No Vampires in Romania

17-21 April 2006

A U.S.-Romanian contracting seminar led me to my first ever trip to Romania. I went with a mixture of excitement and trepidation as I knew very little about this remarkable country and its history. I flew into the Bucharest airport after an extended layover in Paris from Nuernberg. As soon as I walked through the arrivals gate, taxi drivers were lining up to take the English speaker to her hotel! (The Romanian language is beautiful and the closest language in existence to Latin.) Money first though... now how many lei to the dollar, and how many old lei to the new lei (RON)? The cabbie sure got a great tip while I struggled to figure out that exhange rate question! Though I'm really not sure why anyone in their right mind would put her ATM card into a machine from the Transilvanian Bank!!

The conference was not an attention grabber, though I made plenty of connections and conducted business. Unfortunately, it also meant that I saw very little of Bucharest aside from the gypsy children outside the hotel. However, on my last afternoon, I ignored the warnings of others to not walk around alone, and headed into the heart of the city.

As you can see, Bucharest has an amazing heritage of architecture. Most buildings are in some state of disrepair, but there is beauty everywhere you turn. You can also see damage (see top of building pic left) due to arms fire during the early 1990's uprising to overthrow dictator Ceausescu. Communism and dictatorship have definately taken their toll, but the Orthodox religion has now been restored and monastaries again operate without fear of persecustion. Me, I enjoyed both the churches and the shopping! In fact, I popped into a local grocery market for a couple of bottles of famous Romanian wine. Mmmm...

Sure wish you'd been there!

- Tiffany