With only a few weeks to recuperate, finish my taxes, and reset after my marathon traveling in March, I took off for my first ever trip to Europe. I flew via Istanbul, Turkey to Bucharest (București), România. The first leg from the west coast to Istanbul is a killer 13 1/2 hour flight. Luckily I slept a bit on the way. A nice bonus was that I got an upgrade to business class for the last leg of the trip, but that was only for the short hour and half flight from Istanbul to Bucharest. I left home a little after noon on Wednesday, and arrived in Bucharest Thursday night. Passport control to enter Romania was quick and simple.
Upon arriving in Bucharest, I was met by my friend Maddy who had agreed to be my tour guide, and we drove through town to the first Airbnb. Even with the (obscure Romanian) address, it took some iterating and calls to the host to actually find the place. The building was located near the old city center, and from the outside looked a bit decrepit (like many of the communist era buildings in the city), but the apartment itself was very nice, and had two balconies and a beautiful view over the Dâmbovița River towards the old city center.
Subsequent reading indicated the decrepit condition of some of the older buildings was a direct consequence of urban planning under the communist regime of Ceaușescu called systematization, which was inspired by some North Korean idea, which sought to demolish older (including historic) buildings and replace them with socialist style ones.