Land of Dracula
Trip Start
Apr 01, 2008
1
54
59
Trip End
Oct 05, 2008
Brasov,
Transylvania,
Romania
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
On the tour I met a group of other young Americans who I found out were on a church trip visiting local orphanages
Jared and I
. I ended up going out to lunch with them and their caretaker, who I couldn't help but feel was acting as a baby sitter. They seemed to be very sheltered and needed the caretaker to do everything for them including order their food. I split up with them after lunch, glad that I was leading my own trip.Took a maxi-taxi, a mini-van that acts as a local bus, to Brasov--another transylvanian town about 2 hours north. Wandered through the old town trying to find a hostel. Finally found Rolling Stone hostel and checked in to a room. I was exhausted so I passed out early and woke up the next morning, but not before I met JP and Karl who I found out were also going to Oktoberfest. They informed me that they were going to rent a van and drive there which sounded like a fantastic idea, but unfortunately they already had a full car because they were travelling with two other girls.
Woke up the next morning and met another traveller from the US named Jared. He had just ended a medical mission to flood refugees in northern Romania and was now touring around. We decided to explore the town together and visited all of the main sites in one day including the black tower, white tower, the narrowest street in Europe, several churches, the main square and finally we took a big hike up to the top of the mountain overlooking the city. On top of the mountain was a "Brasov" sign which greatly resembled the "Hollywood" one
narrowest street in europe
. Having seen the whole town, we decided to travel on together to visit Sighisora the next day. That night we went out for dinner at a pizza place where I had my first shot of Polinka (local Romanian moonshine that Jared loved) and we even got the phone number of the waitress who wanted to come hang out with us. We tried to find a good club, but ended up at a bowling alley where I got seriously schooled by Jared who turned out to be quite the bowler.The next day we decided to take a maxi-taxi to Sighisora because it was cheaper than a train and they ran more often. While waiting for the maxi-taxi I got us burgers which ended up tasting terrible and not being fully cooked. Several hours later we arrived in Sighisora which was the birthplace of Vlad Dracul, the basis for the legend of Dracula. Vlad was an interesting character. He was known as Vlad the impaler because he perfected a technique of skewering his enemies on a pole through their anus and out their armpit which avoided all vital nerves and organs which resulted in the person suffering for long, long periods of time before finally dying. He also had a skin condition which prevented him from going out in the sun, so he remained a recluse in his castles.
Sighisora was definitely what I thought of when I think transylvania: cobblestone streets, castles, towers and dark, narrow alleyways. Unfortunately the torture museum and other attractions had closed early on the day we arrived, so we just walked around. Eventually we found a great little hotel and Jared convinced me to drink more polinka. Afterwards we went to another restaurant which was located in the house where Dracula was actually born! Upstairs near the restroom we found a cape, which we borrowed while we sipped red wine, pretended to be blood suckers and took funny photos.
dracula?
At 8pm we had a train to Cluj, Napoca which was about halfway between Transylvania and Budapest, our next main destination. We planned on going out and seeing the clubs of Cluj, while waiting for a train to Budapest which departed at 4am. Upon arrival we looked for the left luggage office to drop off our bags, but we were informed there was none! So we had to make other arrangements because we were not about to go clubbing with our huge packs, including a tent. We ended up bribing the bathroom attendent to watch our packs and then we hired a taxi to take us out because it was raining hard. The first few places we went were pretty terrible, but then finally we found a great club called obsession. Obsession was high class--we were definitely not looking high class after travelling all day. Caught our train to Budapest at 4am and passed out. 
