I'm moving to Bucharest.

BlunderCity wrote:

Hey guys,

Ahhh what a week!!! I've been walking around the southern part of the city (I'm near Universitate at the moment), mainly for the purpose of visiting apartments. I've been doing everything on foot aside from a couple of metro rides (I almost took the wrong line, I could have ended up in Pantelimon!!) I can kind of understand where the Bucharest critics are coming from. The city has a lot of imposing blocks and I've noticed that in every city where people use A/C, there are these ugly boxes hanging around everywhere. But the old city is quite nice and you often stumble across very nice old buildings that look completely out of place.

As expected, the traffic is insane, the cigarettes are cheap, the weather is continental (the atmosphere feels heavy like in Asia or on the East coast of the US but I'm slowly getting used to it) and the ladies are HOT (been on more dates in 10 days than I have in 10 years, haha!). I've already got lost in the city a couple of times (got badly lost in the 1 Decembrie area), made a fool of myself speaking Romanian multiple times, smoked weed with some hippies and invited myself to a party. I even tried to chat this uber-cute 20 year old blonde sitting on a bench in Vitan, she must have thought LOL tourist!! Also I've got serious trouble finding tea!! I believe Romanians do not drink tea. The closest thing I found was some fruit tea which I haven't tried yet.

I'm probably gonna make a decision on apartments in the next few days. I noticed that Decebal is a fairly fancy area, I visited a few apartments there and they all looked pretty classy. One of them I liked for 450, in particular cos it had a bunch of balconies overlooking Piata Alba Iulia but the agent wanted 1+2 in rent and 1 month commission. But I might go for one at 500, a little bigger and he's OK with 1+1 and half a month commission. This place looks OK too in the same area:

http://www.anuntul.ro/anunturi-imobilia … 86875.html

Does that look good to you guys?

Ahh I also stumbled across one of Maykal's post on the Bucharest expats meet-ups and ended up googling them. I might end up attending one or two. There goes my plan to look like a Romanian!!!

OK guys back to the flat hunting and the poker. I hope that girl calls too, she said she would but hey, as always with these things, it's...



Vincent

It's a pity I never saw this post before today (july 24th) as I had until last week a cracking apartment close to Titan in Pallady Residence reduced to 300e..1 bed, very nicely furnished (by me) to western stadards, complete with hangars & all sorts of other poundland-type stuff!  before that, in May, I had an equally nice but smaller one (studio) for 250 actaully in Titan

As we speak, I am about to start wallpapering & fitting lights in a very nice 1 bed apt in Greenfields, beside Pipera. Buy tonight, it should be ready for photo's if the heat doesn't kill me first! Hence me starting at 6.30am. Must be bonkers.

Best
Damian

Hi Vincent,

I just stumbeled by accident in your message from 31.05. I'm Romanian. 100%. Well? Did you move to our Bucharest? Did you fit in? You still enthousiastic abt us? Just curious..

Maybe now you can tell your upper class snobs in your family that you've met quite similar upper class snobs here, who consider that most french, english, german...etc... guys are western barbarians...), no culture, no manners, no...  )...

And yes, I guess you discovered we like your sort of humour...

Byeee


Anca

Hi Vincent,
Just my two cents: If you're main goal is to immerse yourself in the Romanian language and culture I would not live in Bucharest. Almost every Romanian under 40 in Bucharest speaks at least some English and most are fluent. Makes it pretty hard to practice speaking Romanian there. I know from living there for over a year. Additionally, the majority of Romanians are not city people - their culture is based on rural, agricultural, life. Living in Bucharest won't expose you to those things.

I admit, I'm not a city person so Bucharest never had much of an appeal for me. It does for many people though; maybe you'll love it. I personally love living in Transilvania.

Cheers,
-Viv