Now they seem as familiar as the streets we lived on in Dallas, Texas like Elm or Main St. Piata Romana (Romanian Square) is where we meet our friends Monica and Dominic for lunch when they're done teaching at the university. Pantelimon is where we go when we want to see a movie at the mall. It's also great because just like we name streets after national heroes, like Martin Luther King or George Washington, Romanians do too. Aurel Vlaicu is named after a famous Romanian inventor and aviator.
You can learn a lot about the culture in Romania through its transportation. Bucharest has had three major eras of history over the past 100 years that shaped the way we get around the city today. First off, walking. Everyone walks in Bucharest to get groceries or go to one of its many book and floral shops. As you walk you can't help but notice beautiful Parisian architecture from the interwar period, which lasted from 1918 to 1939. Back then, Bucharest was nicknamed the Paris of the East. When you walk through the old town you can see the fantastic churches and gorgeous Art Nouveau buildings lining the narrow cobblestone streets.
As you continue walking, you can't help but notice the boxy, communist-style concrete apartment complexes everywhere. These come from the communist era between 1945 and 1989. The Romanian strongman and head of state, Nicolae Ceaușescu, bulldozed blocks of old Parisian-style buildings to build giant open squares like Piata Romana and very wide roads.
