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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Fighting Together Against Organized Crime

Steve was in Bucharest, Romania this past week at a FBINAA European Chapter Retrainer with National Academy graduates. They enjoyed the gorgeous fall weather during their seminar.The meeting was at the Radisson Hotel on Monday. However, they had an organized tour on Saturday out to the countryside.
The castle was a beautiful blend of German and old European architecture with it's meticulous gardens and sculptures.


They took a break from exploring and
and ran a 3k 'fun run' that was taken wayyyyy to seriously by some, but others in the group remembered the 'fun' part, took it easy and enjoyed the lush green fields and cool fall day.
Bucharest has 7 hills like Rome and the language Romanian is supposed to be similar to Italian. Steve said he could understand bits here and there, and could read quite a bit of it but it was not the Roman dialect by any stretch of imagination.
But they did have the traditional courtyard with a fountain that is typical of villas and medieval Italian villages. (This is the inside of Dracula's castle)

One thing that was stunning was the green moss that covered the rooftops
Bucharest has a temperate climate in these fertile flat lands and forests
Looking at this calm, quaint little lake house, it would be easy to think of Romania as the perfect place to live.... but the thieving Gypsies are from Romania.

And one particular cruel Romanian leader "Vlad" was the inspiration for Bram Stocker's Dracula
This castle in Transylvania is supposed to be a representation of what Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia, castle would have looked like. Vlad was the real life inspiration for Dracula with all his torture tactics.
This eerie gloom provides the perfect backdrop for the story, don't you think?
The National police, FBI agents and Academy grads didn't have to drink blood when they were at the Pecarus Restaurant for dinner
but they had to try some local delicacies like head cheese, pig liver and stomach lining
while they talked over human organ trafficking...
As always, there's a price for the 'fun and games.' Steve got off the plane and came down with the flu or maybe just a bad case of head cheese....

1 comment:

The Bastian's said...

Katherine, All I can think when I read your blogs is "what a life!" Steve's life is much like Mission Impossible, in all of these different Countries doing different crazy things. Don't tell him that, we don't want any big heads!! But the pictures and the stories are wonderful. We love them! Thank you!