After I wrote that last entry I looked at my watch and realized that I was running about 40 minutes late. I hate when I do that. I’m just doing my thing, whatever “my thing” may be and suddenly realize that I’m late. Not to worry though I made it to the train station, got my ticket, and had enough time to relax a few minutes before the train left. I found out that the train has electricity too, which means that I can write a little, maybe watch a movie and anything else that I need a computer for. This is the first time that I’ve had that kind of luxury.

Bucharest has been one of my favorite cities that I’ve been to either on this trip or any other. I think mostly it was the people, they have in nearly all regards been the friendliest I’ve ever met. I’m not going to go into too many examples here, but one short one should give you an idea of what I mean. I get off my bus in Bucharest and a guy starts talking to me. Not a big deal, but I’m a little bit wary when a local starts a conversation with me, he’s asking all the usual questions like, “Where are you from?” and “Where are you staying?” I kind of brush him off, but just like it seems every time I get off a bus, I have no clue on where I am or where I need to go. I guess he sees my confusion and asks if he can call my hotel, so he does. He gets the directions, and hails a taxi, rides with me in the taxi, and then waits for the hostel owner to show up. The whole thing took about 30 minutes, and even now after walking around the city for two days I think if I were left on my own it would have taken forever to find the hostel on my own. I mean, even the fact that the hostel owner came and picked me up shows the kind of people the Romanians are.

The city is kind of rough, there are a lot of buildings that are in disrepair, some completely gutted, but there are signs that the city is going to be very cosmopolitan some day. Most of the older buildings are very ornate, appearing more to have been crafted than built, very much like Budapest and maybe Paris, but in some regards the Romanians seem to have a unique flair for architecture. I saw a few buildings that looked unlike anything I’ve seen to date. With the restoration that seems to be taking place my guess is that it will only be a decade or two before going to Bucharest will be the same as going to any of the other better known cities like Paris, Prague, or Krakow.

When I got to Bucharest about the only thing that I wanted to see was the People’s Palace. I had seen pictures of it from time to time, but what I remember the most was during the revolution in Romania back during the end of the Soviet Union. If I remember correctly, the building was seen as one of the things that made the people so mad as to revolt. I wanted to go for a tour of it, but I would have had to wait for two hours and I didn’t have the time if I wanted to see anything else. Even though I only knew of the palace before I got here, I did find lots of other things that I wanted to see once I talked to the hostel manager. Pictures will do the job better than writing, so I won’t waste time writing.

In the end I met some very nice people here and continue to be surprised that I only heard negative comments from backpackers that have been here before me. I think it is one of the best cities in Eastern Europe and strongly suggest to any one interested, to go if they have the chance.

Wed 19/08/09 01:03

I’ve spent two nights and almost two days in Bucharest and right now I’m sitting in my hostel drinking a cup of coffee before I go back to my room and start to pack. I’m leaving at 11 for a trip to northern Romania, though right now I can’t remember the name. I was going to go straight to Kiev, but decided that the 30 hour train ride would be too long.

Bucharest has been surprisingly better than what I was told it was going to be. Before coming here everybody that I spoke to told me that just one day would be enough to see what I wanted to see, and any longer would end up being just a waste, but the truth of the matter is, is that I’ve enjoyed myself here. The weather has been good, the people are incredibly friendly, and probably best of all the town has loads of culture. Who could ask for anything else?

Since I am going to be leaving here shortly, I don’t have any time to write about what I’ve done since arriving, or to post any pictures, so for now this small message will have to do until I get somewhere when I have a little more time.

Day two in Brasov was fun. The night earlier I was hanging out with a guy that was living in Romania for a few weeks during an internship in a nearby town. I guess that he was so bored that he decided to do a little sightseeing over the weekend. We ended up going and having dinner and a couple of beers. My stomach was still a little queasy from whatever I ate in Budapest so I didn’t, or couldn’t, really do any “real” drinking, plus I was still very tired from Vlad and the other people in the train keeping me awake the night before.

There was one thing that I felt that I had to do while I was in Romania… for that matter the main reason that I went to Romania was for the whole Dracula thing. Of course I want to see Bucharest and other parts, but Vlad the Impaler is, and was the main reason. I got what I wanted too, the train ride, the fact that I could see the Carpathian Mountains, and of course, just seeing signs like, Transylvania Bank made for a good time. The one thing that I still needed to see though was Dracula’s Castle. Yeah, I know that Dracula is a fictional character that was very loosely based on a real person known as Vlad the Impaler and that Vlad’s castle doesn’t actually exist anymore, but just like when I watch a “Vampire” movie I let myself believe, that what I’ve been doing while I’ve been here in Romania. It just seems to make things more fun.

So the guy I had dinner with, Michael, an American programmer on Sabbatical, Jeff, and a student in both med school and law school at Chapel Hill went on a tour of three castles. The first castle was very nice. It seemed like a real castle that you would expect to see portrayed in nearly every movie with a fortress style castle. I don’t know what else to say about it except that it was a great experience.

The second castle was Bran’s Castle…this is the castle that’s being marketed as Dracula’s. The castle was for the most part a disappointment. I don’t want to sound too negative, but you have to be there to understand. First there was a traffic jam about 10 km away that started at the castle, second at the base of the castle there are vendors selling souvenirs, not the kind that would make sense if you were visiting Dracula’s castle, they were selling, Monopoly boards, chess sets, Halloween costumes, and a lot of things that didn’t make any sense at all. I guess that’s where people go to get a good price on board games. There were some vampire things but only a few, and every shop had them so no variety. Lastly, the castle was the type of castle that a king would live in. It was pretty, no dungeon, and no visible link to Vlad. So that was pretty negative I know, so let me say that it was pretty, and it was a castle, and in one room they did have plaques that gave the history of vampires and werewolves, and I would’ve rather seen this castle than none at all.

Finally, the last place we went was not really a castle, but more of a palace constructed about one hundred years ago. That’s about all I can really say about it, it was like going to the Hearst Castle in California in its opulence, but not the kind of thing that I was hoping for.

Brasov is a charming city. I didn’t know what to expect when I decided to come here, but I can tell you it hasn’t disappointed me at all. The best way that I can explain it is that it feels medieval in the older part of the town. The town can actually be broken into thirds, the ancient or old town, the Soviet era, and the modern age. There is some mingling of the three, but I spent most of my time exploring what can be considered mostly the old town. I really got a sense that I am actually stepping into a medieval town… of course I have to pretend that I don’t see the cars, and have to squint when I look a the shops around the touristy parts, but you get the idea. The one thing that I’m really loving here is the roofs of the houses, they look ancient. I don’t think I have a roof fetish, but for some reason the roofs here are absolutely picturesque with charm.

I only spent a few hours wandering because I think I got sick from something that I ate in Budapest. I didn’t eat that much, but I think what did it was some black berries that I had from a market. I didn’t rinse them off like I usually do, and I think they are what’s giving me the distress. For the record though they were huge and tasted so good. Hopefully I’ll have the energy to head out later on today too. Tomorrow I’m planning on going to Bran, home of Dracula.

Okay, here’s the obligatory travel story. You know, I realize that it seems that I speak a lot about the travel part, I guess even more than I speak about the destination, but the travel part can be the hardest or most interesting part that sticks with me. So without further ado, I present the trip to Brasov. the train left Budapest at about six. I get to my cabin and all but one seat is taken, the overheads are packed with luggage, so much luggage that there wasn’t a place for mine. At that point I kind of was resigned to the fact that this was going to suck. That the trip was going to be the worst that I’ve had up to date. I told someone that I needed room for my backpack and that someone was going to have move their things. I guess I may have sounded like a jerk, but all hope was gone and if I was going to be jammed in a cabin with seven other people there wasn’t any way I was going to be holding two packs for 14 hours. I think I gave a description of the cabin in an entry before, but to clarify, these cabins have two rows of seats that face each other. Most cabins hold six people, these hold eight and there is usually only enough leg room for a normal person to put his feet flat on the ground, any further out and you hit the person you’re facing. In a full cabin it’s not a pleasant experience by any means. Anyway, no one is speaking English and it appears that I’ve been placed with a family to make matters worse. All of a sudden someone is trying to take my backpack off, I twist around and say, “No.” As I’m trying turning around, someone else grabs the backpack, and I started to get upset. A lady sitting down sees this and tells the others to leave me alone. They finally make room for me and I sit down, and it turns out that there are only three other people sharing the cabin, the others that were in there were actually seated in the next cabin and were over to talk to the ones in mine. So that’s good, but now the nightmare actually begins. One guy that was evidently not part of the group is from Germany and speaks broken English. At first I think that this is a good thing, but it soon turns out that he just keeps saying the same thing, over and over again, and acts out what he says. For example, he didn’t like border guards so he would say, “Control, phooey.” Then grab his crotch, then lift half of his butt up and point to his butt, then points to his head, and finally waves his hand in the gesture that is best described as, “What can you do?” At first I thought it was funny, but after about the tenth time I was pretty much over the humor. I was so much over it that I got my book out and read about sixty pages, never once looking at him for fear he’s think I was taking a break and it was his opportunity to starting pointing again. J From that point on, the journey got even more bizarre. The German guy finally got off and he was replaced by a very large Syrian man who spoke no English, but seemed like a really nice guy. I finally dozed off and woke up a little bit later to see the Syrian asleep, head back, mouth open, but next to him is another guy in the same position, asleep, head back, mouth open, but he was resting his head on the Syrian’s shoulder. It looked so strange, almost cute in some weird way, and I dozed off again. I woke up shortly afterwards to see another guy slapping the face of the guy who was next to the Syrian. He was really slapping him too, but the guy wouldn’t wake up. He was getting upset though because every time he was slapped he would kick his foot, and since I was facing him, he was kicking my leg. The one dude finally did get the guy up and they both left. I guess all the commotion woke up the two Romanians that were there and they decided in the quiet of the moment to have a conversation… for four hours! They weren’t even trying to be quiet, they just kept talking even after I gave them the “evil eye.” I finally did manage to fall asleep again until the couple was getting ready to leave. I guess they figured that I just magically woke up at the same time that they had to leave the train, so they didn’t even have to pretend to be quiet. I dozed off again, and woke maybe five minutes later to some guy sitting across from me. I swear this guy looked like Dracula. He had dark eyes, dark hair brushed back, and a goatee, I know how stupid that sounds, but maybe because I’d had maybe two hours of sleep in a train traveling though Transylvania that I was open to suggestion, but the guy wouldn’t let me look anywhere without watching me. I’d turn my head and he was staring, I’d look at the reflection of the window, and I could see that he wasn’t looking at me, so I’d turn my head and he’d look at me. I finally, yet again dozed off and I swear I dreamt of vampires. At this point it was getting light, actually it had been light for a while, and I did wake up again not more than ten minutes later, but this time I was fed up so I grabbed my packs and found a different cabin, leaving the Syrian at the mercy of Vlad. :)

So that was the fun part of my trip, actually when I write about “Vlad” it does seem almost fun right now. When I woke up the train was traveling through rolling hills, some with trees and some with just grass. Every now and again we’d go by houses that looked right out of the 19th Century, complete with haystacks. The weather was cold and although it wasn’t raining, there was a mist/fog that was sticking the some of the hills. It really made for the perfect trip into Transylvania.