My wife is a brainy, funny supermodel. She does, however, have a couple of foibles: she is always late (and I mean, like an HOUR late), and she always over-packs. It turns out that her mom is the same way. Get the two of them together, and you end up taking an entire car full of luggage for a weekend getaway and you hit the road two hours later than scheduled. Away we go!
The ride to Constata (the major town on the Black Sea) was pretty good. I slept through half of it and sang to Gabriel through the other half. Gabe was really good the whole time. Io tells me the trip used to take 4-6 hours depending on traffic, but they've since installed a new highway and we made the trip in 2 1/2 hours. During Communist times, nobody cared about travel speed, I guess, but once capitalism arrived easing the way between Bucharest and the closest major vacation spot became a priority. Constanta is a big internal tourist destination. This month they will host concerts by both Roxette AND Jamiroquai, which gives you an idea what a major player they are.
Crossing the Danube on the way to Constanta
The drive out there took us through a fair amount of Romanian countryside. It continues to amaze me how fast the technology level drops in this country. Bucharest and Constanta are both modern cities (particularly Bucharest), but even on the hundred miles or so between them, the countryside in between is mostly Renaissance-era. Although we did drive past Romania's one nuclear plant as well.
Our hotel is in a town called Mamaia, just outside of Constanta. The Black Sea coast is basically nothing but the tourism industry, a line of resort towns like this one. In the 20 years since the revolution, they've seen a boom of nice, western-style hotels going up. There are also a handful of Communist-era hotels still hanging around. We are staying at one of those because it's a lot cheaper.
See that modern high-rise hotel in the background? That is not us.
The rooms are what Ioana charitably described as "minimalist." There's no clock or telephone, and the only electrical power comes from a three-plug power strip in the middle of the floor. So whatever you want plugged in (bedside lamp, mini-fridge, your own stuff like your laptop, etc.) has to compete for a plug and have its cord snaking across the floor to the power strip. There's no internet (I'll be posting this from a local restaurant that has wifi), no elevator, and half the hotel is currently being renovated. There is allegedly a restaurant but every time we've tried to go to it it's been closed, even at regular dining hours like 6pm.
But it's basically just a place for us to sleep, so it doesn't really matter that much. The Black Sea is a place where you come to spend time outside, not in your hotel room. Even if you just feel like reading a book, why not do it on the beach? And the hotel is RIGHT NEXT to the beach, so that's great.
Before we went to the beach, though, we took advantage of the nice weather to go see Historia, an aptly-named town whose main feature is a large set of Greek ruins. It's actually about 30 minutes inland, but back in the 7th century BC it was on the coast of the Black Sea and was a major trading port. The Greeks settled there, and then later the Romans built it up. For 1,400 years it was a good-sized city, before sedimentary build-up cut off their gulf from the rest of the Black Sea, leaving them the biggest town on a useless lake. The whole place died out and was lost to history for centuries. It was rediscovered just after World War 1 and has been excavated off and on ever since. There are still active archeological investigations going on today, but it's also open to tourists and has an attached museum.
As with other historical stuff in Romania, for me the most amazing part of it was that ancient artifacts were left right out in the open. I walked up and put my hand on text that had been carved into stone by the Greeks 2,700 years ago. What the fuck. So crazy. It really gives you a chill, though, thinking about the amazing amount of history that has passed between now and then. Millennia ago, someone carved this. Imagine everything that happened until, thousands of years later, an American gets marooned in Bucharest for six months and comes out here as a tourist.
Part of the town's aqueduct system. The stone blocks have hollow pipes carved into them
You had to watch your step, though, because of the archeological digs. In the States these would be roped off and you probably couldn't walk around the ruins at all. In Romania they're just sitting there in the open, and if you don't watch where you're going you could walk into a giant pit.
There's a museum next to the ruins that has tons of old Greek and Roman artifacts in it: carvings, columns, pottery, tools, all sorts of stuff. At right is part of a bas-relief showing the major Roman gods.
Sundial
After seeing Historia, we headed back to the hotel and had a good dinner at the seaside. I took Captain Milkbeard down for his first look at salt-water, which he seemed to find a lot less impressive than the rattle that we played with in the room earlier. We watched dolphins playing out in the water and took a walk, but then Gabe was beset with some of the worst colic he's ever had so we headed back to the room.
It was a fairly hellish night. Gabriel was screaming for a couple of hours, and then when he finally went to sleep we were treated to a massive birthday party in the lot next door to the hotel, which hugely amplified music culminating in a FIREWORKS DISPLAY, although the amateur pyrotechnicians for some reason set the fireworks to detonate at about forty feet, so it sounded like an artillery barrage and rained fire for a good 30 minutes. It's the sort of thing where you're laying in bed wishing all those people would die, and then as it goes on you get more creative, wishing their hearts would catch fire and their clothes would turn into piranhas.
But eventually we got to sleep and Gabe slept most of the night. Today Ioana and I have nothing on schedule. Tania and Gagi are going to the wedding. I hope to spend the day reading at the beach and eating good food, and maybe catching up on my sleep, the good Gabe willing.
Moment of Zen:
* I totally f'ed up that title quote before. Sorry readers!
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