Although I’m usually not self-conscious, I’m truly one of a kind here in Romania. Men, and women for that matter, don’t shave their heads here. At all. In fact, I’ve only seen one other person with a shaved head: another guy named Dan at the office. And I do see a *lot* of people, most of them on the Metro. Most people don’t run at 5am either, and even most of those who do run don’t do so when it’s cold and rainy. I guess that’s not so different from other places. It has indeed been cold, in the 40s and 50s, and rainy every single day for the first week. It eventually cleared up a bit when I was almost done. Did I mention ‘another guy named Dan’? There are a lot of them. Dan is surely a popular name here; I’ve met with several of them. Dans and Bogdans – Bogdans may possibly outnumber Dans by a bit.
Another thing about the guys here: they carry man-purses. I should mention that I carry a backpack with my laptop. But that’s not the same thing. Really, it isn’t.
The last two times I was here (this is my fourth time), I took a train from Bucharest to medieval towns in Transylvania. Since I had a free weekend, I considered this again. I did a tiny bit of research on it. But the rainy weather held me back – I couldn’t see going through all the trouble of traveling in the rain when I can walk around in the rain in Bucharest. Besides, staying in town would give me the opportunity to see the Palatul Parlamentului and a museum or two.
The National Museum of Romanian art is supposed to be one of the great ones, and it lived up to its reputation. As I went through the exhibit halls, the works became more and more modern. I enjoyed all of it, but the more modern stuff from the late 1800’s on into the twentieth century was best.
The Museum also had an exhibit on Dracula. Drac is also known as Vlad Tepes III and Vlad the Impaler. They had several artifacts from his time (late 1400’s) as well as a lot of information about him. The best part was seeing the famous portrait of Vlad. It turns out to be the oldest remaining such portrait, but even it was done after his death, based on a now missing wood engraving of him.
The difference between historical facts and the fiction surrounding this interesting character was driven home over and over. Vlad is regarded as a Romanian National Hero by some, for his generally successful efforts in fighting off the invading Ottoman Turks. Although he treated his vanquished enemies with cruelty, he was probably no more violent than other rulers of his era. The problem was that he made enemies not only of the Turks, but also of other parties in Europe, including Hungary. After his death he became known as Vlad the Impaler in Germany and elsewhere. The Romanians believe that this is due to a prejudice by Western Europeans against the Slavs of Eastern and Southern Europe. Bram Stoker wrote his book, “Dracula” in the late 19th century, where he incorporated Vlad’s now bloodthirsty reputation with the legends of vampires. Romanians believe that this view continues to show prejudice against their people. I find the history truly interesting, but would like to point out that although Romanians are anxious for the truth to be known, they are also happy to accept the tourism that Vlad generates.
A rainy walk through the central historical Lipscani area of Bucharest revealed a pleasant surprise: the place is much improved. Over the years, I could tell that improvements were being made in order to clean up and restore this old district. Those efforts are finally paying off: it’s now a pretty neat place to walk, with shops and restaurants apparently doing quite well. They still have a ways to go, but things are definitely improving.
“Is closed to visitors today.” This, a day after, “No tours today, come back tomorrow,” which was what the guard had told me yesterday. This couldn’t all be based on some jokester’s whim of some kind, could it? Nah. Such are my now comical attempts to visit the Palatul Parlamentului. I stay right across the street from the dang thing. You’d think that after about four attempts, I’d be able to get a tour of the place. But one thing or another always seems to go wrong.
I had devoted most of my Sunday to seeing the palace, so plan B turned out to be the Romanian Peasant Museum. Some had called it Romania’s best museum of any kind, but I preferred the art museum that I’d seen the previous day. Seeing dozens of manikins dressed up as Romanian peasant women, along with their various textiles and pottery, just doesn’t do it for me. Debbie probably would have appreciated the place better than I did. At least it was something to do on another cool wet day.
The third try was a charm. Third try this trip, anyway; I'd tried to get into the palace on other trips with similar results to what I described above. But I had the afternoon off for my last day on this trip, and thought I'd give it yet another try. And I *Did* get in!
And guess what? It was worth all the trouble. The Palace of Parliament is one of the largest buildings in the world no matter how you slice it, and it's truly impressive on the inside. The halls, hallways and terraces are opulent. The view was also spectacular. I'd recommend this to anyone visiting Bucharest.
I still walk to and from the Metro to get to the office. My daily commute is still an adventure. For more on my daily routine here, check out my fun blog entry from last time, A Day in the Life.
It should be mentioned, once again, that one of the best aspects of Bucharest, more than the tree-lined boulevards and busy squares, even more than the museums and historical buildings, is the parks. There are many fine city parks, although most are fairly small, causing my runs to be more or less circuitous. But on the whole, they’re really great.
As I’ve noticed during my previous visits, the people are truly wonderful. The best part of this is that they seem to truly love Americans. Maybe it’s just me.
For more on my running in Romania, see my running blog entry, (Another) Rhapsody of Running in Romania.
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