Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Romania Guide: Traveling to Bucharest, Transylvania, and Beyond

Episode Date: January 21, 2018

How much do you know about Romania? If you’re like most people, the answer is almost nothing. On this episode, Debbie Stowe enlightens us about this former Communist country filled with castles, cobblestones, and Dracula impersonators. Debbie is a native Londoner who’s been living in Romania since 2002. She wrote the Culture Smart Essential Guide to Romania and several other books, and pens expat articles and reviews for Bucharest’s Business Review.    We talk about where to find the best food, music, and museums when traveling in Bucharest and beyond. And Debbie shares some hilarious cultural shock stories that are truly cringe-worthy — especially if you’re a Brit.    If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe and forward this show to a friend. If you’re feeling especially kind, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This helps people discover the show. 🤗   For more insider travel tips, visit postcardacademy.co     Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to the Postcard Academy. I'm your host, Sarah Mikital, and I want to thank you so much for being here today. I know there are hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there, and I really appreciate you spending some time with me. Now, how much do you know about Romania? If you're like most people, the answer is almost nothing. Or you've heard about Dracula and gypsies. Well, today, Debbie Stowe is here to enlighten us about this former communist country, which is filled with castles and cobblestone streets. Debbie is a native Londoner who has been living in Romania since 2002. She wrote the Culture's Smart Essential Guide to Romania and several other books. And in this conversation, we talk about where you can find the best food, music, and museums in Bucharest and beyond. And Debbie shares some hilarious culture shock stories that are truly cringe-worthy, especially if you're a Brit. For me, Romania is a contender for future place I could live. In addition to Slovenia, which we talked about a few shows back. After hearing this episode, I think Romania will be on your travel list too.

Now into my interview with Debbie. Welcome, Debbie. Thank you for coming on the podcast today. My pleasure. So you have written more than a dozen books, including travel guides on Romania. Where are you from and how did you end up in Romania? Well, I grew up in London and I knew nothing about Romania like most people outside the country. I was at university doing a postgraduate course in journalism. and I'd done a lot of traveling after I graduated,

and I always thought it would be nice to work abroad because most of my friends, we grew up in London, studied and then got a job in London, and I thought that that was a little bit boring, and it would be nice to do something different. But I didn't really have a country in mind, and when I was studying journalism, I saw an advert on the department wall

for a job on a newspaper in Romania, And I thought, okay, great. And it was for a job in Bucharest in the capital. And then during the interview, I thought, Bucharest, like, is that even a place? Surely Budapest is the place, not Bucharest? So I just avoided saying the name of the city in case I thought it totally wrong. And then I was offered that job. And when I got email offering me the job, I was really disappointed because I thought,

now, you know, I have to put my money where my mouth is. I either have to take the job or I have to decline the job. a job and, you know, admit that I'm not going to go abroad. So I took the job. And that was, that was back in 2001. No, sorry, 2002. And I thought, you know, okay, well, I'll do this for one year, like maximum two years. And here I am 15 years later. And so you went over there before Romania joined the EU. I'm curious about how that worked visa-wise. Because so many Americans ask me, How can I live and work abroad? And unfortunately, for them, it's quite tough.

You either have to marry into it, I think, or go on an international work assignment. So I'm always curious as to how people are legally able to work somewhere. Yeah, so because I went to work for a company, they got me a visa. Because, yeah, at that time, like you say, Romania was not in EU. So I couldn't have just gone over there very easily. So the company sorted out the visa for me. and I had a very old-fashioned, communist-looking little green book that was my visa. Was it easy for you to meet people?

Yeah, because I was working for a newspaper, I made friends very easily with my colleagues. Remainings are very open to Westerners, like they're very welcoming people. They're a Latin people, so they have that big emphasis on hospitality. And once they realize that you're foreign, especially Western, they really want to talk to you, then wants to give you a very good impression of Romania. So it's a very easy place to integrate and make friends with local people. I think I saw you say before that in societies more like America, England, we're a bit more individualistic and can be a bit more closed well.

In Romania, it's more community-oriented. Yes. Could you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, so, I mean, I see myself as quite an open, friendly person. But after a few years in Romania, one of my very close friends said to me, we found it so difficult to get to know you because you are so closed and cold. And I thought, what? Like, that's not me.

And there's things like, if a Romanian friend phones me up and says, how are you? I say, I'm fine because that's like the standard answer that you give. Or if I was dying, I might say, not bad. But, you know, how are you? It's rhetorical. It's not because people like really want to know. But in Romania, my friends, like, when they called up, we were really surprised, like we called up and we asked how you were.

And you just said, fine. And they thought that was really closed and cagey. And like they actually expected me to talk at length about how I was. So Westerners just can be, we can be perceived as like a little bit cold and shut off to Romanians because they're so sort of open in that way. Yeah, I've heard them that. in Romania people can be quite blunt and that's just how it is culturally. Like what are some other cultural differences that you've seen?

Yeah, so that bluntness or directness is a major one. Like that was very hard to get used to at the beginning. People would just ask you very frank questions, like how much do you earn? Do you believe in God? That kind of thing that we sort of dance around in the West. Like we wouldn't ask those things. Romanians are quite frank upfront about money as well. I'm British. I have that awkwardness over things like tipping, but Romanians are very open.

I remember my partner's Romanian and we went out like early on to a restaurant and the waiter was at the table and my partner said, how much do we tip? I thought, we can't discuss this in front of the waiter. Like this is so embarrassing. I was cringing and he said, look, the waiter's here. You doesn't want to go and come back. Like how much are we going to tip? Which to him was totally normal and definitely logical, but to me, I have this English embarrassment over money and that was just awful, so that's another thing. Yeah, they're just very direct that people would seem to be quite angry with each other when they were just having a normal conversation, but to me, it would look like a big argument. I totally would have felt the same way as you as the tipping.

Like that does sound cringe-worthy. Do you feel like Romania has changed you or do you feel like Romania has heightened your Englishness? Because sometimes in English, I mean, I mean, I feel more English than I do American, but at the same time, I feel sometimes that England brings out the American in me. And I see more like maybe bubbly and extroverted than what I am in reality. Yeah, I think it's both really. I think I have become a bit more forthright by living in Romania just because, like, you have to be. And sometimes, like, it makes me question the way we go about things in the UK. because another example of my partner is when he met some of my friends,

he made a suggestion for something that we should do. I think it was, oh, should we play cards or something like that? And my British friends all said, like, oh, could do, which, like, I know means no, because, like, from the tone of their voice, you know that that's a no. And later he said, oh, your friends are so strange because, you know, I suggested that we should play cards and they said we could do, but we never did. And I had to say, well, they weren't.

saying that we could do, like they were saying no, but in a polite British way. And when you lived in the UK, like that, that's sort of obvious and you know that, but when you explain it to someone else, it's absolutely absurd. And you think, like, why we like that? Why are we not just more honest about things? So I don't know. I think I have become a bit more like that. But at the same time, in Romania, I just feel like really, really British and I'm aware of like how indirect I am and how silly is when you think about it. It's so interesting, just sort of living these parallel existences. But it's fascinating and I enjoy it and maybe you should write a book for Romanians on how to decode English people. It's funny you should mention

that. That's one of the projects that I have bubbling along. So I've written a book for Westerners about Romania. So I'm thinking I should do a companion piece and that yeah, a book for Romanian's on how to understand the UK because it could definitely be helpful with all of our unwritten rules and codes and indirectness. It must be a nightmare for Romanians moving to the UK. I think that would be a fascinating read for anyone. So yes, start it. I will. So you've said that it's easier to make a name for yourself in Romania as opposed to a bigger city like New York or London. What did you mean by that? I suppose partly it's that you're a big fish. a small pond there.

The expat community is growing, but it's still quite small. So you arrive and it's quite easy to meet other expats. And many of them are quite entrepreneurial. They're starting businesses there or they're working on interesting projects there. Because there's not so many people who could do what you do. Like, for example, I'm a journalist. So in Hunton, like there are thousands of journalists who can do what I do. in Romania there are far fewer. So you just tend to get known more quickly, you make very good

contact, you get offered interesting work. Romanians tend to have a lot of respect for Westerners and they take you seriously. So it's just a lot faster and easier to do projects or whatever field you're in. Could you give us a high level overview of Romania's recent history? Yeah, so the background is Romania is between three vast empires, so it was close to the Ottoman Empire, was very heavily influenced by that, then the Soviet Union and also the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So Romanians feel that they've kind of been buffeted about between these three empires, and that's quite heavily shaped their country in the current situation. recently, obviously the big thing is communism. They had half a century under communism, and that's really shaped society, and the impact of that is still visible today.

But of course, the more recent history is about the journey towards Europe, close of integration, joining NATO, joining the EU, and just becoming a lot more modern, a lot more westernised, a lot more open. So are you able to speak about what communism was like? Like, what was Romania like in the 80s before it fell in 1989? Nikolai Chargescu was the dictator under communism. And he was like a rural person, I think. He wasn't one of the metropolitan elites that, you know,

were so despised under communism. And he became like a very hated figure in Romania. He became the figureheads for communism when a lot of people think that, really like other people were pulling the strings. It's not clear how much he knew about all of the deprivations that were occurring. For example, my partner, when he was young and he was a child at school, he was going to see Chalchescu in a procession.

And all of the children in his school were given new coats to wear just for that day so that Chauchescu wouldn't see them in their like tattie, normal, everyday communist clothes. So I think, you know, maybe there's some truth in that that he wasn't aware of like all of the deprivations that were going on. And then Chalchisky went to, I think, Vietnam and China. And then he saw how communism worked there with the big personality cult. And then he came back quite changed. And in the 80s, things got quite bad economically. And there were shortages.

You know, people had to go in queue in the middle of the night for meat and things like that. So just it, that was a really tough time, very difficult for the average people. And he was used to the people clapping and being like very reverent and respectful towards him. And he gave this one speech in Bucharest and then gradually people started booing. It's a very famous TV clip. You can see like the shock on his face. And after that he and his wife left the city and this was the remaining revolution. And then they flew away in a helicopter, but they were caught and gave him like a show trial.

were shot, I think, on Christmas Day in 1989. Wow. Was this a coordinated booing? No one really knows. There are so many theories flying around about the remaining revolution, that it was caused by, like, it was started by outside agents. And some people say it was, it just started organically. And other people say there were plants.

And there were, you know, goodness knows who there were all sorts of theories. So nobody really knows that. And there was so much chaos at that time. And it wasn't like today with the smartphone and internet culture where you'd have, you know, there'd be video evidence today. I mean, and what an interesting time because that's when the Berlin Wall came down. Yeah. In Romania, it was quite a bloody period. It's like many people died in the violence sparked by the revolution and they're still celebrated as like the heroes, the heroes of the revolution, the people who died.

fighting for freedom. And so can you give us a visual snapshot of Romania today? What are some of its most photographed places? Where is it geographically? So it's in Eastern Europe, the Balkans. Well, there's an argument about whether it's a properly Balkan country or not. Romanians tend to say it's not. The most photographed place is probably the People's Palace,

which is a huge vanity project that Chalcchescu built. It's the second biggest public building in the world after the Pentagon, and it is just massive. So that's probably the most photograph place, but also Transylvania, because it's very pretty, the Danube Delta, these are the more popular images for Romanians. This is what they prefer people to think of than the People's Palace, because obviously that has a lot of baggage. And then how about Bucharest? What is it called the Little Paris of the East? Yeah, lots of cities are called Paris of the East, but Romanians are very proud that the Brickrest is one of the ones that has that accolade. And it really dates from the interwar period when the city was flourishing. There was great nightlife, great restaurants, you know, really good living there.

And around about that time, there were a lot of French architects at work in the city. But Romania is one of the Francophone countries, which means it's of heavily influenced. by French culture. And these French architects were responsible for a lot of buildings that are now celebrated as the most beautiful buildings in the city. It's a very strong contrast, obviously, with the communist architecture that came later,

but there are some absolutely beautiful buildings there. And some very obvious French influences. There's an Arc de Triov, which is very similar to the one in Paris, And also today, the street that's called Boulevard-Lanieri, which is a huge boulevard that leads away from the People's Palace, that was built under Chalchescu. It was designed to be one metre wider than six meters longer than the Chansalise in Paris. So that tells you a lot about communism and Chalcchescu's version of it. And so Romania is one of Europe's fastest growing economies.

It has a really thriving tech scene right now. does this surprise you? Like, how has Romania changed since you arrived in 2002? When I got there, it was still very much like a post-communist country, and there was a lot of deprivation. And basically, European integration has just given it a massive overhaul. And as you say, the economy's growing really fast. Basically, they were moving from nothing to something. So obviously, the progress is very dynamic. It doesn't surprise me that it's doing so well. because Romanians are generally ambitious, very well-trained people. So, for example, there's the IT sector that exports a lot of developers.

Like, you know, you've lived in London, so, you know, there are many Romanian software developers. The people are quite, I'd say that they're well-trained, more than well-educated. Under communism, the communists didn't want people to be educated in such a way that they were very good critical thinking or, you know, challenging authority, but they did want them to be well trained in terms of undertaking like Chachesky's vanity project. So something like software, where Romanians are given like a set of rules and they have to work with them, software or language learning. The people seem to do very, very well. So Romanian's like very good at learning foreign languages. They're very good at IT. And the IT sector has been an engine of the economy.

Yeah. And I was reading that, you know, under communism, like the real emphasis was on maths and sciences and also under communism it was mandatory for women to have jobs so there's the idea that that's another reason why Romania is thriving because of that history in the time. Yeah I mean yeah like under communism they all learned chess so like if you meet the average Romanian they're really good at chess you still see today like old men gathering in parks and playing chess so because Lenin thought it with the gymnasium of the mind so yeah there was that sort of emphasis on chess, math, science, this type of pursuit. What else is Romania known for besides tech?

I guess it's not really known for tech, but what would you say Romania is known for? Unfortunately, it tends to be known for quite negative things. So it's known for stray dogs, gypsies and Dracula. These are the cliches that get banded around when it comes to Romania, which is unfortunate because there's obviously a lot more to it and these things don't really present it in a very positive light. Who are the Roma for people who don't know? So the Roma came over from India a long time ago

and they now live, like many of them in Eastern Europe and they have their own language but they're integrated to an extent they mostly speak Romanian because they're the Roma and that word is very similar to Romania but not related. Outside Europe, people sort of lump them in together. And there is a large Roma population in Romania, but there's ethnically different.

In parts of Romania, you see Roma in the traditional costume, like the long skirts, the women like multi-coloured, and the men in the sort of waistcoats and hats, like the traditional gypsy costume. You don't see that so much in America. And in Bucharest, they, the Roma have quite a poor reputation, like they have some strangleholds on certain like criminal businesses or this is the perception to a greater or less extent.

And Romanians feel that when Roma go abroad and commit crime, and it's thought that Romanians are committing crime, so they feel like they're tired with the same brush and they feel like it reflects very badly on them. So relations are a bit strange. You know, companies have special programs to hire members of the Roma community, but yeah, relations are straight. So what do Romanians do for a living? Like, let's say what is the average salary?

So the average salary is pretty low compared to Western Europe. Like it's a little over 450 euros, like close to $500. But that's been going up quite quickly. And this is take-home pay. A lot of money in Romania traditionally has been undeclared. So the average salary is not necessarily reflective of the reality, although now with EU integration, things are becoming more, you know, white money rather than black money. But the salary has gone up a lot in the last few years. It used to be very cheap for people to hire Romanian labour, say manufacturing companies, if they made clothing, they would ship all the stuff to Romania, have it made there and ship it back and sell it.

And that was a really good business model. but now with the salaries increasing, that doesn't work quite so well. It's good for the average remaining there, obviously. So how much would you need to live comfortably in, say, Bucharest? For $1,000, you could live pretty well. It depends what you do, what kind of lifestyle you want to live. It can be a very cheap city. You could rent decent apartments for 300, 400, 400,000.

$500. You can take taxis, you can eat in restaurants. You can have a very good lifestyle on a very small amount of money. Do you live a nice life for $1,000 a month? Yeah, if you lay off imported wines, you know, if you avoided the tourist trap nightclubs. Are you in Bucharest? That's where I live, yes. And what is your neighbourhood like?

It's lovely. I live very centrally. I have two parks. Within five minutes of my house, one is like over 100 years old. It's the most beautiful park in the city. I have two theatres within five minutes. I have cinemas, cafes, restaurants, or within walking distance, like dozens of them. I can walk to work.

I can walk to the main attractions in Bucharest. I can see the people's palace if I lean out of my window. So it's just a great area. It's so central. So is Bucharest a walkable city? Do you need a car there? Is there public transport? walkable. I mean, you don't need a car and when you see the traffic you probably wouldn't

want a car. It can be quite a culture shock seeing the traffic, although it has got better over recent years. I would love to talk to you about a Romania itinerary. So let's say I'm coming to visit you for a week and we're going to travel around Romania together. What should we see? Let's start in Bucharest. So what are our must sees? Definitely the people's palace. Even though A lot of Romanians have never visited it because it has that whole baggage in history that we were talking about earlier. But for a foreigner it's really interesting. And you can do a tour where you see like many of the rooms that, and the excess there

is just breathtaking. You can also see the basement, which is very interesting, where a lot of the communist paraphernalia was done. And you can go on the balcony that I think is famous because Michael Jackson went on it and said hello for the Pest or maybe didn't but that's the story. So the People's Palace, that's a must see. And then just really walking around the city, like there are other attractions, like the Atheneum is a really beautiful concert hall and there are various museums and parks, but really the best thing to do in Bucharest is just stroll around and get a sense of the city,

like, excuse me, the Lipscarnie area, the old town that's been revived in recent years. And you really see a mishmash of buildings and architecture. And it's really interesting. I haven't seen anything quite like that elsewhere. Are the neighborhoods quite distinct? And what is your favorite neighborhood to wander around in? They're not so distinct. Like, it's difficult to answer that because there are some areas, certain areas, like the

Banyasa and prepare areas in the north, the expat areas. So there's a lot of new buildings there, a lot of fancy restaurants. Downtown, because of how the city developed, because, you know, there was the old city, and then that was partly raised by Chalchescu to build blocks of flats. It's all a bit of a mishmash, really, because you'll find an, like, ugly communist block could be next to, like, a beautiful art deco villa that survived, and that could be next to, like, a beautiful church and a park, and then there's sort of, you know, another awful communist monstrosity. So the whole city is a bit of a mishmash like that. Okay, so now we're hitting the road.

How else should we spend our time in Romania? Where should we go? Most people who want to see more of the country would head to the Prahova Valley. So that's going north, west into Transylvania. And the first major stop would be Braschal, which is a beautiful mountain city. It's very popular because it's near to Bucharest that you can get there by Corr train in a couple of hours. It's in the southern Carpathians. Bucharest is very flat, so it's a total change of scenery.

And there are cobblestones, there's medieval architecture, just a really nice city for walking around and cafe culture. If you want to eat there, there's a restaurant called Bella Musica. It's part of a hotel. And you go downstairs into a cellar and there are arches. It's very atmospheric. That's been operating and very popular for a long time. You can also try Le Cian, which is good in winter because the soups and the stews and the pies are very good.

From Breshov, a nice day trip is to Bran Castle, which is the so-called Dracula's castle. Have you been inside? Yeah, you can do a tour, and you get around and you see all the rims. Actually, if you go there in the summer, it's just a very pretty castle, but you can see how at night or in winter it would actually be really spooky. And they make a very big play now of all the Dracula stuff. Can we talk a little bit more about Transylvania?

First of all, what is Transylvania? So Romania is made up of three principalities that came together, about just close to 100 years ago. And Transylvania is now part of Romania. it used to be part of Hungary. So again, this is a very contentious area because there's a bit of a separatist movement there. You can go to parts of Transylvania

and just hear the Hungarian language. I went to a wedding in that part of the country and we sat in a church with the Hungarian flag. The prayer book was in Magyar. The whole ceremony was in Magyar. And it was a very weird experience. because you're in Romania. Magyar? What is that?

Magyar. That's the Hungarian language. Oh, okay. So Transylvania is a region. It's not a city. It's not. Yes, it's a region, yeah. But it's very famous because this is where the Dracula legend, like, originated from or is associated with. Yes. So I have heard that Vlad the Impaler was the inspiration for Abram Stoker's Dracula. Who was Vlad the Impaler?

So Vlad the Impaler was a real-life figure, like a prince from, I think, the 1400s, something like that. And he was just a very, like, tough ruler and called the Impelor because of what he used to do to his enemies or prisoners, which is not very pleasant. And somehow this has got, like, twisted up with the character of Dracula, like the vampire, who was created by Bram Stoker, who was an Irish writer who never went to. Romania, but just sat in the British library and looked at timetables and invented his story. But this is all in the minds of people outside Romania. Like before 1989, the average Romanian wouldn't have had a clue about Dracula. And this is something of an import. And now there's a bit of a Dracula tourist industry.

So they've realized that, you know, this sells that there used to be a restaurant in Bucharest where there was a Dracula impersonator who came round to your table and said spooky things. but Romanian sort of really only have known about this, like, since the 90s. So that's definitely a nice day trip from Brashov. In Brashov County, there's Viscreet, which is famous because Prince Charles has bought property there. There's a fortified church and a fortress, which date back to medieval times, and it's one of the more famous UNESCO sites in Romania.

It's a very popular, very touristy in summer. Why do you think Prince Charles bought property there? Is it just for the beauty? I think because he's very traditional, you know, he's not a fan of a lot of modernist movements. He likes to hark back to the old ways, as you might well do if you're part of the monarchy. So I don't know, I think he sees it as maybe, you know, it's preserved in time and sort of untouched. A place to escape the paparote. Yeah, yes, probably, yeah.

And then sort of further into Transylvania, past Brashov, there's Sigishwara. It's another medieval town. Its centre is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Or there's Sivu. They're both medieval towns. Seville was the European Capital of Culture about 10 years ago, so it had a lot of investments. And there was a lot of sort of cultural activity then, and it's reaped the benefit from that. It's also home to some fortified churches on the UNESCO list. B'Evetan is one of the more famous. If you stay in Sibiu, you could eat in La Coup Tor, name literally means in the oven.

The best restaurants tend to be sort of away from the city centre. If you go to Sigishwara, from there you can head to Mediasch, which has one of the most well-preserved historical centres in Romania. If you have time when you want to go further north, there's Maramorash and Bukovina, and they're very famous for churches and monasteries. From Bucharest, if you head east, instead you could go to the Danube Dio. Delta. That's a World Heritage Site and it's the best preserved delta in Europe. So that's really good for wildlife, bird watching, just of getting away from it all. The Black Sea Coast

has its charms, but a lot of Romanians that prefer to go to the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria because they think you get better services there and it's cheaper. But if you're there for a week and it's the summer, then you might want to see how Romanians party, you could go to the Black Sea coast, maybe to Mamia. If it's winter, then the Prohova Valley is great for skiing. I wanted to travel around to these different towns. Would I need a car? Could I get there by train? You could get there by train, but it will be easier in the car.

For example, you could get to brush off pretty easily by train, but once you're there, you would want to go to Brand Castle. So it would be easier with your own car. If you don't have your own car, you could travel by train between the major cities. And when you get there, you can hire a taxi. That's more expensive than it was, but it's still not very much if you're on a Western budget. So you could hire a taxi for the day, for example, to get to these places. Or if you like a bit of local color, you could get on a local bus, something like that.

Instead of paying to stay in an Airbnb, I heard that you could actually pay to stay at a local house in Romania. Yeah, I mean, this is more common outside Bucharest. I don't know if you could really do that in Bucharest, but when I first got there, I would travel around a lot outside Bookerest. And you would get into the train station. After you arrived, there'd just be people waiting around at the train station to meet trains that would have a lot of tourists on. And they would maybe have a sign saying Kazare, which sort of means accommodation.

and yeah, so you can just pay and then you stay in their house. The level of service varies. Usually they just leave you to get on with it, but sometimes they could cook for you as well, but you would have to negotiate that individually. And sometimes they would also offer tourist trips. So if they have a car, then they'll take you to the local tourist attractions. Is there a way to find a reputable one of these?

When I was doing it, it would just all be sort of unofficial and you just turn up at the station and do it. The best way was really, like, if you talk to other travellers and they've been somewhere and stayed with someone and had a good experience, then they might sort of pass on the information to you or put you in touch with them. but I don't think there's a sort of central website or anything, but it sort of doesn't really work like that in Romania. It's a bit more sort of unofficial. Maybe some of those people have just gone on to Airbnb then. They probably have now, yeah.

Yeah, because like if I were traveling alone, I wouldn't want to just rock up to some strange man's house who had a sign outside saying you can stay here if you want. Yeah, no, it does sound like a little bit risky, but I don't know that's just sort of like how it works there is it easy to travel around Romania if I don't speak Romanian

yeah it is I mean in Bucharest it's absolutely fine like everyone under 40 or most people under 40 will speak good English or at least some English they really love Seinfeld and Friends is popular and all of those types of shows and they have them in English

so you know they learned English well and then music and movies You know, I think Friends has taught the world English because every single foreigner I have met, they all watched Friends and they say that's how they learned English. And so they have such a soft spot in their heart for that. And also, like, Goodfellas, the movie, like young, well, you know, 20, 30-something Romanian men, if you ever say to them, like, you're funny, they'll quote like Joe Pishy from Goodfellas, like, what funny like a clown?

Like that happens to me so often. outside the main cities off the beaten track in the villages there might be fewer English speakers but anyone who wanted to operate in tourism whether they were a waiter or a host

like whose home you might stay in they will have like enough English to get by so you really don't need any Romanian but of course if you make a little bit of effort to learn a few terms and you use them and then that's enjoyed and appreciated. So how could I say, hello, nice to meet you.

Bonaziva in Parabine. I will just have to play that and repeat about 50 times. Yeah, it's not a difficult language to learn in some ways. It's phonetic. So when you see a word, you know how it's pronounced, which is great compared to English. But the vowel sounds like, oh, a bit weird at the beginning. and Romanians love to get foreigners to say the word lemon

because if you pronounce it slightly wrong, which foreigners have a tendency to do, it means like something else that you wouldn't want to go around saying. Super vulgar? Yes. All right. I will go to say women in Romanian. Yeah.

Should we go to Sibiel in? Yeah, Sibiel is a village. I went once, like years ago. I went just before Christmas, and I saw like all the traditional stuff they do, like, distilling spirits and I saw them after they killed the pig. I didn't see them kill the pig fortunately, but killing the pig is a big thing at Christmas and they use all of the pig,

I suppose because it's from a poor country, you can't afford to throw meat away. What is Romanian food culture like? So because it's been a poor country, peasant cuisine is quite dominant. So it's quite meaty. some of the nicest things are the vegetarian food, or they're the nicest thing for me. So a really nice thing is Salata de Veneti, which is an obegene salad. And it's like a Western I would probably eat it on toast, sort of sandwich paste, really, really tasty.

And Zekuska, that's another similar thing, which is a sort of mix of different vegetables, and you could again have it on toast. And they're delicious, like vegetarian food. Much of the food in Romania, especially away from the supermarkets, is organic. If you went to a market, most things would be organic, although it wouldn't be called organic, and it wouldn't be priced as if it was organic, but it would be. So the popular things, like among Romanians, there's tripe soup,

which is not for the faint-hearted. Jealous trope for people who don't know. It's awful. So it's that the animals innards. Okay, 90s. It's definitely not good for vegetarians. And most foreigners like try it once and then don't try it again. But some Romanian swear by and apparently it's a good hangover cure.

But I'm not sure about that. How about the polenta? Yeah, that's good. So in Romania that's called Marmaliga. that goes with most things it's a sort of starchy accompaniment. Wouldn't they eat for breakfast in Romania? That's a really good question.

They're quite different from Western breakfast. They might have vegetables for breakfast, for example, continental style. So you could have tomatoes, for example, that you maybe wouldn't have in the West. Do you mean roasted or? No, no, just like salad style. Okay. They would definitely have a lot of coffee.

because coffee is very popular in Romania. Cereals, not so much. This is something maybe coming in now as more of a Western thing. I mean, they might have eggs, they might have bread with craye, which is like a fish row type paste, salami.

It would probably be a bit heavier than the average western as breakfast. Yeah, when I was 18, I went to Crete and the place where I was staying served, bread and cheese at breakfast. And this really blew my mind because where I came from, cereal was for breakfast. And I was never really that into cereal, so I didn't really eat breakfast. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, hang on, I can eat whatever I want for breakfast.

And these other countries, you know, they just showed me such a different thing. So like, one, experiencing another culture is great. And two, I realized, you know, the things I grew up with, it's just a certain convention that I grew up. And it really made me question things more. And did anything like open your eyes that way for you living in Romania? I had an experience like that, but it was actually in China. Because in China I had like rice and tomatoes for breakfast. And I thought like you can't have rice for breakfast.

Like that's just wrong. But like you say, it's just a convention. But yeah, in terms of Romania, I think it's probably. similar to your experience in Crete, that maybe they don't really have, like, the rules that we have surrounding, like, what you have for breakfast. What is the drinking culture like in Romania? How does it compare to the UK? That's a really good question, because it, an alcohol is, like, a huge part of Romanian

culture. Like, if you listen to Romanian folks on, they're almost all about, like, getting really drunk all through the night. you get alcohol in Romanian cinemas you get alcohol in Romanian McDonald's you get alcohol in petrol stations and at the beginning when I first moved there

it just seemed like there was alcohol everywhere but you don't really see drunk Romanians as much if you go to the average market town in the UK and walk around on a Friday night or a Saturday night would just be carnage there be so many people are very obviously drunk and you don't see that in Romania

even though my sense is that Romanians drink more alcohol than British people but I don't know if it's because of communism under communism people were very afraid of authority so people didn't express themselves you know people didn't let it all hang out whereas in the UK on a Friday night they let it all hang out but you don't really see drunkenness as much

and yet alcohol is just such a important part of their society. So it's a bit of a contradiction. Yeah, maybe it's, um, because you say they're so open in their day to day life and Brits are more reserved. Maybe, you know, Romanians don't feel like they need to get rip around. Yeah. They're some go and Brits do feel like they need to like. Yeah. It could be. I have a Romanian friends who went to London and he was absolutely astonished because he saw a drunk woman and he said, you know, this wasn't, it wasn't like a low-class person. You know, she was dressed in like a really nice business seat and yet she was really drunk. And for him, it was really strange

to see a woman drunk. So I think that there's a gender thing in Romania that, you know, it's thought men, it's okay for them to drink a lot and they do, but it's not okay for a woman to be drunk. And what are they drinking? Is it, I heard something about firewater, but, you know, I went around the Balkans this summer and was just talking to somebody about Slovenia and it all sounds like the same thing. It's like Rakhia, brandy. It's like a different thing. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's the national drink, which is Sweika, and it's a sort of plum brandy that, you know, to me, taste a bit like disinfectant. But it's very warming. It's very good in winter. But the average remaining, they wouldn't drink that very often, maybe just, you know, family celebrations.

They mostly drink beer. Beer is probably the national drink. in terms of like what people actually drink. And wine is also popular there because it has a terroir, I think that's the term, that is very similar to France. So the conditions are great for making wine. And there are some Romanian wines that are very good, although the industry was really heavily affected by communism

when the land under communism was sort of collectivized and parceled off. So that was a really big problem for the, industry to recover from afterwards. So it's still developing, but there's a culture of people making their own wine. And Romanians do like drinking wine. So when we go to France, there's all sorts of different regions that we would go to Bordeaux, Champagne, to experience the wine culture. Is there a particular region of Romania that has something like that?

In Transylvania, again, in the Prahova Valley, you can find wineries. They're spread around the country. But as I was saying, because of what happened under communism, there isn't the uninterrupted history that France had to say, like, a certain region would become very famous outside the country for a particular wine. And Romania has that, but it's just getting established. So if we're on a trip in Romania and we want to buy like a sort of typical product to remember the country by, what is something that we should buy to bring back with us?

You could buy an icon, which is a sort of religious picture. You don't just have to buy them if you're religious, but they're also quite an iconic form of art. Lots of people have them in their home. You can get them pretty cheaply, and they're very iconic. They have a really memorable style, so that that could be something that you could buy.

presumably under communism people were not allowed to go to church but are there's I mean and I know there's still beautiful churches in Romania were these just empty and not used during communism are people religious today was it sort of just dormant or like secret during communism yeah it's a really good question because obviously religion was like a big no no wonder communism because it was a rival to loyalty to the state and the party so a lot of church churches were knocked down. And if you see pictures of Bucharest before communism, it's awful to, you know, imagine the beautiful places that were demolished. Some survived, like, churches survived if they were a little off the street or, you know, a little out of sight. So if, you know, I had a lot of trees in front, if it wasn't very obvious, then it might elude Chautreskes-Boldozers. So some of them survive for that reason. And people had to be very circumspect about religion under communism. So, for example, in Romania, under Romanian orthodoxism, when you see a church, you have to cross yourself in the street when you walk past.

And under communism, like, this was a big no-no. So some people, like, developed the habit of doing, like, a really tiny cross, like that, you know, would be barely perceptible to someone looking at them. And you could see some older people still doing that today, like making these tiny crosses when they walk past church. So on the outside, Romanians are very religious, probably most of them would say they're religious and many of them cross themselves. But you don't really get a sense. It doesn't impinge a lot on day-to-day life. Like, as I say, people go out, they drink a lot of alcohol.

You know, they love shopping in malls. They love like buying new products. So there's a strong sort of secular lifestyle. You don't really feel like you're in a very pious society or anything like that. Could we do a quick lightning round of some of your Romanian favorites? And I guess we could just stick to Bucharest favorites. Sure. Yeah.

Okay. What is your favorite bakery? Ah, that's not very a big bakery culture in Romania. Like this is something that's quite new. but there's a type of food it's closest to bagels. It's called Covrig. It's not exactly like a US-style bagel.

But there isn't really one place to go. They're just sold in little kiosks like everywhere in the early part of the day. And they're very like warm and they're doughy and you can have them like with seeds on or sometimes with fillings. And it's just a really great street food like really nice and tasty

and cheap. Is Romania a tea or a coffee culture? Definitely coffee. Traditionally, they tend to go for like the Turkish-style coffee in the Ibrick, which is like the pots that can go on the stove. But now they're also very influenced by Italian culture, Latin culture. And now like younger people, like people in their 20s and 30s would probably have an espresso maker at home and Italian coffee is becoming more popular. But among older people, it would be more.

like Turkish coffee. And what about coffee shops? Because there's definitely like the hipster coffee culture over the last few years. It's taken the world by storm. Has that hit remaining? Oh yeah. Yeah, we've got our hipsters. Yeah. And we have like very, very trendy coffee shops with, you know, raw tyon and the sparse decor and like very expensive coffees, but very, very good, expensive in Romanian terms. So could you give us a favorite coffee shop then? So my top tip is coffee fact. factory that's near Chishima Dew Park. So that is a really, really good one. It wins competitions, but I'm also naming that because it's my local one. And it's really nice. There's a lovely garden. Like the coffee is fantastic, it's lovely atmosphere. But it's almost unfair to name one,

because whatever neighbourhood you live in, there'll be brilliant coffee shops near. Others I can name, like Mlu Cafe, Orego, M60, Cafe. That's one of the ones that's been there, probably 15 years or more, artichoke, frugéciac. I could go on and on and on. It's a really great place if you like coffee. Well, that sounds great. We can just coffee hop around. What are some good lunch spots in Bucharest?

So, Bucharest doesn't really have a strong lunch culture. When I first moved there, I noticed, compared to the UK, like in the UK, you'd have some restaurants where you'd mainly go for dinner, and then you'd have sort of cafes that were more about lunch. But back then, like, cafes tended to be just, like, coffee and cakes. So they very often didn't do sandwiches or if they did it was an afterthought. So there's not really like a Romanian lunch culture, like people at work or just maybe eat something at their death, didn't really go out for lunch so much.

So the best places for lunch are really sort of quite modern and international or imported. So now like Romanians might have a panini, say, because, you know, their culture's borrowed a lot from Italian culture. So there's a symbiote. that's really bright, really lovely area location. And it's quite popular for its brunches. Like brunches are quite a big thing in Bucharest, especially among the expat community. Sunday brunch is like where it's at.

And all the top hotels will all do a brunch. It's quite expensive. But it's really nice. And you know, you go there and you probably see other expats that you know. There's DNA Patru that has a more sort of bohemian vibe. And then another good place for lunch is Kazad de David. or Cassidy David, and that's up by Herestro Lake in Herestro Park. So that's a really lovely location.

What about dinner? What time do they usually go out? Romanians can eat quite late. I suppose it's the Latin culture and, like, you know, Spaniards, they tend to eat quite late. Even if they have children, you can see family groups out well into the night. So from my recommendations, Karuku Bere, that's a really old inn in the center of the city, in the Lipscan area. and the food is Romanian. The food is good, but what I really recommend it for is the artistic program, as they call it.

They have dancers there, and it's just like a really nice vibe. It's very, very lively. It's full all the time. The dancers are on, I think, three times every night. It's just a great atmosphere inside such a beautiful building. It's really worth popping into the building, even if you don't eat there. Is this folk dancing? Yeah, sort of traditional, like Romanian and also a bit sort of,

jazzed up. And other places, apart from Karukubere, there's a Locanza Jaristia, which is sort of upmarket Romanian, which is quite an unusual combination because normally the Romanian restaurants are like a little bit cheaper and the high-end restaurants tend to be more international. That's an exception. There's a very good chain. It's called Tratoria El Calcio, which is to do with football. And if you go in and look around, they have like football memorabilia on the wall and they have like supposed autographs from footballers. So you'd walk and you'd think this is not promising at all, but the food is great. And there's a new restaurant, well, open in the last few years.

I think it's just called pasta and does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a pasta restaurant. I think the chef is either Italian or worked in Italy, and the pasta there is great. That's on Calia, Victoria, very central. There's also Zexe and a really, really special place. It's not Romanian food. It's fine dining. It's called the artist.

It opened a few years ago. And it's just really like an amazing restaurant. I think it would hold its own in any city. It's really, really special menu, really, really interesting. What about wine or like cocktail bars? If you wanted to go out for a glass of wine or a cocktail, I can recommend that Orego. That's a cocktail bar in the evening.

In the morning, it's a coffee bar. and they have like really great inventive cocktails. There's also copper. That's another coffee and wine bar similar to Origo. And then there are lots of places like if you're into craft beer, because it's quite a beer drinking culture. So there are plenty of places that have now got very like crafty about the beer. So one example is Fabrica de Berre Buena,

which translates to the factory of good beer. And what about when you're in the mood for some culture, What sort of like museums or cultural venues do you like? There's a great museum called the Village Museum and it's up into the northern part of the city near Horistro Park and what they've done is they've brought houses from all over Romania and they put them there in this very, very huge open air sites adjacent to the park. So you just walk through it and it's as if you're sort of walking through a Romanian village

and you can see how the architectural styles differ, you know, by periods and by region. And it's just like a lovely, very chilled out place to go, especially in summer. There's a museum of modern art, which is in the People's Palace. So you can see like very modern art and then you can see like falling pictures of Chowcchescu in the same building. So that's really interesting. There's so much. There are so many like festivals and classical music outdoors. in the summer, just really easy to access culture and it's cheap or free.

This is one of the best things about living there. The cinema, the opera, the theatre, like they're all so affordable and accessible. I think in the West sometimes things like theatre and opera, partly for financial reasons and partly because of social class, like these are seen as elitist pursuits. But in Romania, there's not really a class system that's comparable, you know, because of how the country's developed so these things are just seen as like open to everyone and they're quite affordable so some venues include the athenium that's a 130 year old neoclassical building probably that the symbol of Bucharest in terms of buildings is the people's palace because that's one

that everyone knows but Romanians would like it to be the Atheneum it's probably the most beautiful public building in the city and there are concerts there like every week and again it's very affordable. It's worth going to the building to look at it from the outside, but it's also worth going in because the concert hall is just like amazing. They're these great murals and it's just lovely and plush and really, really historical and just like the joy to visit. The theatre has traditionally been a bit more difficult for expats to experience because of the language issue. But now like some theatres like the Odian theatre, which is just a really beautiful, small, old venue, are providing Sir Titles in English. So sometimes you need to let them know like a couple of days before. If you do that, then you can go and you know what's going on and you can enjoy play there. So they have a screen with subtitles? They do. They have a screen above the stage with subtitles. I've seen that at opera.

Yeah, exactly. So it's the same thing. And so that developed over the last few years and that opens up theatre to expats and tourists, which is great. Other places to go, if you like jazz, Jazz, there are really lovely venues, like one's called Jazz Book, based on Facebook, and Green Hours. That's a really sort of long-term flagship, Bukaris venue for jazz, and they also do theatre there. Sometimes the concerts are outdoors, because Bucerese has great weather, so in summer you can sort of catch a gig outdoors. And then another place that is very popular with expats is Mojos, which is a big pub in the old town. They have a pub quiz there that's really popular.

comedy nights in English, they have live music and karaoke. So that's quite popular with the expat crowd. What about shopping areas? Are there, and is there like a particular district where people should check out if they want to go shopping? Yeah, I mean, there are a few different ones. So there were two thoroughfares that sort of run north to south next to each other through the city, Magero and Victoria. And they're kind of the equivalent of, if you know London, Oxford Street and Bond Street.

So Magaru, that's the Oxford Street. So that's the mainstream, like quite affordable shops. And there are clothes shops and knick-knacks and brick-a-brack and makeup shops and all that sort of thing. And then Caliard Victoria is like Bond Street. So that's your high-end boutiques, you know, jewelry stores and really fancy clothes shops that might sell just like one rack of clothes. and you wouldn't dare go in because you know how expensive they would be. And on Cali, Victoria, there are some of the Gittner's a Gucci shop in the Hilton Hotel and that kind of thing. So you've got those two streets.

And then the Lipscan district, which is the historical centre. That's good if you're a tourist and you want to go shopping because you can get some souvenirs there. And it's also nice just to wander around because you get sort of quirky shops before it was gentrified. over the market, which is it's not really in the centre. It's quite in an edgy area, I would say. And it was a very edgy market for many years. I mean, it goes back years and years, and it used to be quite rough and ready. But you can get all sorts of things there, like anything you wanted that you didn't

know where to go. You could just head for a raw market and it would be there. And about 10 years ago, it was redeveloped. So it was made into like. a more modern wall rather than it used to be sort of very sort of old school and parts of it were outside. So it's not quite as distinctive as it used to be, but it's the kind of place that you could still maybe see, you know, produce on sale in the backs of cars. So it's quite an interesting, like very quintessentially bookerest market to go to. Do you guys have any iconic bookshaps or anything?

Any flagship stores? Yeah. So there's a really great chain called Carterest, which is probably the, well, definitely the best book shop in Bucharest. It has a few outlets now. They have foreign language books, so it's popular with expats. It's just lovely shops to be in. They have jazz sections. They sell tea.

They sell wine. They sell some food as well and have nice cafes and they have a lot of events. So that's the best one. Humanitas, that's another chain that is also nice. And then there's Anthony Frost, which is an English language bookshop. It closed down a year or so ago, but it's just recently reopened in one of the Carterish stores. And all of the expats are really happy about that because we're all very sad when it closed down. It's always nice when a bookstore makes a resurgence, I think.

Exactly, yes. If we are at a restaurant or a bar or taxi, like how does tipping work? So you would tip, yeah. restaurants, you tip in taxi. I think you tip in more places than you would in the UK. Sometimes you might even leave the change if it's a small amount in a supermarket, which in the UK you wouldn't think of doing. You probably sort of round up.

So I don't know if your taxi fare's seven lay, you'd probably leave 10 lay. So sort of, yeah, rounding up, you probably wouldn't leave like less than, I don't know, 10, 15%. Some foreigners tend to tip a bit more like generously than Romanians just because we wouldn't want to cause offence. But if you're not sure, like you should ask a Romanian friends. But don't do it in front of the waiter because it'll be embarrassing. Are you not for them? Are there any other culture tips or etiquette tips that we should know before we go? If you go into someone's house, you should take your shoes off.

Because Romanians are quite big on that in someone's home. If you give flowers, you're not meant to give an odd number. flowers because that's what you take to a funeral. Romanians don't tend to say please and thank you quite as much. They speak like sometimes quite loudly but it doesn't mean they're being aggressive. Just expect people to be quite direct with you, try to also be direct with them. I think a friend of yours was starting to tell about like a job or something and the other guy was like, I don't want to hear about this.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was with some colleagues. work and one of them was, I think it was like a conference that he organized that went really well and then he was sort of launching into this like long story about it. And another colleague went, Bob Dan, I don't care about this stupid conference. I don't want to hear about it. And Bob Dan just took it really well and just, you know, shut up. And I was absolutely shocked and I said, you can't say that. Like if he said that to me, I'd be like absolutely mortified. And he said, We know and like we would never say it to you for that reason.

But among each other, like, you know, we're just honest about these things. And I thought, oh, it's really great, but I could never do it. I think that's definitely something good to be, to be warned about. Like, don't cry and take offense. It's just how it is. It's just how it is. And my American friend who was there at the time, he said, like, you know, I said, you know, I would never say that. And he said, no, you would have just sat there for like one hour, nodding.

along politely, occasionally like taking a small glance at your watch. I said, yeah, of course I I would. It's like, that's what you do. That is so funny. What advice would you give to somebody who would be interested moving to Romania? I would definitely recommend that they do it because I'm so glad that I moved here. Like there's so much opportunity, so many sort of avenues open to you. It's such a positive experience. And even if you just look at the financial side, like if you're, on some any sort of like western income living in Romania you have such a great lifestyle but it's more than that it's you know it's developing there's a sense like maybe not always among local people but among the foreigners there like there's just a sense of like optimism

opportunity and things are developing and moving in the right way so there's just so much you can do there and you can just live so well and I would absolutely like recommend it like do your research in advance, you can buy my book Culture Smart Romania if you want to know what it's like from a foreigners perspective. Where can people find out more about you, Debbie? So if you put me into Google, you'll find all of my books there, like my books are on Amazon and other other sites. The newspaper that I work for in Bucharest is called Business Review. That's where a lot of my film reviews and some of my expat articles appear. So that's the best starting point. Yes. Romania books by Debbie Stowe. Check them out. Yes. Thank you so much, Debbie.

It was my pleasure. Thanks a lot, Sarah. Are you ready to coffee hop around Bucharest? And did I sound extra-American when speaking with Debbie? Seven years in London and sadly the accent still has not taken. If you like today's episode, please share it with a friend and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also visit postcardacademy.com for more travel stories and recommendations. And you'll also see an article I recently wrote about Reggio Emilia, the town where I became an Italian citizen. Okay, last week I mentioned a possible trip to Bolivia. Well, Delta had an airfare sale, so now I'm going to Columbia instead. I will be there for most of February, and I cannot wait, so please send me your recommendations. You can find me at Postcard Academy on Instagram.

That's all for now. Thanks for listening, and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation cheat sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarah mygatel.com slash blank no more.