Travel, Cruise

I spent a day in Bucharest, and couldn’t wait to get out of there. I went to the Black Sea, a place I’d always wanted to go. I had a Eurail pass for the Balkan Peninsula, so I figured it would be easy to get around. Wrong. All Romanian trains are on indefinite strike. I had to get around by convincing people to give me rides and paying plenty because gas is so expensive.

The coast has small Soviet-style resort towns for Romanian families to go on vacation. No one speaks a word of English. It’s actually a pretty cool place to visit if you’re a 10-year-old Romanian kid.

Romanian restaurants pride themselves on having page after page of animal products. They honestly have pages of pork products, pages of beef products (every part of the animal is listed with some sort of sauce or side dish) pages of various grilled meats (I saw “bear” on the menu at one restaurant). For me, the vegetarian, there was always pizza with peppers and ketchup. And that’s what I ate.

I’m sure there are a lot of nice people in Romania. I’m sure they are warm, welcoming, and honest. But Romania is in serious trouble. The government is so corrupt that people have no hope of a future. They make about $5 per day. Their expenses are higher than that. I spoke with people who said most Romanians wish for the communists to come back, because at least under Ceausescu they had some meat, eggs, milk, and sugar. Now they say they are starving. They have a huge amount of farmable land, and most of it is being done with horses and donkeys. There are gypsies on the roads everywhere.

The communist days weren’t so easy either.

My big problem with Romanians is that many of them are serious liars. I had a date with a Romanian girl in New York last year; she lied about everything and enjoyed it. While I was traveling, I was also trying to sell a camera on Craigslist back in New York, so whenever I checked my email I would also repost my ad. But not from Romania.

Romania has so many scammers trying to talk people into sending them money that Craigslist blocks out the entire country. You can’t get to Craigslist from a computer in Romania. That is a very very bad sign. I was able to get to Craigslist from Albania, but not Romania. I wouldn’t be buying any Romanian stocks in the coming years if I were you.

Then there’s the Danube Delta, one of the breadbaskets of Europe. But the government has made a mess of everything, and now it’s just a country of peasants trying to get by. They live in their 1970s Ceaucescu concrete apartment blocks and do whatever they can.

If I went back to Romania, I’d go straight to Transylvania and enjoy looking at castles. Forget about Bucharest and parts East. But I don’t think I’ll ever go back. There are too many other places in the world to see.

- by David Siegel

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