Bucharest, Romania (pt 1)

Bucharest is a bit surprising for a european capital city (i know i should have written about it sometime in the past year). When i got here i was all like "um. . . where's the capital part?" there are no skyscrapers and very very very few modern steel and glass buildings. but hey romania has pretty much been on the edge of every empire it was part of. there are loads and loads of small churches and communist block apts. Bucharest didnt fare so well in WWII and then there were earthquakes, and then there was crazy crazy Ceausescu so much of the previous grandeur was lost. much of it is very ugly but there are pockets of loveliness. so we went around and saw some stuff.

Here is the parliament of the people. Ceausescu destroyed 18% of the city at the time to build the second largest building in the world (after the pentagon). Romania has a slightly smaller population (22 mil) than the u.s. so i guess i can see why he needed something so big. actually he was executed before the building was completed so they dont know what he actually intended to do with it. since the end of communism the gov't been working to fix it but apparently it takes much longer to build monuments without the blatant theft and labor that communism allowed. but you have this amazing view of Unirii (unity) blvd. we took a tour and after over one hour, we were told we had seen 2% of the building. Inside was all marble and carvings and pretty awesome craftsmanship. and all the materials are native to romania. we saw a chandelier that weighs 5 tons and had 3 million (!!!) light bulbs. i think it may suck to be a maintenance man there. today its used for conferences and stuff (my school had our international day there).

we went to this balcony near the top facing a plaza and i had dreams of dictatorships and addressing an adoring crowd (or forced to be adoring due to the threat of being shot down). apparently both michael jackson (understandable cause hes crazy) and bill clinton visited bucharest, stood on my balcony, and addressed the crowds as budapest. again bucharest is like the red-headed stepchild of europe.