Pantex Brasov

... What was hard is that it is over 30 degrees, sunny and humid. The views from the top are amazing and well worth it. From here you could hike further to Poiana Brasov which is a ski resort but that would be an overnight hike. They filmed Cold Mountain there, but I have never seen the movie. I met a guy up top-Ivan-who is from Romania living near Moldavia. He barley spoke English, and we hiked together down the mountain and had an interesting , lively ...

... if he knew where the hotel I was staying. He actually laughed and pointed across the street. I had almost made it all on my own!!! Well I have to admit this hotel is central and beautiful!!! I definitely had some luck in choosing my hotels. I checked in and was given a small but really charming room. Unfortunately no view from my room but that's okay. Again I made my poor tired feet work again as I decided to take a walk through the town. It's so picturesque ...

На обрат&#10 85;ом пути из Брана заеха&#10 83;и в Рыжно&#10 74;. Любят же румын&#10 99; стави&#10 90;ь надпи&#10 89;и аля Hollywood)

... and filling out government forms (Name/Nom). That is one thing about Romanian, if you know French, Spanish or Italian, you will probably be able to get by as they are all Romance languages and are derived from Romanian originally. Although I don't know any French, on menus I am able to pick up basic things, like which meat is served with each dish. You may have thought I was slamming Brasov when I said it was looking a bit rundown and dirty, but as you can tell I had a great time there.

(S) Arriving in Brasov near midnight (ok, maybe not midnight, but it felt like it after driving up and down and around and then up and down the Carpathians), we checked into Camping Darste. Sadly, the camping does not open until the middle of the month, soooo, we are happily shown to the one room they have available in the hotel. I trust we are the only humans staying here. Lucky for the happy travelers, the restaurant was still open for us to get a beer and some ...

... we've picked Belgrade. It was a city we liked, and it turns out we missed a couple of interesting museums first time around. The fact the Orient Express Cafe does bacon and eggs and incredible coffee for $3 is purely non co-incidental. Beyond this, our priority is to head down to Kosovo. Having enjoyed Sarajevo so much we are keen to see and experience another European Islamic community before we head out. So no more little towns now unless they've had a war there.

... as I went in they started asking for it. Later in the afternoon I gave it to Andrada and told her she could take some. I forgot about it and they handed it around amongst themselves for about an hour while they were playing upstairs. As I was leaving they brought it back to me. It was great looking through them all. They made me laugh! I had a good chat with a few of the other volunteers last night. I get on really well with Deborah and Krista and spend most nights with them ...

... fanny pack wearing tourist - these was like 99% locals! so it really felt special to be there. In general I loved Romania. Saw a fair bit of poverty, but they just joined the EU, so hopefully they will begin to benefit from it soon, but after talking with these Romanian girls me and a mate met in a bar (how we started talking about politics is beside me, lol), it seems that most country folk are ...

... energy, its surroundings spectacular. Monday for me was a wash. By the time I made it out of the hostel and organized my train ticket for the next day, it was afternoon. I tried to go up the cable car to the top of Mount Tampa (whose hillside sign proudly declares "Brasov" in an obvious nod to Hollywood) but missed the last ride by a hair. I then tried to go into the "Black Church", but missed the final entry by 15 minutes. While I had most definitely been on top of my game the ...

... if the peasant look has hit Oz yet). But these people weren't into dress up or fashion, or paid to drive tourists around - they were going about there daily lives in the same way they had for centuries. I was amazed at one elderly couple's fearlessness as we observed, at one point, a sports car blaring top 40 dance tunes invade the peace of the scene and speedily overtake their horse and cart. At another point we saw a horse and cart transporting a group of teenagers who looked ...