Thu. June 4-Sun. June 7: On this, my first chance to write the Blog, I
can hardly believe that I am riding west on the Danube with Bulgaria on the
south, and Romania to the north. It is now dark but the sun set during the 7:00
dinner, which shone in through the windows of the dining room as we had another
delicious dinner. There are no lights along the banks right now, and we have
seen only small, rare houses. This journey began bright and early on Thursday
morning when we drove to Ross and Pat's in Valparaiso. The four of us drove in
their truck half an hour away to Portage, IN to catch an airport bus to get to
O'Hare airport in Chicago. We flew 7 1/2 hours in a 747 (lots of entertainment
on personal screens) to Amsterdam, where Thursday became Friday, and then about
2 3/4 hours to Bucharest, Romania.
Everything went without incident and a Vantage bus soon whisked us to
the Bucharest Marriott to spend the night. We were settled in our very nice
room by about 3:30 in the afternoon, having been up for over 25 hours without
sleep. We took a quick nap and then Pat, Marv & I walked around the BIG
block to see some of the neighborhood, an interesting mix of old, Soviet, and
modern architecture. Pat headed into the Marriott from the back while Marv
& I continued around to the other side, where we came across a beer garden
with 50% off Happy Hour. So we enjoyed three beers for 20 leis, about $5, we
think. We'll find out when we get the bill later! It was sunny and warm with a
brisk wind funneling by the building and there was a playground there with two
little Romanian boys playing boisterously. It couldn't have been any better. We
made it to the sumptuous banquet for dinner as people were still gathering from
all points and got to know some of our fellow shipmates, many of whom had done
the "pre-trip excursion" to Transylvania. Dinner finished around
9:00, when we gratefully fell into bed. I slept very well, and Marv slept a
little fitfully as our bodies tried to adjust to the 8 hour time difference.
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| Residential street behind the hotel |
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| Looking down at the Beer Garden below our room |
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| View of Government Buildings from our room |
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| Bucharest Marriott |
Of course the first thing I had to do was look up where Bucharest was on the map, my knowledge of Eastern Europe being not so great. Your blog has already had value.
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