Bucharest or Butte (MT)

Given the choice between an all expense paid trip to Bucharest, and a one way ticket to Butte, I think I'd choose Butte. Now that's a pretty wild position, isn't it?

Lets go back to Sunday afternoon when I arrived. I failed to mention that on my walk to town, I passed through a square with a bunch of sleeping dogs. In my travels so far, until Romania, nearly every dog I've seen has been on a leash. Not here. I've seen more dogs than anywhere else, and about 5 leashes.

The dogs weren't cute little house dogs. They were, conservatively, mongrels. And one wasn't sleeping. He decided to check me out, decided he didn't like what he found and came snarling at me. Fortunately, he changed his mind. Needless to say, I give dogs a wide berth.

The hotel I moved to is probably the nicest I've stayed at on this trip. near the center of town, secure, OK. Of course, they are all economy class. Bucharest isn't all bad.

The weather on Monday turned dreary, then drizzly and Tue. and Wed. That's not Bucharest's fault, but it still affects my perception.

Getting myself oriented, I took photos of a lot of the interesting locations in town. Tried to find a tour of some sort, but was unsuccessful. I wanted to get tickets to a concert while I was here, so I found the concert hall. Closed. Come back tommorrow for tickets to the only event on while I'm here. OK, I will.

So, it's about time for supper. Remember a while back I said something about things getting humorous some time after they occur? This one still hasn't made it.

Walking around on a relatively busy street, looking for a place to eat, a kid about 10 or so grabs my arm and starts prattling away. I figure he's telling me how he's the sole support of his two or three little sisters, or some such, and try to get him to give it up. But he didn't. So finally I decided I'd have to get physical and push him away. As soon as my hand came out of my pocket to push, he let go and took off. With my camera that was in the pocket!!

Can you imagine how foolish I felt after I yelled "Come back with my camera!!!" to an empty street. He disappeared really, really fast. I wasn't happy. And of course there was no one around. So I went to Pizza hut and had some comfort food. What else could I do?

As I said, the next day the drizzle started. I got out my back-up camera. The one that started acting up and convinced me to buy the one that was stolen. So far, knock on wood, it's been OK. Re-took some of the photos I taken the previous day.

Went to the Historical Museum, which sounded like it would be quite interesting. Turns out it's been closed for two years for renovation. And several other museums I though about are only open Wed, thru Sun. But I did get the tickets for the concert. Seat 31. That confused me, but the seating here starts with seat one, and simply continues until they run out of seats. no row/seat confusion here.

I have a metro pass good for 10 trips, so I decided to use up several of them and take a ride to the train station. I'd rather know the route beforehand than learn it on the day I leave. The metro is all right, once you realize that the color codes on the route maps don't agree with the color code on the text portion of it.

At the train station, I asked a police officer where I could turn in a report. He gave me directions to a station, which I thought I'd followed, but no station. So I asked another officer. Simple directions again, but no station. I give up. This email will have to serve as the report.

The concert was a guitar/singer duet doing some older jazz tunes, from Porter, Shearing, Ellington, to Antonio Carlos Jobim and the "Girl from Ipanema". The guitarist was quite good, I thought. The singer wasn't bad, but she tried to imitate Ella Fitzgerald's and put a lot of "scat" into her songs. Not quite there.

Following the concert, I checked my email, and made my hotel reservation for Istanbul. When I left the IC, being more observant for kids and dogs lately, I spotted a kid who looked at me with what I perceived to be more than casual interest. Kept my eye out and he eventually disappeared.

Then as I turned onto the street leading to my hotel, another kid, with a buddy, started yakking at me. I took my umbrella/club out, and waved it at him. He decided to back off. Then, as I turned to go the other way, who comes up behind me, passes me, and joins the other two? You got it. My buddy from 20 minutes ago. Since they were headed the same way I was, I turned around and took another way back to the hotel, trying to stay near someone if at all all possible.

So on to today. Walked around waiting for the drizzle to either turn into rain or give up. It did both, in the above order. The sun even came out for 30 minutes, while I was eating lunch at McD. By the way, I can't get into eating at the local restaurants for some reason. First nite here was Pizza Hut, and that's been supper ever since. They almost know me by name.

There is an Arch de Triumph here, almost an exact copy of the Paris original. So I took the metro out there today and, what else? Took Photos. I walked back part of the way, and it turned out to be Embassy Row. At least I know I passed the Canadian Embassy and the Russian Embassy. Not wanting to get my last camera confiscated, I didn't take any pictures.

I did find a museum I likes, the Museul Taranului Roman, or Peasant's Museum. That was relatively interesting. Lots of artifacts showing how the peasants lived over the centuries, lots of period clothing, and tools, implements, etc. It always amazes me how much work went into just making the tools used to do the things just necessary to survive.

And that's about it for now folks. Time to close off, update the BLOG, have some Pizza, and get ready for the trip to Istanbul. Did I mention it's overnite, so I reserved a sleeper. Not sure what that will be like, but I guess I'll find out.