Simona Brasov

... of a beloved Queen of the early 20th century, Maria, wife of King Ferdinand I, granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Britain, who spent a lot of time in this little but cute and delicate castle.

It is amazing how rapidly the world has changed. As late as in 1866, the people still felt that each country must have a monarch. So when their king was forced to abdicate, they imported one from Germany, and the people whole-heartedly accepted him, while he quickly ...

... walked towards the staircase, where two guys were exchanging words and money and one guy was just chilling. "I am so glad you're going taking this. Moldva money is useless outside of Moldova- I can't exchange it anywhere!" I chimed in, "Oh my gosh, me too! My Bulgarian leva and Turkish lira are absolutely useless!" The guy who came from Moldva said he was from Turkey. He looked German, so I figured he meant that he ...

... side d**r. We make *ur way in, met Sylvia the h*stess, pay up f*r the stay and then g* f*r a brief wand** f*ll*wed by a g**d feed. When we get back t* the r**m we meet Pet**. Pet** is an aging Aussie with a v**y n**v*us high pitched laugh. He appears t* have a full head *f white hair. He d*es n*t. When he turns ar*und we can see that the back *f his head is h*me t* ab*ut 5 strands *f wispy white hair, and he has the m*st hide*us skull I have ev** seen. He and Mic have a l ...

... receiving a medal from the queen this year for all of the work she has done. There is another guy there from Wales who is a builder and decided to spend a month here helping them. He's been teaching them how to build them themselves. They invited us for lunch. I can't tell you how glad we all were to have a good english lunch. Ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches and chips (crisps/potato chips). Flora had just been complaining this morning that she couldnt find just a simple sandwich ...

... drink as well. We met up with 6 other girls and they are all really young. 18 - 20. I felt so old ;-) It was interesting at the pub. We went to a karaoke bar and no, i didnt get up and sing. Im sure they would have deported me if i did. It was a pretty quiet night really but was nice chatting to the other girls about stuff. One of them, Anastasia, has a romanian boyfriend and so his friends came and sat with us. The romanian guys have a reputation for not being backward in ...

Took a morning train to Brasov and made our way to the hotel. The hotel was beyond ***** but it was only one night so not a big deal. The rooms looked like they hadn't been touched in 30 years!, it was almost like walking onto the set of a creepy horror movie! Once everything was dropped off at the hotel, we all headed into town. Grabbed a street vendor phyllo and cheese ...

... 30pm, and agree to take some free time to wander the city before meeting again for dinner at 7:30pm. The hotel is marvelous, and just blocks from the central square of this vibrant city. An annual beer festival is being held today, and there are crowds of young people and lots of loud music. After a delightful dinner at our newly renovated hotel, several of us walk through the square and plunge into the festival throngs. It is the fun ending to a long and scenic day. Hugs, Dan

... many people who helped us find our way around the train station when we left Brasov. Went to Dracula's castle, although it actually was his grandfather's. Never made it to his hometown although we meant to. Mostly we just hung out around town. Met lots of nice people and even got to see a Romanian pop concert. Ask James about the girl band.

... spectacular mountain rising just east of the old town and there's a nice long pedestrian street with lots of shops and ice cream stands. After putting our things in our room, we went to Brasov's famous Mexican restaurant, which is seriously good. The waiter was very nice and brought us free palinca to start our (huge) meal. I even refrained from eating soup, thinking I might have room for dessert, but they got me all the same, with ...

... say we had lunch where Dracula was born. They menu includes drinks with names like "Dracula's Dream." We also saw a very small torture museum. Tomorrow we are headed to Bucharest. I will miss Brasov, especially the prices. Internet here is the cheapest we have found anywhere, at thirty cents an hour. We went to a movie and it cost seventy five cents. It turned out the movie was not the one we thought it was, so it was in Romanian, but for seventy five cents, we didn't really mind.