An Adult Disneyland | Day 9

I slept in a little bit after all of the fun yesterday. I hung around for a bit and then by 11:30am I mobilized. I had a few options for the day and that was either to tour the Parliament building on go check out the Therme Baths. I had thought to do the baths tomorrow as I had a late train but then thought about wet clothes. I could do a walking tour tomorrow leaving myself plenty of time to catch the train. With the plan formulated I needed to get some food. I had aspirations of eating breakfast but just didn’t seem to want to get out of bed haha. I had only eaten the first night in Old Town so I looked on the map for good places to eat. I gathered up all of my camera stuff and headed out the door.

The place I had chosen to eat was a good little walk away from the hotel. As I started my journey I came along what appeared to be an alley but was covered by yellow glass. The inside of the street was old stone and it looked like a French alley or something. I decided to walk down that and it curved around the building and then split. It was filled with little cafes which were empty. It was incredibly unique and different. I took the right turn and exited the building and around the corner was an old building that turned out to be the Romanian National Bank. These banks are out of hand in Romania haha. In the front of the building there was a large plexiglass window and when you looked down you could see originally preserved hallways from when I gather it was built. I checked that out and then kept walking. All of the cafes have employees, mainly girls, standing in front and when you walk by they try to chat you up and convince you to come in and eat. They aren’t easily deterred either. You have to try 4 or 5 times before they move on to the next group that walks by. That is a shitty job if you ask me. I fended off cafe after cafe and then finally reached the restaurant I had seen. It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind and didn’t look all that inviting so I bailed. I wandered up and down the stone streets looking at all the cafes, bars, and nightclubs. I finally came down a street and there was a Kilkenny Pub with food. I figure why the hell not, I mean we are in Romania so why not go to an Irish Pub. The girl out front saw me coming from a mile away and rapidly approached me waiving and saying, come in for food, or beer, see a menu! I told her I would love to and I sat at one of the street side tables. It wasn’t all that crowded and one other person sat across the street at the tables they had. The bar spanned both sides of the street and they were showing a football match on the tv. I looked over the menu and went with a pint to start. It was the only IPA they had on the menu so I went with the Hop House IPA. It came in a glass a bit bigger than a regular pint glass and that was A OK with me. I sat and drank my beer for a little bit and then combed the menu for something to eat. I landed on the pizzas page and they had a Romanian four meat pizza which sounded pretty good.

As I waited for the pizza I couldn’t help but watch the girl who approached me on the street. Person after person, couple after couple, group after group there she was saying hello and trying to get them to sit. She got every type of reaction under the sun. Some people just said no, some didn’t say anything and just kept walking, some had a little chat back and forth, some came up with a reason for not wanting to sit, and shoot she even got one couple to sit. It was exhausting watching her and even she stopped and had to have a cigarette. The pizza arrived and it looked delicious. It was Romanian salami, ham, bacon, and sausage with a marinara sauce mixed with crushed red peppers. Needless to say I ate as much as I could and still couldn’t eat it all. I will say, and I’m not sure if it was just this place or not, but the service wasn’t awesome. I mean I was looking for someone to approach me every 5 minutes but during the course on the hour I had to flag down a server and even then was hard to get them to come to the table. Never the less I finished my food and cashed out. Next order of business was the Therme Baths.

The Uber picked me up in front of the CEC Bank Palace and mentioned with traffic it would be about an hour ride. The baths were only like 10 miles away but the traffic was rough. We chatted about all kinds of things which made for a pleasant ride. Therme Bucharest is located just outside of the city and is a large glass building. We pulled up and there were quite a few people walking in from the parking lot. The Uber driver had recommended that I buy my ticket online because the line inside could be quite long. Luckily enough when I walked in there wasn’t anybody in line. However it was like the airport with switchback ropes extended about to the front door so I could see how long the lines really can be. I approached the ticket window and asked for the run down. She asked how many of the activities did I want to do and for how long. I said give it all to me haha. I opted for the all sections and a full day pass but I could have gotten that in a 1hr or 4.5 hour block. The goin rate for an all access, all day pass, was $30usd. She informed me that I would need to have a towel and slippers. If I didn’t have those with me then I needed to buy them from the desk following the ticket window. I was provided a bracelet and that was to be used for all payments inside the baths. I picked up my towel and slippers and proceed in to the locker room. With your entry you are provided a locker to store all of your stuff. To put the capacity of this place there are 5000 lockers. I found my locker, stuffed my camera equipment inside, and put on my board shorts.

As you exit the locker room in front of you is a giant swimming pool. The info on their site said the property has 800,000 plants both inside and outside. It was a tropical oasis. People were walking in every direction. Around the pool they had oval lounge chairs that were free to use you just had to find an open one. I found one and set off for the pool. I wasn’t in the pool 30 seconds before an attendant whistled at me and told me I couldn’t bring my phone in the pool so back to the locker I went. Finally back in the pool and headed towards the swim up bar. All along the pool they had sunken lounge chair type seats that how bubbles and massagers. The pool was packed and equally was the bar. I waited for a seat to clear and finally got one. It took a minute for the bartender to come around but the people watching was spectacular. All different nationalities and lauguages were being spoken. Being just a single person who didn’t speak any of those languages meant I sat there and just listened. The bartender came and took my order which a pint costs $2.50 which is my kind of price. It was kind of funny that you can’t take your phone in to the pool but any type of drink is perfectly fine. I will say that they do run a tight ship over there and enforce the rules. One being that all women need to have their hair up in a bun while in the pool. I suppose with that many people health is a big thing. Anyway, I took my beer and found a nice lounger in the pool under a palm tree and continued to watch all of the people. This place was an IG heaven. I mean everyone and their mother was taking photos from everywhere. A popular spot was the various tropical staircases leading in to the main pool. Another, was the balcony on the second story overlooking the pool. I watched one poor boyfriend have to go to the second story balcony and film him girlfriend taking 2 steps in to the pool and looking back. She did that about 4 times and then never got in the pool just walked off haha. Social media sucks and is really cringy watching people film stuff for the gram. After a bit of a sit and running low on my bear I wandered back to the bar and got another beverage. This time I headed around the bar and they had a revolving plexiglass door that led to the outside. The whole pool was connected so you never had to get out just swim through the door and you were outside. They had islands with seats, another swim up bar, and pipes that poured out water like a waterfall. I explored that for a moment and then headed back inside. The building was two stories and figure I explore the upstairs.

Upstairs was a whole ‘nother ball game. You had to scan your watch and pending your pass type you either were let in or it displayed you would be charged additional for access the space. Once inside there was a decent sized line for 10 minute massages. I thought to stand in the line but I could do the quick math and no need to burn 45 minutes waiting for a massage. Next to the line was a mineral pool with swim up bar of course. That pool could hold I would say around 30 people and surely it had about that in it. The main attraction of the second floor are the saunas. They have 5 different cultural themed saunas that are huge. The first one I went in to was the Amazon Sauna. The plaque outside of it shows what they temperature is inside as well as some detail about the Amazon. This sauna was massive! Was probably a story and a half tall and 5 rows of stadium seating. The top level had recliner backs so you could lay down and enjoy. It was outfitted with what I assume was white wood from the Amazon and huge glass windows overlooking the pool. It was hot as hell in there haha. I sat for maybe 10 or so minutes and then moved on to the next sauna. The goal was to try them all but as I would find out later I missed some. The next sauna was the Alhambra Sauna. It was decorated in the Moorish architecture of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. It smelled of nutmeg, cumin, and pepper spices and had light music playing. It was as hot as the Amazon one but still a nice temperature. I spent about 10 minutes in that one before moving on. In between that sauna and the Himalayan sauna was a Calla Shower which were large flower pedals that reached about 7 or 8 feet off the ground and poured out water. I walked around and enjoyed the water raining down and it was quite refreshing. I exited that shower and moved to the Himalayan Sauna. The walls are covered in Himalayan salt and the vibrant pink, white, and blue colors are incredible. That sauna was killer. I next tried the Bavarian sauna which is decorated exclusively in wood. The smell of pine makes you feel like you are high up in the mountains. It was a really cool experience. Lastly I moved on to the Hollywood Sauna which I more just poked my head in. It had black out curtains and was showing a movie. I would have actually stayed but they were showing like Planet Earth so didn’t really peak my interest so instead I wandered back to the Alhambra sauna. There was a younger couple in there and we struck up a conversation. They were on a short holiday from London and inquired what all I had done. I told them about the castle tour yesterday which sparked quite the story on their part.

They said they had planned to do the same tour yesterday but due to an unfortunate event they weren’t able to make it. I of course inquired what that event might be and I could give you 1000 guesses and you would still never get it. She said they were up at 6 to get ready for the tour and at 6:30 they heard a knock at their apartment door. They had booked an apartment through Booking.com and said they only paid $150 euros for the weekend. That sounded incredibly cheap to me but what happened next is exactly the reason I chose to spend more on hotels. Her boyfriend looked through the peep hole to find armed Romanian police standing outside their door. He opened the door and their apartment was promptly raided!! The police busted in and sat them down asking for passports. The raid lasted 3.5 hours and they turned the apartment upside looking for who knows what. After the 3.5 hours they just left never telling them what the raid was about or what they were even looking for. While the raid was happening they had received a phone call from the tour guide asking where they were and when told of the situation no refund was given. I can’t imagine just hanging out in your booked apartment from a legit company and then being raided in a foreign country. So after all of that they didn’t do the tour and when I said sounds like Booking.com should issue you some compensation she replied with, “ohhh the owner of the apartment reached out and said she could extend us a 30% discount the next time they rent the apartment.” She followed that up by saying she was never coming to Bucharest again. I felt so bad for them but suppose a lesson in choosing your accommodations carefully. As we were talking about the tour another couple had walked in and they too had an interesting story about the tour. Turns out on their last stop, Bran Castle, they waited a certain amount of time and when one couple didn’t show up the bus just left them!! I assume that they were on one of the large bus tours with many people because I can’t imagine a small group like the one I was on just leaving one of their guests. Likewise! I had the number to my tour guide and I assume he had mine as well so how come their tour guide didn’t give one of the people a call! Bran Castle is 3hrs from Bucharest and the bus just drove off. I can only imagine what those people thought when they arrived back where the bus used to be and it was gone. Another question I have is what did they do next!? I don’t think Ubers are in abundance up there so how on earth did they get back to Bucharest. Just another mystery of the universe.

I had finished chatting with both of them and hit the Mineral Pool. It was very nice and then person next to me convinced me to order a mojito. I enjoyed that very much and another section had caught my eye. I walked up that really cool wood staircase to find about 25 individual curved beds that were under heat lamps. People were laying in the bed getting that infrared heat tan haha. All I could think of is food under a heat lamp at a restaurant. It was a funny visual but the space was super nice. All of the chairs were in their own little section surrounded by tropical plants and trees. They had jungle noises playing as well and made for a really nice ambiance. After touring that section I went down to the main pool for one final beer and swim. In total I was there about 4 hours and enjoyed every moment of it. If I lived in that city I would be there all the time! I exited the pool got a quick shower and changed back in to my clothes. I turned in my towel and bracelet and got the final bill. $15 for 3 beers and a mojito, unreal! Driver’s are smart and an Uber driver was already waiting outside of the baths. I got in and like the ride out this one was about 45 minutes. We chatted all the way back and was dropped off at the hotel. I wanted to keep the momentum so I walked back to the CEC Palace to shoot some sunset photos.

Naturally there was a taxi placed right where I wanted to stand. I looked for a few different angles but couldn’t really find what I was hoping for. I finally landed on a spot and was lining it up when an elderly man walked up and just said “uhhh everybody shoot wide vertical. That is shit and we see longways so shoot it that way!” I was a bit flabergasted haha. I replied to him by saying “Well my man where should I shoot this?” He walked to where I initially wanted to be but there was just a taxi parked there. He said that on Sundays no taxi so come back then. I of course couldn’t do that. This interaction launched him in to about a 30 minute conversation. It was mostly him talking and he couldn’t stand the response “ok.” Every time he would tell me something and I said ok he would stop and say “there it is again.” He showed me photos of the palace from a long time ago and even gave me a recommendation of a book I should read to help find my calling in like haha. Finally he had talked enough and told me he needed to go. For some reason when he said that angle was shit I reconsidered and put on my 70-200mm zoom lens. Since the wide was in fact, shit, I decided to go with close up details. The whole vibe of the photos changed for the better and was really stoked on what I was getting. While I was shooting a family walked up to me and looked over my shoulder. They were from Amsterdam and the younger kid was interested in my camera and the photos. We chatted for a few minutes and exchanged instagrams. They said when I got to Amsterdam to reach out to their son and they can show me around. They ventured on to their dinner and I wrapped up my camera stuff. Having a good experience with the drone at Bran Castle I got brave and decided to launch the drone. the building I was next to was about half a block in length and had about 15 steps leading up to it. I found a spot where 0 people were at and busted out the drone. I didn’t recall but the drone has a safety launch and land spot light on the bottom so as soon as it took off this bright Iight shown from the bottom of the drone and was super awkward. Finally the light went off and the drone was free. I flew it around for about 15 minutes capturing some video and images of the Palace before landing it. Another successful mission! I was hungry so decided to walk back to the hotel, drop my stuff, and then hit Old Town in search of food.

I thought to go back to the place I had eaten the first night but mixed it up. I walked around and around looking for a cool spot and didn’t see any that caught my eye and as fate would have it ran back in to the Kilkenny Pub. I said screw it and sat down. They had beer I liked and the pizza was good so im sure they have other good things on the menu. The pub was poppin and most every seat was filled. The waiter brought me my beer when out of no where this dude sits down at my table. I looked up and there he was spouting off about “hey man im the best promoter in the city, you want to party, and come with me want to give you something.” I told him I was good like 10 times but seemed like nothing I could tell him worked. He stood up saying come to the back he wanted to give me something to which he walked inside the pub. Needless to say I did NOT follow him haha. He came a few moments later and sat down telling me he wanted to give me a bump and I would love that shit, and if I liked it he give me his number and maybe I call him later for more. Finally I just said to the dude, “bruh im just here for a beer and I don’t want anything.” He asked if we could exchange numbers and I said nah bruh im good. Finally he must have recognized that I wasn’t going to be partaking and stood up saying “well if you change your mind you can find me out here.” He walked off and the waiter had come up and said “that was trouble there mate.” No shit! He said people get sucked in to that all the time and their wallets go missing or they can’t exactly remember getting home. So that was a fun cultural experience haha. After that I did order a traditional Romania dish called Mititei which is a beef dish. It is ground beef, lamb, and pork all rolled up like a sausage but without the wrapping. They are bbq’d and super delicious. The dish was served with french fries and dipping the Mititei in the spicy mustard was killer. I finished up my meal and decided why not stop by the casino on my way home haha.

I entered the casino and like the previous night it wasn’t that crowded but the folks that were there seemed like they were regulars. I sat at one of the machines and the young kid brought me a beer. He decided to sit and watch me play the slot machine for a while only talking briefly. I hadn’t hit much of anything and was down, between last night and tonight, about 600 Leu ($130 USD). I had a lone 100 Leu left and decided to take a stab on a bigger bet. A few spins in I hit a 4 symbol bonus and cleared $650 Leu which brought me back from the dead. With that win I had another beer which I drank quickly and marched back to the hotel with my money back. Such a cool day with many different experiences along the way. Tomorrow is my last day in Romania and I have an 18hr train ride to Budapest in the late afternoon. I shall try and do the parliament tour tomorrow and make sure all of my stuff is in order before the train. ON TO TOMORROW!