Mrs. Thorne goes to Parliament

While B was busy working at the archives, I planned to visit the Parliament building. I had also decided to get a haircut and the two are close to one another. As I learned when our friends were here visiting, it is wise to make a reservation for an English-language tour, otherwise one may have to wait an hour or more for the next available one. Having made an appointment for a haircut for Friday afternoon, around mid-day on Thursday I called the Parliament to make my appointment. I was promptly told, "You call tomorrow for tomorrow between 9-10". O-K!


Later that evening, we met several friends for dinner at a favorite Indian place and had a great time, but unfortunately went to bed a bit later than we expected. However, determined to see the Parliament before our departure, I awoke early, showered and dressed so that I could leave soon after making my tour reservation. At about 9:15 AM, I called the Parliament and had the unfortunate experience of speaking with one of THE rudest receptionists I have spoken with in a long time, who first insisted it was not possible to make a reservation and then finally spat an alternate number at me. I did eventually manage to make a reservation and make it to the Parliament in plenty of time. After waiting for several minutes for my tour, we began. Unfortunately, our tour guide was awful! The tour actually took 30 minutes more than it should have, she wasn't very concerned about keeping the group together and didn't mention several important pieces of information, which I knew about thanks to our guidebook. Despite this, though, the building, which was built by the Ceaucescus in a very elaborate and somewhat bizarre style was very interesting and I was glad to have seen it.


For photos of the inside, check out this link:

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1580989013/a=115918513_115918513/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/


Below are some examples of exterior photos I found online of the Palace:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=palace+of+parliament&gbv=2&aq=0&oq=Palace+of+Pa


After the tour of the Parliament, I quickly made my way to my haircut appointment, which while I was somewhat concerned about the way it was going in the beginning, turned out well. While I waited for my appointment with the esthetician, I called the Thai restaurant in town to make reservations for dinner that evening as I had promised friends I would. After being told that it would be "impossible" to have a table at 8PM, I was finally able to get a table for 7PM and rearranged plans with our friends. Since the sky looked gray and threatening, B and I made our way very quickly to and from the dry cleaners to pick up our last order and headed home. We were both pretty tired and spent some time zoning out before meeting up with our friends. Despite the fear of rain, we had a wonderful dinner in the restaurant's orchid garden, which while beautiful had a distinct lack of orchids. We had a lot of fun and headed home to rest up before a long weekend of packing ahead of us.

We have spent the past two days trying to tie up loose ends and start the packing process. Unfortunately, yesterday evening when we were sorting books, etc., we found several items that had become moldy. The worst of all being B's fall corduroy jacket, which we unfortunately had to throw away immediately. We have continued sorting and packing today and are heading to a farewell barbecue soon. We have only a few days left here and can't wait to be home and see everyone! -S