When I woke up the next day I took some time to learn a few useful words in Romanian and familiarize myself with the attractions of the city before taking a sunny, Friday morning stroll through Titan Park. (One of the slight downsides of no longer standing out among a sea of Asians is that people will often assume you speak their native language!).
The park is lovely for walking or bike riding. There's a spacious and modern mall nearby that was shockingly empty, though it may just have been a side effect of Bucharest's small, two million person populace.
I took the metro to Piața Unirii once again with the intention of seeing the Central University Library, but it didn't seem to offer regular public viewing hours, so I crossed the street to the National Museum of Art of Romania and bought a joint ticket for both the European art gallery and the Romanian art gallery for 25 lei. I have yet to visit a really excellent art museum in my lifetime, and this museum was no exception. While it had many wonderful works of art, many dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, labels usually only consisted of the painting title, artist name, and date painted. For someone who has little to no prior experience studying art history, I really wish art museums would provide historical context for individual paintings -- why the painting was created, where it was originally hung, other relevant historical facts that may have influenced the subject, who the subject was and their role in society at the time in the case of portraits, etc. I spent most of my time Snapchatting individual paintings and trying to come up with humorous captions.
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| Bucharest is full of these outdoor shops that sell used books |
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| A quiet, Old Town street during mid-day |
Antonio was too tired to go out again that night, so I spent the evening at the hostel in anticipation of heading to Vama Veche with Antonio and his friends the next day.
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