Romania - Bucarest (Bucuresti)

Romania - Bucarest (Bucuresti)
Couchsurfing - low cost city - and a "cheap" airport taxi - and a vulcano

as i still have to wait 72 days until my take-off to southamerica, i write about my past travelling experiences. 

Starting with my first couchsurfing trip to Bucarest, which was extremly thrilling :-)

"Once upon a time" i heard about the Couchsurfing Projekt - and as i never visited Romania before and i found a quite cheap weekend flight (58€ for the roundtrip - Vienna - Bucarest ) i thought: "wow! let's give it a try!"

home sweet couchsurfing home in bucarest

As a new couchsurfing member i was so unexperienced, that i wrote my request just in the bucarest-group, but fortunately i got an answer, that someone is willing to host me. :-)
So everything was perfect! Of course i was a bit nervous at my arrival in Bucarest. Not just because of couchsurfing, also about the Vulcano in Iceland, which errupted before and i wasn't sure when the airports open again. (more about it on the bottom of the post)  Then i catched the first taxi - or better "the taxi catched" me :-) Unfortunately i paid an exorbitant price - 2.5 times more than with an "official" taxi. but it was still cheap and i'm sure the driver is still happy about it ;-)

my host Mona and her mother were so nice. even they live in a quite small bungalow in bucarest, they managed it, that i have my own small room.

my first couch

Day number one:
Sightseein tour through Bucarest. a short summary in pictures:
more about bucarest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucharest

Palace of the Parliament

The Palace measures 270 m (890 ft) by 240 m (790 ft), 86 m (282 ft) high, and 92 m (302 ft) underground. It has 1,100 rooms, 2 underground parking garages and is 12 stories tall, with four underground levels currently available for the general public and in use, and another four in different stages of completion.
more about this building: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Poporului

beautiful town center

Restaurant Caru cu bere

a nice restaurant i can recommend to all people who visit bucarest is "Caru cu bere"
impressive atmosphere, traditional romanian cuisine and much more
you wanna know more? here is the link to their page http://www.carucubere.ro/en/homepage

i felt like a rich guy

original communistic restaurant

Salata KGB :-))))

museum of national history

a dictator ?

"my friend" lenin ;-)

one unforgettable experience was the couchsurfing barbecue in snagov. my host Mona invited me to join a barbecue with friends a bit outside of bucarest, in a village called snagov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snagov).
and exactly that's why i'm addicted to couchsurfing. i won't have visited this part of romania. as a "normal" tourist you don't join a barbecue with a bunch of romanians you never saw before.

couchsurfing barbecue in Snagov

The Vulcano:
a big THX to the nice vulcano Eyjafjallajökull
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull

as the vulcano errupted, i fortunately was able to stay longer. :-) 2 more days in bucarest!

it was no problem for Mona & her mom to host me for 2 more days, and now i also know the movie Black Cat, White Cat - a movie directed by Emir Kusturica.