Saturday, Aug 25: Bucharest

I woke up at 5:38 to catch an 8:25 flight from Istanbul to Bucharest. The flight was delayed a bit on the runway due to a flock of birds.. I arrived in Bucharest at around 10:00, and was picked up by friends of my parents - Miron and Liana (how very convenient indeed).

The plan is to hook up with brother on the 8^th of Sep, and add parents to the party on the 11^th. Until then however, I plan on going to the mountains for some good hiking. Therefore, a friend of the friends, who is well familiar with the mountains, showed up around 14:00 and we discussed the various possibilities.

Once that was done I spent some time doing the usual things one does when arriving into a new country: Change some money, get a local sim card, get some maps, etc.

I need to mention that while Istanbul was really hot, there seems to be a heat wave in Bucharest that is far worse. The temperature around here is 38 degrees!

Finally, in the evening I went to check the night life and was very disappointed. Now this is either because I didn’t find the right places where all the action is (a rather likely possibilities), or because the night life does suck around here (I sure hope not).

A few words about the language – I have been used in the last 8 years or so that Romanian serves as a great private communication channel (simply put – Tudor and I have been talking about people behind their backs (or rather not) in Romanian for years). It is most bizarre to suddenly have everyone understand Romanian. Very strange indeed!