Bucharest, Romania

Today was mainly a travel day. We had to get up around 5:00 am in order to make our flight this morning, which turned out to be delayed an hour, but no big deal. I slept on the plane. At the airport, we spotted a woman in the currency exchange booth who we all suspected to be our first vampire sighting - pale skin, working in a shadowy environment, bright red lips. We decided to wait a bit before we start staking the locals, though.

Due to the traffic, plane delay, and 2 hour time change from England to Romania, we got to the hotel around 5:45 pm. Our dinners during the Romania portion of the trip are all pre-arranged and chosen for us by the hotels. So at 7:00 we headed down to dinner at the hotel restaurant. Tonight's meal consisted of an appetizer of shredded carrots covered in some kind of mayo, pork chops and rice, pickled vegetables, and thawed chocolate cake. While I tried everything (it's great to try new foods, one of the best parts of travel!), the only thing I actually enjoyed was the pork chop.

So, several of us decided to explore the hotel neighborhood. Our first stop was a hookah bar called something like "Opium Cat Bar." After standing in the bar for about 3 minutes, we decided to leave because the smoke was overpowering. Instead we got a drink at a place a block further down called "Beer O'Clock." After one drink we moved to the nearby Italian restaurant and got "second dinner" (which we all suspect might be common here when we don't get to choose our own food). Still, it was a great excuse to check out the neighborhood.

First impressions of Bucharest are that it seems typical of an Eastern Europe, former communist city of just over 2 million people. The architecture is truly amazing and beautiful, but rather austere. The dress is similar to what I saw in Russia a few years ago, but everyone seems very polite and eager to please tourists. It's also nice that a dollar goes a lot further here, compared to London.

Below are a few shots of our hotel room, which is really a small suite. The first picture is of a salami I found inside the couch. Probably not a gift from the hotel staff.