by Recently I’ve bemoaned my failure to converse in Romanian. But today I realised that I haven’t properly interacted with anybody in any language for some time. It’s either five days or eight, depending on what you count, and it’s starting to get to me. Isolation was my number one fear. Even I need human contact from time to time. It’s not that I’m staying in my room, though I felt like it today. I’m just not meeting people. It hasn’t helped that I had half a bottle of cheap Romanian red wine last night and it gave me a headache.
Oradea, where I am now, is a reasonable size, with a population of around 200,000. It’s close to the border with Hungary. And it’s beautiful. The central square (Piața Unirii, as always), the main street (Strada Republicii) and numerous surrounding buildings have had a lot of money spent on them, most of which has come from the EU. Some are still being worked on. Probably the most famous building, the Palace of the Black Eagle, is very pleasing to the eye. A decent-sized river, the Crișul Repede, wends its way through the city. (The Daily Mail would probably like to run a story on how much EU money has been spent on this obscure place in Romania with accompanying pictures comparing Oradea with, say, Great Yarmouth on the east coast of England. Or at least they would have done before the EU referendum.)
My hotel is built into the fortress which is in the shape of a five-pointed star. My room is enormous. And breakfast, while not quite as good as in Cluj, certainly isn’t bad. I’m sold on Romanian breakfasts now.
I wish I’d seen Oradea earlier on, because now I’m beginning to flag. I’m taking the train to Arad tomorrow and will spend two nights there before going back to Timișoara where all I’ll have to sort out is a new life. Shouldn’t be too challenging.
Ten hours is a long time to spend on a bus, as I did between Bucharest and Cluj. I paid 103 lei for the privilege, including one leu each time I needed to pee.
