11 DEC 2008: Finally getting to work in Bucharest

One of the main things I needed before I could settle down and get to work here in Bucharest was a single room at a reasonable rate and yesterday I moved in. Prior to this I was living in a hostel which was a lot of fun - drinking all the time, meeting interesting people from everywhere, and so on - but I couldn't really get to work on exploring whether or not Romania is the place to stay. Living out of a backpack in a nearly constant party environment is fun, but not conductive to getting anything done.

Yesterday I moved into a single room which is costing €22.50 per night. This is more than I was hoping to pay and the place is a total shithole with a vile stench, but it meets my minimal requirements and I couldn't find anything else at the same price. It is easy to get a place for a couple of weeks and easy to get one for a year; but very difficult to get one for a couple of months. I have made it known to people that I've met that I am looking for a better alternative, but until then I have something of a "home" as it were in Bucharest.

On the upside I've met other people doing things similar to me, and in January we will probably be making a "visa run" to get new visas so we're here legally.

Now I have to get work on learning the language and setting up basic revenue streams. Today I bought an English-Romanian/Romanian-English dictionary and a textbook for English-speakers trying to learn Romanian and soon I'll be enrolling in a Romanian class. Listening to the language, it isn't so radically different (meaning no completely alien sounds and the like) and I am optimistic that I'll be able to get some of the basics down fairly quickly.

So far, I still really like Bucharest and haven't run into any serious problems. The city is safer than most of this size, even including cities in the States, and though corruption is rife, at least so far I haven't had any problems. Otherwise, the problems are the same you find in all big cities, which I know how to deal with easy enough.

Today I visited the Curtea Veche, or remains of the 15th century palace of Vlad Tepes, the Prince of Wallachia known as "Dracula" ("Dracula" meaning the son of Vlad "Dracul" [Vlad the Dragon]; thus Vlad "Baby Dragon" = "Dracula"). Now that I have a room, I'll start traveling around to other parts of the country like Transylvania and the like; though it is a bit rough in winter.

So far so good...