Vila Bran Brasov

... now known<br>as Istanbul) came up through Romania and tried to overthrow the rule of<br>Vlad III in that region of Romania. As legend has it, he came upon<br>Vlad's castle (In a town called Bran just outside of Bra&#351;ov) and was so<br>sickened by what he witnessed, that he took his army and retreated from<br>Romania. It is said that Vlad had 20,000 people impaled on either side<br>of the road leading up to his castle and the final 5,000 were Ottoman<br ...

... the majority of it. When I woke up I apparently had felt comfortable enough to lay down in the back seat while there still were people. Try to picture that one . I cant express what Im really feeling. Fidias has been more than a good host he has made this trip for me hands down. Im about to talk a well deserved shower and then guess what. WE are taking a train to the west part of the country.... Timisoara and then Im off to Croatia. I think......

... store so he handed us to another guy.We shook hands with the new guy,had a little chat, then started to follow him.The police who has been watching all this finally approached and asked IDs. He inspected Jason`s diplomatic ID, my EU residence card and James` British passport very carefully for a few minutes,then he stared at each of us for a few seconds and with his broken English he went `whatizit you are doing here,are you guys drug gang?`Drug gang?It was too ...

... so was half of the hostel. It was magical to say the least. It's strange to be able to watch a Disney movie and understand the characters because when I was a child, I did not speak English and therefore Disney movies were more like a motion picture than a movie. All the enunciated singing and double entendres crack me up. Disney is just so great, English or no English, child or not, all the same. We then ...

... R*manian b*y wh* d*es n*t grasp the fact that we d* n*t speak R*manian in t*w. I make my way t* the bus, and realize that the b*ys have n* m*ney t* get h*me. I g* t* the rental sh*p wh**e we have left Jared's passp*rt as c*llat**al. The *ld rental guy speaks n* English. I try t* c*mmunicate that I want t* leave ten th*usand bucks f*r the b*ys t* get h*me with. He thinks I want Jared's passp*rt, and admirably will n*t give it up f*r the m**e ten th*usand bucks. I spend a g ...

... went home over the weekend but Ruth was working there with me. She brought some mars bars and we did a treasure hunt. It was great, the kids loved it. She even wrote all of the clues in romanian.. i was impressed. Yesterday we played some footy in the backyard. Niko, the oldest girl, and i teamed up against the 2 middle boys. And I'm proud to say, we beat them! :-) I even scored some of the goals, and also one in my own..oops. They keep nagging us for a rematch. I think ...

... blood of his enemies. he did, however, impale them on stakes in such a way as to avoid hitting any major organs so they would writhe in pain for 2 days before dying. Then he ate his supper in front of the people on the stakes. Nice. Anyway, Dracula town was very pretty and scenic, but not much to do. Order a Mixed Vegetable salad in the house where Dracula used to live, now a restaurant, and it turned out to be cole slaw. Not too impressed with Romanian food. Moved on to Brasov ...

... for five days now, and I am starting to recognize people on the street. And I think people are starting to recognize us - the guy at the internet place, the lady at the pastry shop who insists on having an entirely one-sided conversation in Romanian every time we go in there, the woman at the convenience store where we buy the diet coke, and of course the teen girls at Fast Food Hector (our new fav restaurant - you get 2 hot dogs in each bun!). I have really been noticing people ...

... city with this reputation (although am sure there are good things to be seen). But interesting that the handful of Romanians we met all said the same thing - avoid Bucuresti! On the train to Bulgaria - a rapid one - we felt we were going maybe about 70km/hr (and judging from the distance and time it took). Even the train slowed at times to go through a section where the tracks sloped...hmmm. Lots of evident poverty, prairie lands, and +++ oil ...

... destination! Using our limited Romanian, we found out that her name was Maria. When we asked her how she was, a question that could be simply responded to with "bine" (good), she began to speak quickly in Romanian, apparently rattling off her life story! Alrighty then! Smile and nod! This became the strategy after telling her quite clearly that we did not speak Romanian, a statement which obviously had no effect! So here we were, walking down the street, having absolutely no clue ...