Romania Flight and Hotel

So Here is what I have seen my first day.

This is the Amsterdam Airport.



Inside was a cafe that was pretty cool - It had booths that looked like tea cups made of delft ware. I was too lazy or tired to take a picture and can't find one on the internet.

 

This is Amsterdam as we left for Bucharest. I asked for a window seat and could see the canals, but pretty soon we were in the clouds and when we arrived in Romania, everything was covered in clouds.

The Bucharest wirport was really pretty dark and unimpressive (and of course I had a long layover there. The best thing was this chapel for the weary traveler. The outside was beautifully painted with pictures of Saints. (As was the interior).

I wish I had spent more time in the chapel and less at the gate. They wouldn't let anybody in until after 8:00. (As far as I can tell they only do domestic flights late evening or early morning.) After they did let us in we sat near some doors and waited for vans to appear and take us to the planes. It was very cold there and I sat near an Austrian man from Graz who didn't have much nice to say about Romania. I learned that there was a huge disparity between the wealthy and poor. That the system was messed up and had remnants of the days of Ceaucescu. That the gypsies are poorly treated. Tat there is racism in Romania (and that he had experienced it in the US too. (Nothing but Whites in areas of the US he had passed through (including Arizona, he said - although one would think he might have seen Hispanics there - but regardless he complained about the homogeneity.) I also got a story about a pit and people being tortured or killed after the second world war (maybe in Austria - I couldn't quite understand this part - his accent was very thick.) I also learned that Cluj was the fatal car accident capital of Romania. Who knows what else he told me! Anyway after the flight to Cluj I was picked up by an Assistant Instructor from Spientia University and taken to my hotel. I am in the Capitolino - a very clean and hospitable place  right next to the big student hot spot called La Stuf Janis (named after Janis Joplin) No pic tures yet.)  Her is my room:

It is very clean and spacious and a little Spartan, but there is a TV with a million channels. Some kind of English murder mystery is on right now. With the sound out of synch with the picture.

 

Here is a view from the bed.  The desk is great, but there is no outlet there for computer use, so I am sitting on the bed instead looking at precisely this view. (The TV is just out of the picture on the right (with a little balcony (with no balcony - really just a big window that opens on a ledge on the wall to the left.) Breakfast this morning was wonderful. There were so many kinds of meats and sausages, you wouldn't believe it. Of course I had my plate loaded full while the other diners (all apparently Romanian had delicate little portions of a slice of meat and a roll.) I had to try one of everything, so I had a mound of food on my plate!

The red sausage (on top of the ham) with the cuts in it was really, really good. The red and white relishes on the left seem to have been made with eggplant - they were also absolutely delicious.  Below is the view out my balcony window. (As you can see the weather is not good and unfortunately it just got worse and worse today.)