Caraiman Sinaia

... train departs. We stop at a typical local spot that has a grill. We get some great sausages which is apparently the only item they have in stock. The waitress is totally rude. She later kicks a kitten (hard). Through much of Romania, stray dogs &amp; cats are in abundance. Bottles of booze are on a shelf with a price on a sticker. Their shots are 2x the size of normal shots and only a couple of dollars.<br><br>

... also had their first experience and they had a weird guy as well, glad to know I was not the only one. It was really nice for him to open his house but he was just dam right weird and I get on with pretty much everyone but I felt really awkward around him. Also his eating skills were really awful as well, after he finished eating he took his plate and licked it all over right in front of me, I couldn't really believe it! Anyway like I said I managed ...

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This weekend, my friend Emily flew in from London to see Romania for a few days. Gotta love cheap airfares. I picked her up from the airport around 11 pm, and we caught the last bus 335 back to town. It's an interesting feeling, and one I'm getting a little too used to, when you're sitting on a bus and it becomes evident that it's probably not going where you thought it was. When do you get off? You have no idea where you are, but you're just going further ...

... kind of guy you want picking you up. He drove a white Lada (sharp-edged Russian car). We couldn't speak much, but we managed to joke. He invited me for lunch at his parents' house. His sister explained that Benedetto couldn't speak with me because he'd often gone to play billiards during English lessons. I told Benedetto he looked like a philosopher, then, when I asked if he played soccer, he said he played chess, the "philosopher's sport." Benedetto ...

... Well, I was Michaelangelo and Scott was Raphael. We then went shopping for our weapons, and I easily found my nun chucks, but Scott could not find anywhere that would sell him tsais! Every time we would go to a Ninja store (we need more of these) Scott would ask for tsais and the sales clerk would say, "No, sorry, we don't have any of those... but we have a lot of nun chuks!" Let me tell ya, if you were there, you would have died laughing. This dream is now open for interpretation.

... I realized the reason for the torment of my driver. Apparently, Route 12 isn't a popular one. Every time we would pull over to let someone on... no one would get on, the whole way to autogara deux! Sunshine kept trying to pull over quickly to let someone on, but they would just back up, making him feel like the unpopular kid in the class. Anyways, I got to Bran Castle without to much of hitch. Lonely Planet told me that ANY trip to Romania ...

In Brasov, due to time constraints, I consented to be truly touristy and go on a hostel organized tour of three castles: Rasnov (eh, crumbling complex of ruins and not too interesting), Bran (allegedly Dracula's castle but he never set foot there. quaint and homey.) and Peles - the palace in Sinaia. Except that there was some sort of bomb scare in Peles, and they closed the ticket window just as we got there. However, we all suspected the bomb scare ...

... or Palacio Real. It's mainly made of wood instead of concrete. That immediately makes it different. But the lighting is very dark inside and they use a lot of marble as well. The marble is well preserved though unlike most castles. There are very intricate wood carvings on every single inch of the walls. In the great hall, there were wood carvings in the cherry wood, then ...

... the rest of Brasov is intimate and alluring. From Brasov, we took a long day trip to visit Sinaia, Bran Castle and Rasnov. The attraction at Rasnov is a 13th century fortress and is not recommended for anyone who has seen a medieval fortress before. Bran Castle is marketed as Dracula's Castle. Dracula is based on the real life figure of Vlad Tepes, a ruler revered by Romanians for standing up to the Ottoman Empire. He had a ...