6 days of Eastern Europe

5/2/07- i'm publishing now since I didn't have internet access the last several days.

It's been 6 days since we left Barcelona and it definitely has been exciting. After our overnight flight from Barcelona to Bucharest, Romania, we awoke bleary eyed and dazed in a bleak holding room to go through immigration. When it was our turn to talk to the boarder guard, he asked me why Romania. I said "I want to sight see." He said, "Good luck," and stamped my passport. The taxi ride we took was a crazy ride. Even though the driver ripped us off, it still may have been worth it as he swerved in and out of traffic, passed in the lanes of on coming traffic and using red lights as California stops. He took us straight to the bus station were we quickly bought a ticket to Brasov, the heart of Transylvania. Later that day we took a tour with a group from our hostel to see some of the historic sites of the region. One of these was the castle of Bran, otherwise known as the inspiration for Dracula's Castle. It was a nice day outside, but if it had been a stormy night, there is a good possibility it would have given me the creeps. I'm just glad that Vlad the Impaler was not around or else that would have certainly sent chills down my spine.

We spent the next few days in Brasov. It was a beautiful old town with many sites to see. We spent our time strolling around and eating. The food was amazing. We had several hearty soups and stews that were to die for. The main courses weren't bad either. The best thing was that we could eat multiple course meal including salad, soup, main course and drink for around 10 euro.

All of the people we met at the hostel who had spent any time in Bucharest, advised us against con-artists and blocks and blocks of ugly communist era apartments. With that advice in mind, we tried to minimize the amount of time we spent in the capital city. After checking into the hostel, we thought we would do a quick walk through of town visiting the historical section of the city and return to the hostel for a quiet night in. Our first stop on the tour was the Palace of the People, the 2nd largest building in the world after the Pentagon in DC. The crazy dictator of Romania in the 80's decided to build this behemoth of a building to house parliament and all the other administrative offices of the communist bureaucracy. Allegedly at one point in time the construction of the building used 85% of the GDP of the country. No wonder so many people lived in run down shacks and the infrastructure was in such disrepair. Knowing all this, I was excited to see what building had sucked all the resources from the people.

But when we arrived to the park outside of the palace, we were in for a surprise. It was May 1st. Labor day in communist countries or Polish friend, Lucas, informed us. After all the countries' revolutions, the people didn't want to get rid of the holiday so they kept it. And what we stumbled upon was the National Labor Day Party. No Peter, this didn't compare to Goose Creek in it's rowdiness, but it was one huge party. I would guess there were 50,000 + people gathered in the park. There was live music, rows of port-o-potties and more barbecues than I have ever seen working concurrently. I would say there were probably 100 large grills BBQing small sausages called Mici (pronounced Mee shh). The president had sent everyone- I'm not sure if they were just government workers, or everyone- tickets for 4 mici and a beer. Every man woman and child. There were little kids carrying around 6-packs of tall boys back to the family picnic spot. People were giving 12 tickets at a time and wanted all 48 of their mici for their group. Needless to say, it takes a long time to BBQ enough tiny sausages for 50,000 people. We waited in line with the Romanians to partake in their national holiday. After The lady grilling them up laughed at as as we salivated over the hundreds of mici on the grill. over an hour in line, the mici we received were less than fully cooked. That didn't take away from their flavor. We just used lots of mustard, like the rest of the group, and they were delicious.

The next day was Elizabeth's 21st birthday. It also happened to be the day that we were going to Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. So we woke up early, enjoyed the pancakes the Canadian women at the hostel made for us, and headed for the train station. We boarded the train headed for Greece. When we arrived at our cabin, it was full of Bulgarians. Once we sorted out where to sit, we crammed into the train car with the Bulgarians. The long train ride went by fairly quickly. We read, listened to music, looked out the window, and played cards. Since we couldn't speak to the Bulgarians things were pretty quiet but when the cards came out things perked up. They showed us the most basic card tricks but it was still fun.

Finally we arrived in Veliko Tarnovo and checked into the hostel. They recommended a restaurant to try for Liz's birthday dinner. We headed down there and had an amazing meal. We each had a salad, shared an appetizer,, and each had a main course. Needless to say that we had way too much food. Good thing it was absolutely delicious. To top it off we had a great bottle of Bulgarian wine. The whole meal was only 30 euro. It was a great feast to have for Liz's birthday. If this is what Bulgarian food tastes like, I'm definitely looking forward to the next week.