this not announced on their website???? Ugh.

The only redeeming factor is that whilst I was looking for all these (closed) galleries, I managed to get some cute photos of the graffiti I walked past on the way…

So, that’s it for now! My next stop is Sighișoara but I’m only there for a day and a bit so the post for that should be up pretty promptly!

Thanks for reading, ily all

Soph x

p.s here’s a bonus of an adorable dog i met in the park

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lenaanus

lenaanus
appreciation post for @alinarburwitz bc i rly fcki appreciation post for @alinarburwitz bc i rly fckin appreciate her !!! 

alina sometimes i think about how serendipitous it was we even met in the first place and i honestly feel so so lucky to have someone that i’ve never rly spent all that much physical time with but that i know is just gonna be on this rollercoaster with me forever (like okay we spend concentrated bouts of time together sometimes but in the grand scheme of things considering we didn’t/don’t do high school, uni or work together and we don’t live in the same city, it’s probs not that much time at all?)

i’m so so grateful to u for snapping me out of my funk yesterday and also just for so many other moments in the past decade. a highlight rly has to be u bringing me forbidden pizza when i was locked up at home in an eczema outbreak 💀

idk like i’ll probably tell u all this when we speak tonight bc i’m a soft soft gal at heart but bro rly, thank u for always being there at my worst and also for having good enough boundaries to not be there when u rly can’t/don’t need to? does that make sense? 

hope u know i’m always here for u too 

love u so so SO much
was in a poetry workshop/masterclass/q&a with @ant was in a poetry workshop/masterclass/q&a with @anthony_anaxagorou yesterday - fun fact - heterogeneous was the first english-language poetry book i bought unrelated to high school or uni studies and ’twas a genuinely monumental moment for me i think. i also bought it when volunteering for stanza which was what led me to join the scottish bpoc writers network and kickstarted a lot of things but NEWAYS am getting off track. he was talking about things like complicated poems having more longevity, ur readership being more intelligent than u, having porousness in poems for reader agency, staying away from aphorisms, the importance of reading EXCESSIVELY and a lot of other things (i think i took like 5 pages of notes lmao more than any uni lecture ever 💀)

SO i picked up this book again - time winds by alfred kisubi (which i bought in york and started but struggled with) bc it’s time to read excessively again and delve into complicated poetry!! in the intro it says his poems are difficult but this was the first time i think i’ve ever read a poetry book where the bulk was poems that i just found impenetrable. not even rly bc of the language itself but bc of my ignorance regarding ugandan history & culture like i was anchored to the glossary but still had to do so much googling 😭😭 BUT decided to give it another go and in amongst the brain juice depletion i found some poems that rly stuck with me

lil carousel for u guys make of it what u will i have a headache now partially bc of too much thinking but also bc i’ve been looking at screens too much and not sleeping well bc of twin flame spiritual nonsense so yh 

love u guys byebye
and u thought the york photo dump was over 💀 and u thought the york photo dump was over 💀
🤍 🤍
me looking cute & also wholesome family moments wh me looking cute & also wholesome family moments when my parents aren’t driving me absolutely bonkers // shirt from @koukoukreations 🤍
work was ridiculously busy this weekend but had so work was ridiculously busy this weekend but had so much fun!! 

had a rly cute sunday lunch & ensuing stroll with the head of department (who i was staying with 🤠) and even tho had to do assembly, 4 hours of workshops, a careers talk and a teacher showcase (and ofc the mountains of paperwork afterwards) on my day off, still had such a good time 🥺🥺 the students were all super super sweet and here are some highlights from the feedback: 

i was surprised by… “there is mcdonald’s in france”

a session like this could be better if… “it can’t be better” 

the best bit was… “how nice the teacher was and [how] encouraging she was” 

rly do feel like i’m smashing my career these days 🥰🥰🥰 

also side note if you’re ever in marlow, go to @thecedarmarlow - the owner & staff are all so lovely and we had such interesting chats about life! also their food recs (and food ofc) are perfect - genuinely one of the best sandwiches i’ve ever had 🤍
day out in sheff!! ur fave touch-me-not hardy chin day out in sheff!! ur fave touch-me-not hardy chinese special (i will be responding only to this name in the future) had brunch then chilled in the botanical gardens - the latter is vv cute in the sun highly recommended 🥺🥺 // also i always overestimate the amount of biscoff i can eat in one go - was delicious but boy oh boy was stuffed 😭😭 // pls ignore the state of my fringe in pic 4// ALSO katara hair loopies are finally achievable !!! 

dress from @allsaints 🤍 #gifted
always feel v connected to myself & the universe w always feel v connected to myself & the universe whenever i look at the moon
prefer up & down with exid but i guess elvis will prefer up & down with exid but i guess elvis will do
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