Vila 11

Hostelworld.com mentioned that this pension was run by a Canadian family and we were curious how Canadians had ended up in Bucharest. Turns out the husband is Romanian, exiting the country illegally during the Ceaucescu years and claimed asylum in Canada. He eventually married a Canadian and they were raising two children when the Romanians overthrew the dictator. After a trip back to Romania, during which his wife fell in love with the country, they both decided to return and reclaim the property (in which they currently live and operate as a hostel.)

The property had been seized and turned over to a Roma family (Roma = Gypsy) years ago (in fact, the head of the Roma family on their return had been a boy when the family first moved into the seized property.) Initially the current owners offered the Roma a deal whereby the could live in the property for a year rent-free, on the condition that they use the time to save up enough to buy their own property and move out. (Real estate was cheap in those days.) Unfortunately, the deal was not in writing, and the Roma both lived rent free and refused to move at the end of the year. It then took 7 years of legal battles to finally get them all evicted. (Eviction laws required that they name all the residents, not just the head of the household, and the Roma were not cooperative on providing names.) They did this all before the current laws were enacted about reclaiming stolen property.

 

She’s coming through Geneva, no Dusseldorf, no …

When we had checked-in in Boston, we immediately had problems with my wife’s free ticket. The routing was no longer valid (Boston-Zurich-Geneva-Bucharest) even though we had not been notified of the change. To keep the original routing would have required that Cheryl spend the night in Geneva. After a phone call with United we finally got the routing changed to Boston-Zurich-Dusseldorf-Bucharest (why they couldn’t give us a more direct routing I never did understand as they are available). Reminder: even though I paid (by my loyalty) 50,000 miles to get this “free” ticket, United treats you like dirt. Oh well, live and learn. I am eliminating them as my preferred airline for business travel.

Having arrived in Bucharest, I got the rental car and checked into the Vila 11 pension/hostel. The pension is near the Gara de Nord train station, and I discovered that driving in Bucharest is insane and not to be undertaken by the faint of heart. I guess the rental company thinks so as well, as they made me approve a 300 euro hold on my credit card (on top of the expected charges) against the eventual undamaged return of the car. The only thing I think was a bit sketchy about renting the car was that I had been quoted in euros and the agent converted that into lei on the spot (at a bad rate) and charged my card in lei, resulting in the rental being even more expensive than I originally anticipated. Also the car was a Chevy Spark and I had been told it would hold two bags, it barely held one in its trunk. (We would spend the rest of the trip with our luggage in the back seat.)

A French family was also staying at the pension and I joined them for dinner (Romanian cheese, kind of like feta, bread, tomatoes, and tea.) Between my limited French and their even more limited English, we conversed. Their son was studying in Brasov and they had just returned from there.

After an (exciting? thrill-packed?) drive back to the airport, I waited for the Dusseldorf flight to arrive. Which it did (right on time). Only problem was that my wife wasn’t on the flight. Turns out that the Zurich-Dusseldorf leg had been delayed. To my wife’s delight, the people at Swiss Air ignored all the rules that seemed to be impeding United and rerouted her through Vienna. Just as I was about to give up (and hope that she would call the pension when she finally did arrive), she came through the gate. The Vienna flight was only about 30 minutes after the Dusseldorf arrival. I was never more relieved.

 

To Romania (and beyond) …

Monday we leave for Bucharest. I am flying Iberia through Madrid (cheap ticket) and Cheryl is flying SwissAir through Zurich and Geneva (free ticket). Hopefully we will both meet at Henri Coanda airport (her flight arrives 2 hours after mine.)