Big Black Buildings
Yesterday I've had to go to Bucharest, the capital of our "beloved" country. It's the largest city in Romania, by far, having more than 2 million people[1]. It was quite interesting.
Being from Brasov, which is a pretty quiet mountain town, even Cluj-Napoca is pretty tiresome sometimes. But Bucharest was an order of magnitude more chaotic. Everyone was in a rush, for no apparent reason. There were so many cars that traffic jams became the rule, rather than the exception. I really doubt that the people using their own car got around faster than those using public transportation.
I went into a bar there, and I was shocked to see how small it was, and how many people were stuffed in it. It was interesting that the people there didn't seem to mind this. They appeared to accept that on a 1.5m x 1.5m the barkeeper put 4 chairs and a table. And in the neighbouring square, another 4-chairs and a table... I guess you get used to that.
Another feature that shocked me was the buildings: they were huge. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hill-billie who's never seen a tall building before, but Bucharest really gave me the felling that you couldn't see the sky anymore. (And the buildings aren't really that tall. They're just really, really crammed together).
The buildings there are a living reminder about the city's past. You have, on one hand the old, massive palaces with statues and stuff, churches, etc. On the other hand, there are the buildings built in the communist era, which all look the same (are mostly gray or black) and have no soul. You can see that Ceausescu hated the Church, because he stuffed those big black buildings around every church, to diminish it.
The whole city looks like an eclectic mix of eras. Bucharest also has the greatest concentration of sex shops I've ever seen (on the Magheru boulevard there was one at every 50m, practically -- were they compensating for some past frustrations? ;) ).
Also, that city seems to change people. They were more aggressive, less friendly than those in smaller cities. For instance: I asked one man for directions, and he didn't even stop walking.
[1] Compare this with the other large cities which have around 300.000 people.
