Romania

Oh boy, Romania. Romania, Romania, Romania... So last I left off, I was leaving Berlin and the Göktürk. When I got to the Germanwings terminal at Berlin Schoenefeld airport, and sat down at the gate, I knew I was in for a treat. First of all, the guy sitting right across from me looked like someone who would pick up drifters and brutally murder them. Why? He had very quiet sneakers. Besides that, I just got negative vibes from his insect-like bulging eyes. Anyways, I got on the plane after a 20 minute wait and had an uneventful flight. When we landed in Bucharest, the terminal looked like it hadn't been updated for 50 years and had fallen into disrepair. In the little hallway leading outside, there were a slew of taxi drivers on either side, and plenty more waiting just outside. Now, I have dealt with similar people, such as in Marrakesh, but these guys were much more aggressive and much more unsettling. Unfortunately, I couldn't help but look like a tourist when I pulled out my directions, and needless to say, this alerted them and sent them into attack mode. "Need taxi?! I've got good price! Where you from?" Every one of them shouted the same lines. Then I got to the end of the sidewalk and exited the airport, but I couldn't shake one persistent cabby who followed me down the road. Once he realized I wasn't going to bite, he just yelled out in the most pitifully depressing voice, "please, please, please!" I knew it was just an act though. I kept walking down this main road, having no idea where I was, but I did see the Bank of Transylvania which made me laugh:

After snapping that picture, I kept walking down the street and turned right at the next big intersection. In the distance I saw this animal that looked like a cross between a wolf and a bear, basically the meanest looking dog you can imagine. I want to figure out what breed it is because it is one of the most bad-ass looking things I've ever seen. It looked like it was on the hunt, which it probably was because it was clearly a stray. Looking back now, I can't believe I didn't take a picture of it. Sorry. Well, that was only the first of many more strays I would see in Bucharest and Romania. Bucharest is reputed to have more than 250,000 stray dogs. Those with yellow tags on their ears have been neutered or spayed. More on the strays later. So I was walking down the street and I see this bus, and I thought it was my bus, but it started to go so I thought I would just have to wait for the next one. In one of the only acts of kindness I saw or received in Romania, the driver stopped a few feet down the road and motioned for me to get on. I didn't have a ticket, but I said what the hell and hopped on. There was barely any room though, and the people in the front seats refused to move their bags so I just stood in the doorway and the doors repeatedly open and closed on me every time we stopped. I would periodically look at everyone on the bus behind me, and they would almost always be staring at me with a sour face. If I had to venture a guess, they knew I was a foreigner, and if I had to venture another guess, I'd say they aren't very fond of foreigners. No matter, I just kept my eyes peeled for my stop. Numerous cell phones went off during the ride, all of which had some sort of traditional Romanian instrumental song as the ring tone. I hate to draw the comparison, but think "Borat." My directions instructed me to get off the bus at the major train station, Garra de Nord.

When I got off the bus I was greeted by gypsies and strays. At this point I still didn't have a bus ticket, and I didn't want to have to pay a fine if I got caught, so I went into the train station looking for some sort of ticket kiosk. Well, they don't have electronic ticket machines in Romania yet, so that option was out of the question. I wandered around for a bit, keeping my guard up since I heard the train station, like most train stations, is the worst place for pickpocketers, con artists, etc. However, I had no luck finding a kiosk. I scanned my environment and saw these two security guards...or so I thought. I walked up to them and asked them where I could buy a bus ticket. People at Garra de Nord come in two varieties: sleazy and sleazier. The sleazier guy, with the gelled back hair paused a moment, looked at me for a few seconds, turned, and then said "follow me." This already sent off red flags for me, but I didn't think I had a better option so I followed the two to the other side of the station. When we were near the exit, Sleazier (They will now be addressed as Sleazy and Sleazier) told me to wait there with his partner and he walked outside. Me and Sleazy shared a painfully awkward 5 minutes together in which he attempted to speak to me in Romanian several times despite my protests that I only knew English and some Spanish. Sleazier got back and handed me the ticket which had written on it, 1.60 Lei. He told me it cost 10 euro. I told him this was clearly not the case because the ticket said 1.60 on it. He said, "fine, fine, 10 lei." At this point I wasn't too sure there was anyone that would help me if these guys decided to jump me, as they had clubs, so I relented and said "okay." I asked him if he had change and he replied in the positive so I gave him a 50 lei note. He only counted out 30 lei to give back to me and I asked him what the deal was. He answered, "10 lei for me and my partner for a beer." I was done with these guys, so I let them have the 10 lei note (it really isn't much in dollars anyways).

When I was outside, I was bombarded by even more taxi drivers. I told one of the cabbies who approached me that I was taking the bus and he replied: "Don't take the bus! The bus is hijacked! There are hijackers on the buses!" I knew this was just a desperate business tactic, so I laughed. Still, it made me a little apprehensive about what I would be in for in Romania. I found this Hispanic family waiting at the bus stop, and I cannot tell you how elated I was to find someone I could communicate with and who didn't seem to want to cause me bodily harm. I got on the first bus that came, mainly because they got on it, but it turned out to be the wrong bus. So I rode the bus with this Hispanic family for a while, talking with them, trying to figure out where I needed to go. We arrived at this one stop and they told me to get off there because "I would be safe there because it was a Spanish speaking neighborhood, and people there would help me." I felt like they had brought me under the protection of the Hispanic community. I felt incredibly indebted to them and thanked them numerous times when I left. It turns out I had to walk to the other side of the block to catch a bus in the direction I came from. Again, I got on the first bus that stopped, the only difference being this time I knew it wasn't the bus the hostel told me to take. I asked the bus driver if he stopped where I needed to go, and he merely looked at me with a grimace and then looked back at the road. I asked a Romanian couple if they knew, and even though they didn't speak any English, I was able to convey what I needed and found out that the bus I was on did stop where I needed to go.

By the time I was at my stop, the sun was pretty low in the sky and evening was fast approaching. I wanted to make it indoors before the packs of strays and crazy people came out. On foot, I was able to find the hostel easily. After paying, I moved my stuff to my room and then relaxed for a little while. The night before in Berlin, and the events up until that point that day were starting to catch up with me. After mustering up the energy, I got off my bed and headed out into Bucharest for something to eat. Little did I know that Easter is one of, if not the biggest holiday in Romania and almost EVERYTHING shuts down. I thought there was bound to be something near by so I just set out in a random direction with my map. A few blocks out from the hostel, a random man came up to me on the street and asked for a cigarette. I told him I had none and that I didn't smoke. He seemed perplexed by this. After this, he stuck out his hand for me to shake. I wasn't sure if I should shake it or not, for all I knew it could be some kind of Romanian custom to shake someone's hand after you ask for a cigarette. Against my better judgment, I shook it. Then he put his arm around me. This was not O.K. I took his hand off and I told him to knock it off and go away. He followed me for a good half mile, about ten feet behind me the entire time, yelling "I love you American!" and "hey friend! wait friend! Please!" After walking for a while, I realized that I was definitely walking away from where I should be going, so I had to double back, and again cross this guy who was stalking me. When I did, he reached out his hand and I just kept walking and ignored him. I finally got back to my hostel's neighborhood, and stopped in my tracks after I saw a pack of strays on the prowl. I wanted to take a picture because they looked organized and fierce, but I had this wacko on my tail so I kept walking. A little after I passed the dogs, I heard the guy behind me start talking to them. After all my effort, I found an Italian place right around the block from my hostel in the OPPOSITE direction I had taken. I was about to walk into the restaurant, and at this point the guy was only a yard behind me and I had had enough. I turned around and told him to leave me alone and that his following me ended there. I was definitely in fight or flight mode at this point. In reply to my ultimatum he apologized and walked away. To be honest, he was probably just a drunk bum who wanted a friend. There were some people from my hostel eating at that same restaurant by chance so I sat with them. There was a couple from Belgium and a couple from France. They were pretty nice, but it was hard to talk with them since they didn't speak English very well. The Belgian guy talked exactly like Steve Brule, which made it hard for me to keep a straight face. After dinner, on my way back to the hostel, I took some photos of advertisements for some prime Romanian entertainment:


I fell asleep quite quickly when I got back. The next morning I got breakfast in the hostel and talked with some people to get an idea of what there might be to do in Bucharest. Nothing apparently. I set out with one of the guys nonetheless since we both wanted to sight see and take pictures. Well, there isn't much to see. There is a big government building that is supposed to be the largest government building in the world after the Pentagon:

The streets weren't attractive at all and the architecture left much to be desired:

While we were walking down one of the main streets, there was a kid walking towards us on the other side of the sidewalk, inhaling fumes of some sort from a bag. Apparently it is a big problem with the impoverished youth in Romania. The odd thing is that no one thought it strange that this kid was walking down the street in broad daylight getting high. Everyone there is used to it, and no one bothers the kids, cops included. On our way back to the hostel, we came across some very welcoming graffiti:

There was a hostel barbecue that night which was awkward because there really weren't that many people staying at the hostel. Free food is free food though so I ate everything I could. "God knows when I will be able to eat again," I thought. After eating my fill, I decided to go out and hunt for packs of strays to take pictures of. I figured the park would be a good place to look, so I went there first. It didn't take long to hear some howling and all I had to do was follow the noise to the dogs. There were three of them darting back and forth under park benches and sniffing all around. It was tough to get their pictures because they aren't very trustful of humans, and they were freaked out by the camera. I did manage to get a few shots which you can see in my Picassa album. The park was also full of frogs which I had a field day taking pictures of. Some were even mating:

After I had enough of the frogs, we went back to the hostel. I got up the next morning and got on a train to Brasov in Transylvania. I didn't know what anything on my ticket meant, so I just got on the last train car and picked a random cabin. Turns out I was in the wrong place when the ticket man came around. Two railway employees also decided to sit in my cabin. These were actually some of the nicest people I met in Romania aside from the Hispanics. They were civil and patient with me when I didn't understand them, and when they got off they wished me a good stay in Romania. In total, it was about a 3 hour train ride. We stopped in several places and waited as long as 20 minutes sometimes. At one stop there were two Romanian boys waiting on the platform, one of which was profusely bleeding everywhere. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I'm gonna guess it was a bloody nose. I'm not sure if a bloody nose produces that much blood though. He and his friend were taking turns swigging an almost empty bottle of vodka. I witnessed people drinking vodka like it was water, numerous times during my stay in Romania. It is quite impressive. Here's a picture of a Romanian town we passed on the train:

Once I got to the train station in Brasov, I was immediately wary of anyone or anything that approached me, and I refused to talk to anyone, no matter how cop-like they may have appeared. I decided to make it easy on myself and got a cab since in American dollars it was only like $2 to my hostel. I made sure to use one of the taxi companies the hostel suggested so I wouldn't get ripped off. The guy didn't rip me off, and I got to my hostel in about ten minutes. Win, win. Already a better start than Bucharest. There was only one other person in my dorm room when I got there and he was sleeping. The place felt very empty. After unpacking my stuff, I needed to feed. I didn't feel very adventurous so I went to KFC, one of the only places where they spoke English. This KFC would become a regular stop for me and I got the chicken strips with garlic sauce every time. It was nice to have familiar food in what seemed like such an alien and hostile environment. There wasn't a whole lot to see in Brasov. In fact, most of it could be seen in an hour or less if you wanted to speed through. I can't forget to mention the Hollywood-esque sign that sits atop a mountain behind the city:

Thankfully, the thing also lit up at night. Besides the sign, Brasov lays claim to one of (although I think they claim it to be THE) the narrowest streets in Europe, Strada Sforii:

It also has the Black Church, which is called so because of a fire that broke out there many centuries ago and charred the building. It supposedly has the largest collection of Turkish rugs in Europe because traders always donated rugs every time they crossed through Brasov on their way to or from Turkey:

Aside from those attractions, the square was a nice place to hang around because it was the cleanest and also the liveliest:

That night, my roommate and I decided to walk around and see if there were any good bars to hang at. All of the bars are down narrow side alleys and are very hard to find, some even being underground. Eventually we just chose a random one and went in, grabbed a beer and chilled. It wasn't that great of a bar, so we decided to just go back to the hostel after we finished our beers. On our way back we passed a group of Romanian boys dressed in kilts and hats doing a traditional dance, all the while taking turns throwing a metal object into the sky and trying to catch it on its way back down. I got a video of it that you will be able to see in my Picassa album. After watching this ceremony for a while trying to figure out what was going on, we went back for the night. Thankfully, more people arrived the next day. After having breakfast in the morning, me and two of the guys thought it'd be cool to go see Dracula's Castle, also known as Bran Castle. We learned that we needed to take a bus to get to Bran, which we thought would be at the train station since there were coaches lined up outside the station with various destinations in Transylvania written on them. We had no luck finding our bus for the longest time until we realized we needed to catch a city bus to the main bus station which was much further away. We got to the bus station just in time to catch the hourly bus. It was around an hour bus ride to get to Bran, with not a whole lot to see on the way. Bran itself is tiny, and the castle is much smaller than you'd expect, but still decent:

The castle was not actually Vlad Tepes' castle, the historical figure that Dracula is based on. Vlad was famous for his victories against the Turks in battle, and subsequently torturing his war prisoners in inventive ways, most notably of which was impaling them on a wooden stake making sure not to hit any vital nerves so that it would take an agonizing 24 hours or more to die. He also once gouged out the eyeballs of hundreds of Turks and made them walk off a cliff to their deaths. Quite an accomplished guy. Back to Bran Castle. It was actually a Teutonic Knight stronghold used to guard the fringes of their territory from invaders coming from the South. There wasn't much to see inside the castle, but here's a view of the courtyard:

It started to rain while we were there. Then the winds picked up. It was also quite cold. So by the time we got back on the bus to Brasov we were soaking wet and cold. We had priorities though and KFC was above warm clothes, so we stopped there first before going back to the hostel. I got the usual chicken strips with garlic sauce. I showered when we got back to the hostel and then planned my train for the next day to Budapest. After I figured out which train I was going to take, more or less everyone in the hostel, which was around ten people, went out to dinner at a traditional Romanian restaurant. I got Schnitzel but it had nothing on the Schnitzel I had in Berlin. After dinner we spent the rest of the evening playing drinking games. On our way to buy the alcohol, this little stray decided to tag along. I bought him pretzels but he refused to eat them:

The next day I was scheduled to depart in the evening so I took the opportunity to go to Peles Castle in Sinaia, however, not without some drama. On our way to the train station on the bus, my hostel mates and I were caught not having tickets. The inspector didn't ask anyone else for their ticket, but at this point I expected no less from the Romanian authorities. I'm not exactly sure which night it was, but I was walking in the square by myself after getting some pizza and these police officers stopped me and proceeded to interrogate me and asked for my passport. I didn't put up a fight, but it definitely seemed a little iffy. I wasn't sure if I could trust these guys considering what happened in Bucharest. They eventually gave me back my passport and let me be on my way. So, with this incident in mind, I decided it would be best to just pay the fine and keep my mouth shut. Again, it wasn't that bad of a fine when I considered it in American dollars. These two Canadians who were with me on the other hand decided to protest the ticket. I knew that they weren't going to get anywhere so I just bit my lip in silent frustration as I watched them make fools of themselves in front of everyone. I don't think it was fair for the ticket inspector to just single us out, but at the same time, if you break a rule, you're going to have to pay. I don't know what made these Canadians think they were some sort of special case and didn't have to pay. It got to the point that curse words were being exchanged along with some shoves. As I expected, they ended up paying the fine despite all their protests. I ended up going to Peles Castle alone because the Canadians were so upset about the "injustice" and "racism" that they decided they needed to sit it out for the rest of the day. My other two companions were leaving relatively early, so they didn't have the time to come with me. I think it actually might have been better this way. Sinaia was actually a sleepier town than Brasov, if that is possible. I made a beeline for the castle. Along the way I crossed a monastery that everyone was taking pictures of, so I thought it must be something significant so I took pictures of it too:

My favorite part was this stray puppy that was taking a nap along one of the outer walls:

It looked up at me just as I took the picture. I feel like it has such a look of utter despair on its face that it can only be thinking: "help me." I proceeded to walk up the mountain hoping I would come across the castle. I ended up scaling much higher than I needed to, and having to backtrack down the mountain. The castle proved to be well worth the trek though, as it seemed to be the only well maintained area of the town. Also, it was pretty incredible to see the castle framed by the Carpathian Mountains. Inside was pretty decent too. There were a couple rooms totally devoted to rare weaponry which was pretty cool. There was a sword with a sharkskin scabbard and precious stone encrusted rifles:



When the tour was over, I walked outside and down and around the castle to get some photos from better angles.

When I was done loitering around the castle, I walked back down towards the train station and looked for something to eat. I got a kebab and then went to the station where I had to wait about an hour for my train to come. When it did, two Australian friends I met at the hostel just so happened to get on the same train and were also traveling to Budapest that evening. When we got back to Brasov, we still had some time to kill before our train, so I grabbed some dinner while they went back to the hostel to grab their luggage. Afterward, we met at the train station to take the night train to Keleti station in Budapest.