Bucharest et Tour de France

20 to 23 July

20 July

Jer went to class in the morning with a special day having a kind of scavenger hunt across the city.

We had a fun class today because our school put together a competition where you had to make your way around Paris and find different things. Everything from landmarks, to secret passage ways, to having to speak to someone who know famous French sayings and what they meant. We all had a lot of fun roaming around all morning and working on our French.

I went to work and then Jer met me at Crown to head to CDG for our 6pm flight 6:20 to Bucharest! I was heading to Bucharest for work but we decided to make a long weekend out of it, because, why not.

We arrived after 10pm local (since there is a 1 hour time difference) and had a driver pick us up take us to the JW Marriott. Time to get ready for a busy day tomorrow.

21 July

I worked all day, Jer spent most of the day in lounge working online. Work wasn’t bad at all and it was great to meet my local team and client here. Everyone was so friendly!

After work we fit in quick workouts before heading to dinner.

The one thing were told NOT to do was get a cab. The currency difference is 1 Romanian Leu to 25 cents (USD). And the cab drivers will jack up the price for non-locals. However, Uber is more regulated. So no taxis for these crazy Americans.

We went into the old town for dinner at Caru’cu Bere. It was out of this world. We had giant beers to go along with the giant pork shank piled high with potatoes and sauerkraut. It was just heaven.

After such a heavy dinner, we walked around Old Town area scoping out what we wanted to do tomorrow before heading back to hotel in an Uber. However, the Uber app went down for about 30 minutes so we just kept walking towards the hotel until the app come back online. But we got back in one piece.

22 July

We originally wanted to go to Dracula’s Castle today, but the tour was too long and surprising expensive so we decided to walk around city instead. This was a beautiful but soooooo hot. I mean it is July.

Our hotel was close to their parliament building so we walked around to see it first.

We then found a shaded park bench to relax before we walked more into center of city.

We then stumbled onto the Unirea Shopping Center and walked around to get out of heat plus thought we might find a few additional SAF needs for cheap. No such luck.

We continued walking around downtown moving more towards the Old Town area.

We stopped at Carturesti Carusel which was a cool bookstore. See for yourself:

Then it was time for lunch and we found Grand Cafe Van Gogh. We thought it was only fitting. We enjoyed lunch, with beers of course to help us cool down.

After we finished lunch we walked to the University of Bucharest and then the National Museum of Romanian History. We wanted to get out of the heat again and learn something new.

The museum has a wonderful WWI special exhibit that was geared towards how Romania was affected (which is certainly not what you learn in the US history books).

We then went through the rest of the museum to see the best part, the crown jewels.

Then finally, we walked back to hotel.

Jer then thought it was a brilliant idea to workout again after watching end of penultimate stage of the Tour de France and some of The Open Championship. I did a whole lot of nothing.

We finished up our time in Bucharest with dinner outside at The Garden Terrace at Marriott. Of course Jer had to keep watching golf….