The Only Tourist in Romania

For the crowd-adverse, now is the time to visit Romania.  In the capital city of Bucharest I had some company and in Transylvania but then, wow, it was like I had the whole country to myself.  My week in Romania started in Bucharest where I was fortunate to be hosted by Erin, a RPCV from Macedonia who now works for Peace Corps in Romania.  While Erin was at work, I visited an outdoor museum of buildings from all over Romania showing the many styles of construction.  Then I toured the Palace of Parliament, built by the Communist ruler Nicolae Ceausescu during his 20+ year reign.  The building is second only in size to the Pentagon and seemingly every inch is covered with marble and gold-embroidered curtains.  As a friend of mine who grew up there said, it's astounding that Ceausesau could spend so much on a building when his people were standing in bread lines.  Actually, he was executed before the building's completion and now it is used, as the name implies, for the government and other offices, conferences, etc.  I rounded out the day by wandering the historic quarter, which shows the great architecture that used to cover more of the city before Ceausescu had his way with the usual socialist concretification, and enjoyed a Lebanese meal with Erin. 

Palace of Parliament

Lebanese with Erin

Next I traveled by train into Transylvania, specifically to the city of Brasov.  One advantage of traveling solo is that if I decide to drop my bags at the hostel, inhale an apple, and then run out to catch the next bus then nobody is perturbed by it.  In this case, I rushed off to the town of Bran to see "Dracula's Castle."  Though the historical inspiration for the Dracula character, Vlad the Impaler, hailed from this region, there's pretty much no tie to Bran Castle per se other than some great marketing.  Still, I enjoyed reading the history of the last royal family who used the castle until their ouster after WWII.  Brasov was also fun because there were other people staying at the hostel and we went to an Irish Pub to listen to a big band perform.

Spooky - Bran "Dracula" Castle

From inside Bran Castle

Note funny Hollywood-style Brasov sign on the hillside

Brasov at sunset

 After Brasov, I took a 2.5 hour train to the town of Sighisoara, which has cute walled city that I walked around.  The childhood home of Vlad the Impaler is also here.  Then I continued perfecting my killing-time-having-coffee-and-using-internet until I took off for a 2 hour train to Cluj Napoca, then yet another 1 AM train for 6 hours to Gura Humorului.  I had the pleasure of being woken at 2:30 AM by the conductor who said nothing I understood except "problem" and then having to move to another train car.  At least the second train car seemed heated which might have been the problem.

Sighisoara

Dracula!

Arriving in quaint Gura Humorului on a Sunday morning, I needed to take a taxi out to the guesthouse I reserved online.  I rang the bell of the guesthouse and nothing.  I knocked.  I rang more, pounded on the door.  What was I going to do 3 miles from town with all my stuff on a cold morning?  After a few more minutes, I finally roused the owner of the guesthouse.  Pleasantly I was upgraded to a room with it's own bathroom but I guess that made sense since I was the only guest.  I chose this location because a friend stayed there last March and their website said they worked with a Peace Corps volunteer before.  And ultimately it worked as a decent base for seeing two monasteries, Humor and Voronet, that is by walking about 10 miles roundtrip.  Eh, I figured I needed the exercise after all that train/cafe sitting.  Voronet was the truly impressive monastery, the complete exterior covered in small, detailed paintings.  Here's practically the only picture of me in Romania because I rarely had someone around to take one.  Actually, I had two people take photos but both were about like this, which is to say that someone should teach photography in Romania.

Me at Voronet Monastery

Voronet exterior

Voronet details

Humor Monastery

Inside Humor during Sunday services

In the countryside on my walk

Water well, still in use

Genius--to go pretzels, tied with twine

I begged my way onto an officially "full" mini-bus, the only one I knew of that day, to my final stop in Romania, Sighetu Marmatiei (also known as Sighet).  Basically I went all the way from the northeast corner to the northwest so I could see a place called the Merry Cemetery in a nearby village, Sapanta.  Actually, the signs in Sapanta call it the Cheerful Cemetery and I'm glad that I made the effort because it's like nothing else I've ever seen.  Dating back to 1935, each plot has a cross where the front (and sometimes the backside too) have an image from the deceased's life.  Usually it had something to do with the person's vocation or life like weaving, farming, fixing cars, etc.  There were some crazier pictures too though like someone being beheaded and another person hit by a car.  The whole cemetery is so colorful with the dominant blue color and then all the different images are so colorful, so I got completely photo-happy and you can see the results here.

Merry Cemetery

Romanian food--stuffed cabbage rolls (sarma) and polenta with cheese

Typical winter street scene in Sighet

During my time in Sighet, I was blessed with incredibly good travel karma.  First, I figured out from the signs at my hostel (again I was the only guest and the owner left a baba who only spoke Romanian in charge, so thank goodness for the detailed signs) that there was a van directly from Sighet to Budapest so no more night trains!  Second, I easily caught a ride from Sapanta back to Sighet, following the custom of paying the driver the same as the bus fare.  Then, on the ride to Budapest, a nice lady who spoke English took me under her wing and made sure I didn't get forgotten anywhere along the way, getting out of the van just before my stop.  I thought we were arriving in Budapest at 4:30 AM, just when the subway was opening but, doh, I didn't realize we were changing time zones.  When I pulled on the locked doors of the train station where I was dropped and saw 3:30, my stomach dropped and my mind started racing--it's cold, if I take a taxi I'll get ripped off, can I even find a taxi, do I wait out here for an hour...when another gal from my van came up and said, "I don't speak good English but my brother can give you a ride if you want."  Oh, praise be!  So I got dropped just a few minutes from my hostel and for free.  The whole week the people in Romania were so good about trying to understand me and helping when they could--I have great impressions of the people there.

I wish I had something exciting to report about Budapest, Hungary but here's how it is: this is my third time here and being the thorough person that I am, I pretty much saw everything the first time through.  Plus, traveling two weeks alone is exhausting.  I was in charge of all logistics, watching belongings, making decisions, etc so here, I'm resting.  Mostly I've been shopping, restocking for my next destination--India!  I had to replace my broken purse, buy a plug adapter, watch the new Twilight movie (okay, strictly speaking that wasn't a must), etc.  Today I sent my winter coat and a few other things home to lighten my load (and it also greatly lightened my wallet, eek).  I'm feeling fairly ready though having learned, among other things, that instead of 30-degree Fahrenheit temps like here, India is having highs in the 80s, lows in the 50s and that time in India is a half hour off the rest of the world, i.e. 00:30 to everyone else's 00:00.  I spent the entirety of the last year in and around Eastern Europe, so I'm excited to be heading to a new region, especially when it's a place that is completely off the rest of the world time-wise.  By Sunday, I'll be in Delhi!