A few days ago

So it's been a long time since I last wrote anything... the lack of interweb and moderate amounts of frisball busy-ness has prevented me from doing so.
Anyway at last post I was in Brasov, Transylvania off to watch bears... and you may have noticed from the pics that I saw some... it was mega awesomeness... real bears... They may have been mooching garbage but they were right there on the other side of the street... VERY cool. We saw 8 in total and it was kick ass... I'd ended up going to dinner with a bunch of girls from the hostel and having to run (through the rain) to get back on time... I was 15 mins late and still the first there.
Now I may have inferred in previous posts that american backpackers tend to be ignorant, culturally insensitive, alcohol obsessed, point missing wastes of space and money... Well these girls weren't. They were a lovely group (all Mormans too) and the opposite of what I've previously inferred so I retract my previous assertation ALL American backpackers seem to suck... it's just most =P (Happy Laur?)

I sat up again after that (how can you sleep after bears?) and we decided a large keyboard that can be used with you big toe (and placed on the floor) would be dynamite for those computer/tv hybrid set ups. I then got up at 8am to see if I could go paragliding with some of the morman girls... but weather called it off =( so I went back to bed. I faffed around all morning and then went to Sighasora (Dracula's "birth" town). The town had some old interesting bits... they weren't that pretty though and the torture museum was nowhere near up to scratch. My 1pm train didn't get in till 2 too... which was my fault... when warned it would be late I said "nah, I'll be fine".
Comparing Sighasora to Brasov is a bit harsh (especially given brasov is "probably the best city in the world") but I could've written more torture info than the "muesum" (all one room of it) and the history museum was boring (here is a plow) but did have a nice view. The armament collection was ok but limited too. Sigh was also full of the tack I expected but didn't get in Brasov.

On the train there I was chatting to a Japanese lady who thought I was super traveller man... so much so she wanted a picture of us together in Brasov... so I obliged and am now in some lady's photo collection of her holiday to transylvania.
Glad I didn't spend the whole day (or a night) in Brasov but I did get an awesome wood fired pizza for dinner... which I ate like a filthy pig (or duck because of the limited chewing?). Ciuc (chook) the Romanian beer is ok too... but nothing compared to"Ursus"""THE KING OF BEER in romania"

General observations from Romania. Their food is bland. "Non stop" written outside a shop doesn't mean it is always open. Blinkers are a courtesy when changing lanes only and gutters are more like guidelines than actual barriers to your car.

So that's it from Romania...

Love, hugs and Kisses
ANt

Bear Pics

So I'm pre empting the blog post... But I saw freakin' BEARS in Brasov... it was awesome...

Admittedly they were just mooching rubbish on the outskirts of town, but still... BEARS

Diana Bolea (the most awesome of hostel chicks) let me take some of the pics she had already (because mine are crappy and stuck on my camera). So much love and thanks to her...

Love, Hugs and Vampire Kisses
ANt

Ve Vant to suck your Blood... Or at least hav your Lei

So I was wrong... it isn't Romania that is weird, just Bucharest... Brasov (and Transylvania) is actually quite cool.

Because Brasov was pretty well booked out when I arrived I slept on a couch till 3am before I got a room in the hostel and I had a nice (if bland) dinner at a traditional restaurant. My biggest complaint about Transylvania is that Romanian food is not amazing... it's a little boring (My "asian chicken with chilli" in Bucharest was a little dull too... and the only thing asian about it was if had rice).

Sylvia at the hostel is amazingly hectic... like she's on speed hectic and it's hilarious to watch. "I'm shooting... well not really, we have a word in Romanian that is like shooting but not and sounds different and that's how I feel... it is a saying I can't explain", is an example of how she was carrying on trying to find everyone who owes money for the rooms. She treats us all great though and has made the stay at this hostel (The Rolling Stone) pretty awesome. Hence why I've staying the extra night tonight rather than staying in Sighasora.

I did watch a stupid HBO Spartacus tv show the first night though... really bad. Cross Oz with Gladiator and 300 and you've got the right idea... all tits and dicks and stupid violence pretending to be real.

Anyway Brasov looks WAY better than Bucharest (I love the town sign on the hill). After a sleep in I went for a breakfast pizza and wandered around the town a lot. I then got the cable car up to the top of the hill to the sign and decided to walk down... so of course it started to pour with rain and I got a little soaked (I did have my jager poncho though). I guess getting rained on is my tribute to Jonathan Harker.

The bear watching was canceled last night so I spent the evening drinking with Eonie a Scottish/English girl (she was from the border) and today I did my castle tours of Bran and Peles. Peles was the most insanely over the top ornate palace I've been in... It appears when they go nuts for decoration the Romanians REALLY go nuts (see the palace of parliament too). Bran castle touts itself as "Dracula's castle" even though it isn't... Still very scenic though.

Anyway time for dinner before bear watching...

Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt

Romania is really weird...

So my trip to Bucharest was a little bit chaotic... Obviously the first part of the train trip in Turkey needs to happen on a bus. And the first thing that greeted me on the bus was a girl with longer and thicker underarm hair than me... haunting in that "I can't take my eyes off it" sort of way. I then got to sit next to a crying Romanian girl for the bus ride. After we eventually got to the train I got to jump into a sleeper car... That was pretty cool, I felt very Sean Connery-James Bond getting to travel across borders in a sleeper car. I was sharing with a German dude... he was nice, but very very serious about everything. It was a bit "we make conversation now", "it is sleeping time now" etc. Waking up at 3am to cross the border (not to mention that it took FOREVER to get my passport back) was a bit sucky though. A stop for an hour or so in Bulgaria around 12 was annoying too as noone took Lira or Euro... But I'd been told that Bulgarians nod their head no and shake their head yes, and it's true! They actually do it.

Bucharest is a really fucking weird city though... I couldn't quite work it out. It had a lot of WTF moments... I had massive trouble finding my hostel (not the least because it had two addresses) and I found what seemed like whole blocks that are just empty/abandoned. It's like whole blocks went broke (including the strip clubs... which are EVERYWHERE).
There was also a metalica/motorhead/slayer concert (or something like that) in Bucharest that day so of course I ended up at a metal club after going to dinner. It was a refreshing change after a week of Turkish pop. Vaguely related to that, metalheads worldwide all dress the same... And on that note have you ever noticed the only difference between a fat metal chick and a fat metal guy with long hair is the beard (and vajay jay obviously). So there was a lot of windmilling on display and a couple of dudes dancing in a rather amusing way (or having a fit I can't tell)... Very cool. The "half dan" salute also lives on in Romania now.
Traveling alone means I get way less opportunity to cut way loose like I would at home, but if you were traveling in a pair would you be that happy if your "other half" kept going nuts all the time? And in a larger group you're risking the development of a "man of shame". Smoking is also not banned in Romania and it was so smokey in this basement you could barely see by the end. I planned on leaving early but ended up having to much fun so once again I was out till 2am. I also nearly wandered into the Shisha bar I walked past too...

Anyway for my day in Bucharest I went to the Palace of Parliment (after observing that Romanians appear to love to rollerblade). The palace of parliment is apparently the second largest admin building in the world (after the pentagon) but it's still not entirely completed. It was so insanely over the top though (especially given it is barely used). Very pointlessly/dictatorially opulent but just kinda depressing at the same time as it's just a waste. On that tour I saw a "Billabong New York" tshirt... Wtf?

I also bought my train tickets to Brasov and Prague. Now Lex may mock the Germans customer service abilities, but the Romanians were mindblowing... Admittedly I was buying a train ticket from a city I wasn't in to another country... but it shouldn't be that hard.

And of course some old guy assumed I was Romanian.

I also nearly missed my train to Brasov, and when I got on it my cabin was padlocked...

I'd like to say I arrived in Transylvania on a dark and stormy night... but I didn't... it was just a rainy late afternoon. And the chick running this hostel is pretty hilarious

Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt