Christmas in Europe - Romania - Day 1

 One of the best parts of living overseas is being able to travel.  This year we decided to have a white Christmas and opted to head to Europe.  We planned a two week adventure throughout Eastern Europe and Vienna, Austria.

Our first stop was in Bucharest, Romania.  We left our home here in Saudi in the wee hours of night, 11:45 PM in fact, to head to the Dammam airport for a very early morning flight to Istanbul, Turkey and then on to Bucharest.  Our first picture in Bucharest were the frost covered trees at the airport.  We were expecting a little bit of snow but only found frost and VERY cold temperatures.

Jonny and Nicole being crazy teenagers.

 Our good friends and neighbors, the Gerbers, were on the first leg of this trip with us.  We arranged for a driver to meet us at the airport and then headed to our hotel.  We only had one day in Bucharest before we continued our travels up into the Transylvanian Mountains for a week of skiing, so we wanted to get the most out of our day.  We dropped our bags off, changed our clothes and headed off for tour of the city with Mihaela, our tour guide.

View of Bucharest from our hotel room.

Vika

Classic pigeon in the square picture.

As we walked through the city we were amazed at the beauty.  Every street, every corner had something beautiful to see.  Vika couldn't resist doing the classic run through the pigeons.

Opera House

Gavin, Jonny, Nicole, and Vika enjoying their pretzels and strudels.

As we were walking through the streets towards the Opera House we couldn't resist the small bakery that was selling pretzels and apple strudels.

Revolutionary Square

 We really wished that we were a little more educated in the history of Romania, but Revolutionary Square is where the Romanian people overthrew the communist party in the 1980's.

Carol I

There was this interesting mixture of old and new all throughout the city.  This is a building that the bottom half is an old building that they then added a new section onto the top.  The people here take pride in their history and want to preserve as much of the old as they can while also moving on into the new.

 We walked through a section of town called King's Road.  It used to be a market where only the rich came to purchase imported items from the many merchants that lined the u shaped street.

King's Road

Nicole's Pharmacy?

Clock on the National Bank

National Bank

This used to be a National Theatre that they have now converted to the National Bank.

Every turn had something beautiful and interesting to see….but it was soooooooo cold.

Gavin got a little excited about this building since he is teaching AP Stats.

 We didn't see much snow but it sure was cold enough.  We were just excited to be here though…the snow will come later.

Parliament Building

This building is HUGE!  The Parliament building was built in the 80's before the communist party was overthrown.  It took about 5 years to complete with people working 24/7.  It made many people mad that the government would spend so much money and time on building this while many of the people in Romania were poverty stricken.  It is the second largest government building in the world next to the Pentagon.  Nadia Comaneci, Romanian Olympic Gymnast, was married here to Bart Conner, US Olympic Gymnast.  It is now a tourist spot.  We took a tour inside, cut weren't able to take pictures.

 After our tour of the city we headed to the center market area to meet the Gerber's for dinner.  On our way we visited this church that was built in the 1780's.  Most of the churches were destroyed during the communist period but for some reason this one was spared.  In fact, the people would try to hide the churches by building other buildings around them or even moving them piece by piece to other parts of the city.  This church was very small so it probably wasn't discovered by the communist party.

Hand painted walls inside the church.  Very elaborate.

 The church was tiny inside with only enough room for maybe 10 people to walk around.  Every piece of the wall was covered with a painting or some other type of artwork.

Courtyard of the church

 The courtyard of the church also served as a "graveyard" for other church pieces.  They would bring pieces of churches that were destroyed here and had them on display.

Outside of the church

Nicole

 The streets were decorated for Christmas with lights and garland.  It really was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Restaurant in Bucharest

 We met the Gerber's for dinner in this very cool restaurant in the city.  The building was built in the 1800's and was elaborate with beautiful wood work.

Jonny and Nicole actually smiling at the same time.

This place was amazing.

Franco and Jonny….buddies for life.

 We started off with this amazing bean and ham soup served in a bread bowl.  It was the best thing I've ever had….especially when we were freezing outside all day.  Then followed this with a HUGE plate of pork, Pork, and PORK!  Have to get as much as we can.

Family Christmas shot with Mihaela our tour guide.

Retief, Marichia, Franco, and Alichia Gerber with Mihaela

LOVE THE CHRISTMAS DECOS!

Nicole and Marichia models.

Franco and Jonny trying to imitate the girls.

 Thought this was a cool picture of the church.  I had the night shutter on so the shutter speed was slow to capture the light.  When people walked into the shot it made them look like ghosts.  Makes you wonder about those pictures you see people take of ghosts, maybe they really were just people walking when they used a slow shutter speed.

WHEW!  That was a long day full of lots of exciting things.  We were loving Europe so far and it only was going to get better.