Romania, Replica, same thing!

VLOG

Romania is a country of replicas:

• Arcul de Triumf looks exactly like the Arc de Triomphe of Paris. The building itself, along with the roads around it, are almost an exact replica
• Vlad Casino is modelled on the Moscow parliament. Impressive looking building in Bucharest, but an intentionally copied design
• Sinaia is a town in Transylvania named after the biblical Mt Sinai of Egypt. Not a structural replica here, but a mnemonic one
• Brasov is a tourist town of Transylvania where the name of the city is etched on a mountain similar to Hollywood

However, the one big thing that Romania has contributed to the world is the fantasy story of Dracula.

Dracula was a Bram Stoker character loosely based on Vlad the Impaler from Transylvania in Romania, with the Bran Castle from here serving as inspiration for all the imagery around Dracula we are familiar with.

A lot of the character sketch of Dracula is based on the folklore around Vlad.

For example, his body is supposed to be in the Comana monastery of Romania (as per some official documentation) but some believe he's in Naples, Italy. Truth is, nobody has seen his real remains, leading to legends of his immortality that people of his time believed since they always spoke of him as a demon.

Vlad is also known to impale people (therefore the demon sobriquet), and this is truth and not folklore, leading to his moniker Vlad the Impaler. But some also believed he drank blood, sketching a key character trait of Dracula.

Dracula's fear of garlic stems from a culinary fascination of Romania though, and nothing to do with Vlad, since garlic sauce is served with every dish here.


This brings us to the food delights of Romania, which is basically all meat. Lamb and Pork and Beef, in Shanks and Knuckles and Napes and meatballs. They're all stunning, and they're all served with polenta and garlic sauce!

The meat here is actually so popular that even some chicken dishes are stuffed with ham, and some fish dishes laced with bacon.

The must have dishes are cabbage rolls (regular spring rolls, except instead of rice paper there is cabbage here), Shank stew (pork or lamb) and Lamb pastrami.

The most famous dessert here is the Pasnami, and the famous drink is Palinka (similar to Hungary) but the local beer is also pretty great. Ciuc and Ursus are the noticeable ones, but the local draught of Carul cu Bere was my favourite.


Below 3 restaurants were pretty much the most famous ones of Bucharest from all research, and links lead to detailed TripAdvisor restaurant reviews:
Hanului manuc
Linea Closer to the moon
Carul cu Bere

The other restaurants of Romania were:
Sonnenhof in Suceava
La Ceaun in Brasov

Roland Garros

2017

Our maiden Grand Slam experience could possibly not have been better than Roland Garros. 

Starting off with some tips to ensure a better experience than what we went through:

1. Track and book tickets in wave 1 itself. Wave 2 gets expensive and limited on Round 4 and upward availability
2. Round 4 matches that fall on first Sunday of the 2 week tournament offer the best price/value/holiday tickets for the big star matches 
3. Choose Philip Chartier over Suzanne Lenglen court. Higher probability of big star matches here 
4. Draft beer is the only alcohol available at the Bar Lounge and makes the best place to dine and refresh during the day here 
5. Be prepared for rain. Always a probability of this happening during the match days 

Now coming to the day spent there. The seats were honestly perfect. A little lower and closer to the grounds may have been better, but these were nearly exactly the view you get on the TV and made it awesome. 

One peculiar thing about the spectators here are the slogans they have. One is a form of "alle" and the other a type of trumpet noise. Both these keep popping up in different parts of the court and keep the mood festive all through. 

While a lot of people visit the store here to purchase souvenirs in spite of their hefty cost, that translates even food and everything you purchase at the grounds, we decided not to as our souvenir was the photo we managed to take with Leander Paes. If it wasn't for Geet, that may have never happened. She even met Sania later on. She was just saying she wished she saw Sania too, and there pops Sania in front of her. Some luck she's got. And I ended up spilling whipped all over my shorts and shoes while entering the stadium. Seemed like all the luck has just completed tilted to her side. 

Luck favoured during the match as well, where the rains literally waited for the Wawrinka match to conclude and then came pouring down. So we got to see the entire match before leaving, and it was really entertaining because the opponent was Fabio Fegnini who looked more like a Kung Fu fighter with dragon painting on the back of his shirt and skull logo on bandana and shirt front. 

He was just pure talent and attitude and nearly nabbed the first set. But just couldn't keep it up and lost quite simply in three sets to Wawrinka. 

Overall the entire experience was really phenomenal. Just like Leander said when we met him, "enjoy the French".

2018

Used all our previous learnings to book semi final tickets in advance for this year. Roland Garros is also the one Tennis Open where you buy day tickets and not match tickets, and therefore you get to see both men's semi final matches with the same ticket on the same day. 

We had Thiem to catch in the first match and Del Potro Nadal in the second. 

The first match we had seats in the very last row of the stadium, and the second one would have been there as well if not for some of Geet's magic. 

Magnum was sponsoring the event for the first time, and we used their lounge, which itself was a great experience, but here Geet got talking to the head of sales in France and he actually managed to find 2 seats for us at the box. 

Next thing we know, we are one row from the front and got to watch Nadal in all his raw power bang in front of us. 

Making this the best ever live sport for me of all time.