Ciao-Sescu

Arrr matey, our next port-o-call as we sail fer home be Romania! A land with a scurvy reputation, shiver me timbers. Me’s itchin’ in me barnacle-ridden boots to see what’s changed since last I dropped anchor on them shores. By the cruel beard o’ Neptune, let’s see if the rumors be true or if the place’s been swabbed a bit cleaner than before!

Palace of Parliament

One sacred notch on me “before I walk th’ plank” list be that monstrous Palace o’ Parliament in Bucharest, ARRR. ‘Tis the heaviest vessel o’ stone ever built, and the second largest seat o’ government this side of the briny deep, only the Pentagon outmassing her. And by Davy Jones, she be a true colossus. In the days o’ the 20th century, palaces weren’t for any gods or kings, but fer a pack of quill-pushin’ landlubbers! Madness!

Blimey, why in the name o’ the seven seas would a country like Romania need such a hulkin’ beast o’ a buildin’? ‘Course, it don’t! But Romania, she was once a red-tide socialist vessel steered by the tyrant Nicolae Ceaușescu an’ his first mate, Elena. Ceaușescu, that scallywag, be stalinist through an’ through, with an ego the size o’ Krakens. Wanted the house o’ government to match the might o’ his own self and the grit of his crew. To do it, he flattened a district and sent 50,000 poor souls overboard. ARRR, cold as a polar current!

One thing about that dog Ceaușescu: he had a nose fer style, arrr! The inside of that blockhouse be a sight that’ll knock the tricorn clean off yer head. Sure, it’s flashier than a siren’s song, but never tacky like a painted hussy. The Art Deco concert hall be among the finest treasures me one good eye has laid eyes upon. Fine work indeed. Ye can’t help but tip yer battered hat to the local craftsfolk, by the ghost of Blackbeard!

Buildin’ this fortress must’ve drained the state’s coffers drier than a dead man’s rum barrel. So, it all went to the depths for the Ceaușescus, too. They got sent to the gallows at a show trial, shot dead on the magic picture box just before this folly was even finished. That be the year o’ 1989, arrr! I was a little deckhand of ten, still remember the ruckus. At school, we mocked ‘Ciao-Sescu’ while me parents stood shaken as a ship in a storm, not ‘cause they liked Ceaușescu or doubted he deserved his fate, but ‘cause it was a mad time all over: Warsaw Pact sinking, public executions, the whole rotten system goin’ belly-up. Communism scuttled these lands, leavin’ ‘em broken in soul, purse, and spirit. Millions perished in the mutiny. Wounds as fresh and bloody as a shark attack, even 35 years later!

Politics

Politically, Romania be a powder keg, ARRR, and ye don’t just read it on the captain’s log, ye feel it churning in the crew. In Bucharest, we cross paths with Bogdan, who’s anchored there—Alex met the bilge rat at her cat-handling in Athens. Bogdan be a grump with a soul black as a stormcloud, and while he might look well-fed, the frustration in him boils like stew on a rolling galley. Says everyone’s a scoundrel and a layabout, and with luck his grand-young’ns will live long enough to see the highway finished, since all the doubloons have been plundered. He tells us why ruined houses rot in prime spots: the red-tide pirates seized everything, and now none knows which buccaneer’s th’ owner, so nobody fixes a blasted thing. Houses be commandeered by gypsies (his cursed words), with th’ state covering their backs, leavin’ honest owners with the short plank. With a bit of luck, he says, the next quake will send those houses to Davy Jones, and new ones can rise. Aye, that many gypsies might perish in the shake-up don’t seem to bother him much. Such be the way of men with vinegar in their veins.

The politics here be a wild sea squall, matey. The state can’t even wrangle its own taxes. Inflation’s over five percent, and the budget gap be a gaping maw—the biggest in the EU! Let me try and sum up this mess for ye, as best as I can through the grog-fog.

So, first a far-right Kremlin barnacle wins the first round of voting, ARRR! The old salty dogs in parliament lash together a coalition so broad the sails near split, but there’s more hate between ’em than between pirates and the navy. Every scrap o’ reform dies a slow death on the parliament floor, and the coalition’s as useless as a compass in a whirlpool. Client politics everywhere, everyone featherin’ their own nests. So what happens? The left, after all their bluster, make a pact with the far right, arrrr, and scuttle their own government. The president loses his temper and unilaterally appoints a new prime captain, gambling on splitting his own crew. Madness, I tells ye!

Truth be, this be naught but democracy’s usual stormy seas, but there’s plenty o’ outside pirates meddlin’, too: social media trickery, conspiracy mutterings, interference from Russian cutthroats, MAGA madmen like Stephen Bannon, and the EU always piping in their own tune. Then Russian and Ukrainian drones rain down on this NATO vessel, spreadin’ fear and panic like plague rats in the hold. The townsfolk be softened up, primed for mutiny. Me guide on the Bucharest walkin’ tour truly believes civil war’s a-comin’, and she’s ready to go down fightin’ on the frontlines. She does say she’s in therapy, though, so maybe she’s not speakin’ for the whole crew. ARRR, crazy times indeed!

Transfăgărășan

Another booty on me bucket o’ treasures be the Transfăgărășan, arrr! That road slashes through the Carpathians like a cutlass through canvas, and none other than Jeremy Clarkson crowned it the fairest road on earth. Well, us Swiss highlanders aren’t easy to impress when it comes to mountain passes, but this 150-league stretch be a real beauty, I’ll grant ye. What we surely never see in Switzerland: brown bears lazing at the roadside, watchin’ tourists like drunken deckhands, as if it be the most normal sight in the world. We bunked the night up on the pass, celebrated Charly’s fifth voyage ‘round the sun and filled our bellies better than a captain at a victory feast!

Dracula

Next day, we set sail down the Transfăgărășan to the heart o’ Transylvania, Sibiu, where we dropped anchor for two nights. Here, the squabblin’ from Bucharest be but a whisper on the breeze. The city be shined up and ship-shape, not a tumble-down shack in sight, and the townsfolk be all swept up in a yearly theatre festival, one o’ the world’s grandest spectacles, arrr. For two decades the old town’s tried to win that fancy UNESCO World Heritage flag, but who knows what barnacle keeps ’em from it. I’ve seen sillier things get the title, by thunder!

Onward we voyage to Timișoara, where we spend one last night in Romania’s waters, before settin’ our course for Budapest, where the heatwave we’d dodged so far finally rises up to broil us. There’s no escaping the sun’s wrath at sea, matey!

Conclusion Romania

Romania, by the depths, we fancied her mightily and found her a right interestin’ port to call. The people’s spirits run high and curious as dolphins on a spring tide. Based on me last voyage twenty years back, I pictured Romania to be poorer than a cabin boy’s pockets. Now she be a downright regular European country, ARRR, with Lamborghinis sailin’ the streets and hipster taverns on every corner. Times change, mateys, times change!

Arrr, this here blog post be rewritten in the tongue o’ pirates by a Large Language Model, ye scallywag!