8 days en Romania and all I got was a lousy sheep skin.

A month ago stepping foot on the two new EU entrants seemed quite distant, but with flights to Turkey running around 500€ two weeks before the break, Romania, seemed like the greatest idea ever. So myself and Mike (a fellow MBAer at ESADE) went on the WizzAir website and purchased to and fro tickets to Bucharest. What we were to find was nothing what we expected, and especially that Rapha (another MBAer at ESADE) would join us.

So what happened? Well, it’s a long story, so let’s just cover the basics. The airport, the streets, the buildings, infrastructure, etc… is still very reminiscent of good olde communism, but it is changing quickly and is moving forwards. Bucharest as a city can be very cheap and very expensive depending on what you want to do, and how much you want to “make your presence known” (I’ll get into that soon). More than once, we saw prices that were more expensive than in Barcelona – but this is not the norm, many people are without proper work, there is a good deal of poverty, and I think the income disparity between the rich and the poor is very prevalent in Romania, much more so than in other ex-communist countries within the EU (or at least the ones I’ve been to).

But besides that the trip was fun, we stayed in Bucharest 2 days, both of which we went to Bamboo (the most exclusive club in all of Romania), and spent too much money to watch the rich and beautiful not talk to one another (apparently to be cool, you don’t converse with other people in the clubs / lounges / discos, you just show off – imo retarded). Then we went to the Mts. Carpatian to be exact, stayed in Tudor’s house up there, we ate well, saw Rasnov, Braşov, Bran (Dracula’s castle), a 1400m peak, Rapha saw Snow – being Brazilian he was very excited. I bought a sheep, and a t-shirt, Rafa a Dragon China Knife and a Dracula mug, and Mike food. I spent my birthday, signing karaoke to a bunch of Transylvanians in Braşov, and all in all it was a wonderful get away from the city.

Back in Bucharest, we decided to head down to Bulgaria for lunch as the border is 60km away, we headed down to Giurgiu and crossed the border on foot to Pyce (Ruse), where I found out that I apparently possess intermediate Bulgarian abilities. How wonderful. We then went into a restaurant, and ordered, appropriately, a Bulgarian salad and some type of meat, with local Bulgarian booze which tasted like super strong anisette. On our way back, we got swindled for 25€ by a Bulgar cab driver to go across the border, but he did drop us off at the minibuses, which was nice.

The following two days were spent in Bucharest, and on our last day we met with Tudor’s parents, as well as with Traian, who is also a fellow MBAer at ESADE. In all a short account, we did much more, but to get through it all would take up considerably more than what I feel like writing down, plus I’ve got to go take care of a bagillionload of things right now, like a nap, and laundry. J