Bucharest -- The People's Palace

The big attraction in Bucharest is "The People's Palace", which was started in 1984 by Ceausescu.  It is the 2nd largest building in the world.  After the 1989 December Revolution, when Ceausescu was killed, the people of Romania finished the palace.

This is the Northern side.

Everything in the palace was taken from within the borders of Romania.  And during the construction of the palace, sacrifices were made by all people in the country.

So, we're taking a side trip here to visit with Cornelia, Tracy's former housekeeper.  This is a woman in her mid-40's who lived in the 1980's when the palace was being built.  She relayed to us stories of having to go with half the monthly rations of food during the construction of the palace.  It was all in the name of the glory of Romania.

Tracy and Cornelia's mother.  I include this picture to remind myself how lucky I am.  Cornelia's life is "blocked".  She is unemployed and has no job prospects.  She lives in the apartment in which she was born and grew up and is unmarried and has to take care of her 81 year old mother.  I need to be grateful for the choices I have and the freedom I have to do what I can and want.

Back to the palace....this is the largest ballroom in the palace.  It takes 15 people working together to roll out the carpets.

Me posing on a marble staircase.

I had.....

....to do it!

Ceausescu had the area on which the palace sits as well as the surrounding areas razed.  He made the entrance look like the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

This was Cornelia's first visit to the palace for which she and her fellow countryman sacrificed.

Bucharest 2012

Much of Bucharest looks exactly like what you expect, Soviet block buildings that are rundown.  However, there are still areas, that were not razed.  This is what pre-communist Bucharest looked like.  It lives up to its moniker of "Paris of the East"

Throughout the country, we saw banners and posters about a referendum.  Turns out that on July 29th, 2012, the Prime Minister has called a referendum on the president Basescu.  Everytime I met a Romanian I asked them how they were going to vote.  The responses were all over the place.  However, the most logical thing to do was to vote yes in impeaching the current president (even though most feel he's done a satisfactory job, getting Romania into the EU being one thing) but since he will be term-limited next year anyway, it seems most efficient to get a new president in now.

So, my final comment on Romania is that the country is STILL working through it's post-Ceausescu history.  Unlike East Germany, which pretty much as had closure on its Communist/Stasi past, Romania is still figuring it all out.  There is not yet the ability to close the book on that part of their history, to analyze it.  People are still affected by it.