Thursday, June 16, 2005

my family!!

Budapest, Hungary

So my family got here yesterday!! And it was really exciting!! And my brother is even taller than ever. They let him grow in my absence...tsk. We're staying on this boat that's also a hotel so they cleverly call it a botel. I'm so happy to see my family! Yayness

I was having internet issues (among many issues) in Romania and couldn't write so now you can pretend I'm still there. I almost missed my train from Sofia to Bucherest. I made it by about a minute and didn't manage to bring any water. I met this welsh cartographer living in sweden on the train. He's traveled all sorts of crazy people, and apparently being a cartographer he has to do a lot of travel now. Maybe I should become a cartographer. Anyways, it's good that I met him because after we got off the train and I tried my ATM card it rejected it. As did the only other ATM in the train station. And both of the change places rejected my turkish lira. So he kindly offered to lend me money, got me some breakfast and I followed him to the hostel he was staying in. It was a pretty nice place run by a canadian family that was partly romanian. The next day I tried about 5 different banks and no one would take my card. And the bank said I had money in my account. So I started freaking out. I went on a field trip with the cartographer and after trying the one bank that takes cards from canadian credit unions, asking in a fancy hotel for a cash advance, and pondering going to a casino, finally found a tiny change place that would give me a cash advance. But I had no money for about two days

Bucherest is one of the weirdest cities I've ever been in. You see Romania had this crazy dictator who's name I can't spell but he destroyed most of the capital and built huge concrete buildings. And then when they kicked him out lots of the buildings were only half done but they never got finished. And then there's the second biggest building in the world. The biggest is the pentagon by the way. At least this one has elevators. It was started the year I was born, but with the materials used (lots of marble) and the size you'd think it was one of those hundred year old palaces. It's not quite finished though. Then there are the few old buildings and arcades the crazy dictator drove past too fast to see or forgot about or something that are still there. And then there are the other buildings that also seem completely out of place. And then everything is in the process of falling apart. So it tried to be planned but it's mostly chaos and it's very strange. But kind of cool in a weird way.

I also went to sighisoara (after I could figure out how to pronounce it to get a ticket there). It's a cute little village and completely different then bucherest. And it's in transylvania. And the birth place of the guy that inspired dracula - vlad tebes - the impaler of turks. They made the house he was born in a bar/resturant which somehow seems wrong to me.

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