Day 2 in Bucharest

[Another post I'll add photos to later]

I am sitting in one of Bucharest's many lovely parks (Parcul Kiseleff) as I write this in the early evening just before dinner. I have to say, I had no idea how important the green space was to Bucharest, but everywhere you turn is a beautiful public park, almost always including some sort of water feature and a playground in addition to all kinds of lovely trees and flowers. I think they merit a post in and of themselves!

Anyway, this morning Florence and I followed the example of everyone around us and grabbed breakfast (a fresh pretzel for me and a chocolate pastry for her) from one of the little stands built into the walls. Romanians do not seem to share the Italians' aversion to eating on the go-- you can always tell when food stands are nearby because all of a sudden everyone seems to be munching on something as they walk past!

Then we took the metro out to Piata Obor, home to what is apparently one of Bucharest's largest markets. We first found out about it yesterday morning from someone we met at the hostel, who told us that it was one of the most authentically Romanian spots in the city. After doing a little research on my own, I learned that it has been a marketplace since early 18th century, and they even used to hang criminals there to draw a larger crowd! While that practice came to a halt at the end of the 19th century, it went downhill and by the '90s had earned a name as the place where you could get anything, as long as you didn't ask any questions. Despite this somewhat shady reputation, in recent years it has made a comeback and draws large crowds and many vendors.

In theory. When we got there, we certainly did see a number of stalls set up and plenty of people running around, but we didn't actually go into the covered areas with all the food vendors because we didn't see them and didn't know what we were looking for. Outside, there were a surprising number of book stands, mostly selling either school books or ancient novels dug up from someone's basement. I grabbed the first book I saw with food on the cover after the proprietor assured me it contained Romanian recipes, despite my surprise at seeing what looked like summer rolls on the back cover. I translated the title, and turns out I have a health food book that promises to defeat cancer! At least I don't have to worry that the food will poison me!

The market was next to-- you guessed it-- a park, so we sat down to rest our weary legs and figure out lunch. After our little adventure last night, we had sworn to find somewhere Romanian, but this actually took a bit more work than anticipated; turns out that Romanians don't seem to like Romanian food! There were plenty of Mediterranean, Italian, Lebanese, Irish, German, French, Korean, Chinese, American, and of course "International" joints, but it was nearly impossible to find anything more interesting than that.

Eventually we decided to try our luck at the next stop, a few kilometers north of the city center. There we found Zexe Braserie, a cute bistro not too far out of the way. We sat outside, right next to the sidewalk, and I have to say it was quite nice. Florence ordered a salami sandwich, and I splurged on the minced goose wrapped in cabbage-- or so I thought. I ended up getting duck leg and gizzards with red cabbage, but since it looked so good I just ate it anyway. Yum! Also, the food here is very cheap: our "nice" lunch was about 80 lei (23 euros) for both of us, including water and my fancy entree. Don't even get me started on breakfast... my pretzel was half a lei.

Anyway, after lunch we headed up to the Village Museum (Muzeul Satului), passing the Arcul de Triumf on our way. This particular arch dates back to 1936, although a triumphal arch has stood there since 1878; the original was hurriedly constructed out of wood just after Romania gained its independence so that the troops would have a triumphal arch to march under, and it was upgraded a couple of times until it reached its present form.

We also passed briefly through the enormous park that houses the museum, the Parcul Herastrau. I would have liked to see more of it, especially as it has a lake and all kinds of fun stuff (I saw a sign for miniature golf), but we didn't get to it afterwards. We did, however, get to see Michael Jackson's memorial-- apparently the people of Bucharest liked him even after he addressed them as "Budapest".

The Village Museum was absolutely charming. It was very similar to Skansen in Stockholm, except it was missing the animal exhibits (though there were chickens!) and the exorbitant admission fees. Since Florence and I are students, we got in on just 5 lei for the both of us! As we walked around, we saw dozens of houses from all over Romania, from the mid-18th century to the 1930s (when the park was first created). Interestingly, although most of the houses had furnishings inside, only a handful were open for us to look at. We figured that it had to do with the museum being understaffed.

In addition to the variety of house types, I was fascinated by the different shingles each sported, as well as the various fence constructions. I'll be sure to include those photos!

As we sat down, trying to decide what to do next since we had a few hours to kill before dinner, I found a "Peasant Museum" (Muzeul Taranului Roman) that was open until 6. It was then 4:30, and we were a couple of kilometers away. I looked at Florence, and Florence looked at me with pain in her eyes. But she said, "Sounds like fun," so we went for it. Due to the locations of the metro stations, we decided (or I decided and Florence didn't tell me I was a crazy person, though she was thinking it) to walk it. Briskly.

We did make it in plenty of time, getting there right at 5. We paid our student fees of 2 lei each, neglecting (once more) to pay for photography. I don't know if that was the right choice-- I don't think it was worth the 60 lei they were asking, but I would have loved to bring back some pictures of the beautiful work!

Florence and I agreed that it really looked like they just didn't know what to do with all the artifacts. There were counters full of mysterious objects, closets of dresses, rugs hanging on the walls... all without explanation. But to be fair, we were tired enough we wouldn't have read much anyway! I was still blown away by the pottery and the wood carving, but in particular the clothing. The embroidery on it all was gorgeous, and there was a huge variety of stitches. Some work looked a lot like cross-stitch, other needlepoint, still other bargello, but there were so many cool designs that I couldn't even identify. I was channeling my mother as I oohed and aahed over it all-- and now I'm totally inspired to take up embroidery again!

Now, I loved the museum and would highly recommend it for the contents, but it was a little strange. Of course, there was the minor detail that everything was sort of thrown together with no indication whatsoever of the time period or anything else. The other odd bit was in the basement... portraits of Stalin and Lenin all over, walls covered in communist symbols, giant painted vase in the middle-- still no explanation. Huh.

So we crossed the street, and here we are now, in the middle of the park!

After-dinner update:
Poor Florence. After making her practically run for three kilometers to the museum, I wouldn't even let her eat until we found a good Romanian restaurant. (Well, not true. I did buy her a popsicle.) Given the trouble we had at lunch, you can imagine how many restaurants we walked by in Old Town before we found one that was serving what I wanted. It actually was an Irish pub, but they did have some traditional Romanian food on the menu, so it was good enough for me.

Florence ordered (at my prodding) "mici", which were basically grilled sausages without the casing, served with mustard and french fries. She ate that up quite happily, and I agree that they were very tasty.

My dinner was to die for. I got sarmale: minced meat and rice rolled up in pickled cabbage, so it has a nice tang to it. They were served with essentially thick grits and clotted cream and my goodness I was in heaven. Definitely on the list of recipes I need to know!

(Oh, and the entire meal totaled about 11 euros!)