Arad and Timisoara

An incredible day, and I hope is the first of a long series.
This morning I visited the city centre of Arad with the Christmas market, the park and the City Hall. The only bad point was that I had all the luggage with me.

Going to take the train, I met a romanian girl, also her making voluntary service for a local association, that took me company during the travel.

Arrived there in Timisoara, my “anfitrion” was waiting for me at the station. An amazing person.
He's the true essence of Romania, polide, gentle and educated.
He, with his girlfriend, took me to the city centre.
Unfortunatly, there was to much fog to see the city, so we went to play billiard.
Once we came back, I slept immidiatly.


After Arad, I went to Timisoara. I spent 7 lei to take the train. Unfortunatly it was late, but this gave me the possibility to met a girl and spend the trip with her.
When I arrived, my couchsurfer was there to wait for me.
I never met an hoster like him. He's the autentical spirit of Romania, gentle, helpful and educated.
He, with the girlfriend, showed me the city centre and the christmas market. Unfortunatly later the fog start to create problems and we went to play biliard.
When we came back he offered me a lot of stuff to eat, after he offered me the dinner.
It's one of the best persons I ever met in my trips.
Tomorrow the travel will bring me in Belgrade and finally I'll cross the boarder and I could start my true experience of traveller!

This morning I woke up early.
After a fast shower, we went in the centre to make some business and to take a walk in the Christmas market.
There we ate a pork steak with mushrooms as a side dish.
After I went to take company to the hoster to make an haircut, I get prepared to take the minibus to go to Belgrade.


At 19:20 the bus was arrived yet and the meeting was at 16. After a lot of calls, they fixed the trip for 9pm.
My host offered me beers and snacks to wait the bus and also the dinner.
Also, during the morning , he bought for me some souvenirs to remember about him and the visit in Timisoara.

DAY 0

"I wrote these lines yesterday night around 3am after 2 liters of beer. Every bullshit is absolutly logic for this reason"

Day completely dedicated to the trip, from Bucharest until Arad passing by Sibiu.
The travel seen more than 9 hours and 500km to arrive here in Arad and tomorrow, I'll prepare myself to cross the boarder with Serbia.


Today, after I went to Politechnica for the meeting with blablacarguy, I'm arrived in Sibiu, in 3 hours more or less, with a driver that was the example of the midium romanian driver, a distract velocist that want to challenge Schumacher but have the attention of a sloth in etilic coma.
In SIbiu I had just the time to see in a very fast way, the principale square, Piata Mare.

The silence in the city was so much that I felt ashemed cause I was bringing the luggage trought the city and people was watching me badly for the noise that it was making.
Sibiu have a very important rilevance for history and culture. It's the fist city that had a pharmacy, a museum, an university and other fists buildings in Romania, without counting the fact that this city was Capital of Culture in 2007 with Luxemburg ( Cheapeau!)

Arrived here in Arad, in the wrong station, and crossed more than an hour and an half of fog, I've been host by EVS people in a dormitory. The in the kitchen we drunk beer and talked about different topics playing "Uno", the card game ( I won 10 times).

The day was short to tell but very long to live.
Tomorrow Timisoara!

Christmas Time & Balkans Trip!

I'm so Excited!!!

yesterday we finish our voluntary service for the 2015 and now Christmas holidays are starting!
More or less a month devide me from now and the beginning of the activities in 2016.

But let's make a step back before to share the future plans!

In this week, during exploration time, I went to the Antipa's Museum, the museum of natural history.

The National Museum of Natural History was established in 1834 by the Count Ghica, brother of the king Alexandru Ghica that gave the first form to the museum.

In more than 100 years, the collections became bigger and more detailed and specific.

The current building that host all the collections was tought by Grigore Antipa, and also he enriched very much the current collection.

He is also the one who created the first bio-geographical dioramas in Bucharest, a model that was afterwards an inspiration for the great museums of the world.

The king Charles the Second dedicate the Museum to Grigore Antipa for all his work and contributions for the Museum.

The historical part, that you can find here, it's the story of the museum. I wrote it in a post on Facebook and I just copied here.

The Museum is quite cool and you can find a lot of interesting thing, from the deep of the ocean until the most little insect.

The price to entry was just 5 lei for students ( 1.20€).



The rest of the week was quite free but I stayed at home to save money, infact in 7 days I'll start my travel in the Balkans.

This is the route I'll follow, crossing Romania and passing by Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
I didn't decide yet all the details of the trip, but it's better cause I'll feel more the trip like this.

Today should arrive some EVS people in our flat to stay some days.

Christmas holidays already started and now, day by day, I'll wait one, that possibly will be, one of the best trips I ever made!

Recovering Posts #3 : The last week of work

[ Finally the last post to recover]

And yeah!
The week that will come, will be the last one where we will practice voluntary service before the Christmas holidays.

In this week I dedicated a bit to explore, in a more detailed way, the city of Bucharest, deciding to walk at the place to take the metro.
This gave me the possibility to understand that Bucharest have a lot of aspects.
If you go over the boarders rappresented by the yellow metro line, the city start to change, give the impression to enter in the perifery of a metropoly.

I had also the possibility to go to Dechatlon during my free time, where I bought new stuff for front the trip on the Balkans.

Infact I already paid the fee to partecipate to the New Year Event of AEGEE-Belgrade.
Later I'll move to Skopje, in Macedonia, and I'll come back passing by Sofia, Bulgaria.

Also it's arrived the EVS card and with that, volunteers for erasmus plus can have discounts for museums, shops, travel agencies and so on.

In these days, with different guests, I had the possibility to taste a tipical liquor and chocolates from Estonia and a tipical dish from Colombia made with chicken, chips and corn.

Recovering Posts #2 : An useful post!

I realize now that in my posts I talked a lot of what was happening to me without speaking so much about the aspects that a traveller can find useful for a trip, so this post is dedicated to the Useful things for people that want to visit Bucharest!

TRANSPORTS
The first thing to know is that the best part of the flights is managed by the Otopeni's Airport.
The way to arrive from the airport to the city, or the opposite, is the bus, using the number 783.
The price of this bus is around 7 Ron ( 1.80€ more or less).
The buses help enough the people to move in the different parts of the city but, a thing faster and cheaper, is to use the Metro.
The metro have 3 principal lines: the Yellow, the Blue and the Red one.
Thanks to these lines is possible to visit easily the city and reach the most interesting places.
Also the trams and taxies are quite used. The particularity of the taxy is that here is quite cheap for people that use "€" ( euro) everyday.
For example from Obor, the quarter where I live, until the city centre ( approximately 15 minutes by car) the medium cost is around 10 Lei ( 2,5€).

THINGS TO SEE:
Now let's talk about "What I can find in Bucuresti?"
The main things are:
- The Parliament: this building is the second biggest building in the world after the Pentagon of USA
- The Park Herastrau: this park is the biggest in the city. It's a park for every season and, indoor, you can find a national museum where you can see the reconstructions of the ancient houses from all over the Romania.
- The City Centre: the heart of the city for his history and for the nightlife, infact the city centre, over to present a lot of interesting cultural points, is rich of pubs, clubs, restaurants, bars and so on.
– Il parco Cismigiu: il parco più antico di Bucarest. Inoltre è uno dei parchi in cui si può andare a pattinare grazie alle pista da pattinaggio.
- The Cismigiu Park: the oldest park in Bucharest. Also it's one of the parks where is possible to ice skate for only 20 lei ( more or less 4.5€)
– Il Museo Nazionale di Storia: un museo tra i più importanti presenti. Qui troverete anche una statua molto conosciuta e votata come la statua più brutta presente in tutta la città.
- The National Museum of History: one of the most importants. Here you can find a statue very well knew and voted as the most ugly in Bucharest that tell the story of how Bucarest is born and grow.
–  Chiesa di Stravopoleos: un attuale monastero ricco di affreschi made in Italy di arte cristiana.
- The Church of Stravopoleos: a current monastery rich of canvas made in Italy or christian art.
- Afi Palace Centroceni: an incredible mall full of surprises and activities. Here you can find from Russian mountains until the supermarket, from the gym until the "Street of luxury shopping".
- Arch of Triumph: During the comunist period, the dictator NIcolae Ceausescu, built an Arch bigger that the one in Paris e he copied the style of Champs Elysee, building a street in front of the Arch that was much longer and wide that the one present in the capital of France.
- The Museum of Antipa: it's the natural history museum. A very affascinating museum where you can find a very big collection of animals, also ones that is not easy to find in the rest of the world.
- The rest, a part the fact that I told you a lot of things, I leave you discover the time you'll arrive here in Bucharest :) 

GASTRONOMY:
The rumanian gastronomy is sull of meat, cheese and vegetables.
Some of the tipical dishes are:
- Sarmale: pork wrap up in a fall of savoy cabbage. A place with turkish origins but quite used during festivities and special occasions.
- Cozonac: a tipica sweet of Easter that seems like a sweet bread and can be full of chocolate, nuts and other ingredients.
- Ciorba: the famous soups of Romania. You will find a lot of soups with meat and vegetables.
- Mici: meat of pork made as sausages but without gut. Its are quite differents from the italian ones but tasty with some condiments and vegetables.
- Branza: a cheese very often used also in sweets and covrigs
- Olives: the culture for olives here is incredibles. They have a lot of tipologies and every of them is very tasty.
- Covrig: for sure the things I like the most. Its are a kind of bread that can have inside wurstel, ham, cheese and other things. Extremly cheap and tasty.

One of the places that I reccomend to taste tipical dishes is Caru cu Bere: one of the most famous restaurants in Bucarest and one of the oldest. Here was recorded a lot of romanian movies and for eat a full meal, with 10€, you can really understand the tipical gastronomy.
Also for students during lunch, from monday to friday, there is a special menu for 12 lei ( around 3/4€) with a full meal and a bit of drink ( for example a 0.2 of beer).

NIGHTLIFE:
There is not so much to say. The 90% of the clubs are in the city centre and here you can choose the one you like the most.
There is the Oktoberfest where the beer is cheap, the Fireclub, a rock pub where the prices are quite good, the Vintage, club a little bit expensive for standarts but appreciable for people that wanna dance latin and dance music, the Shot, a place where to drink all the variety of shots in a very cheap way, 

I'll put other curiosities in my posts, also everyone that is interested to Erasmus Plus project or know more about Romania or Bucarest, can contact me on FB or at my mail :)