Bucharest to Milan

Right now I write to you from the comfort of the hotel in Milan. It might not be posted until we're back in California, though. Although it's been a lot of fun traveling through hostels, there is a certain level of comfort that you get a hotel that you can't get at a hostel. The beds aren't creaky, nor are we in a dorm room with 8 other people or sharing a bathroom with the entire hostel. It's nice. I even used my Italian when we were checking into the hotel. Yay!

In any case, today wasn't too eventful. Checkout at our hostel wasn't until 12, so we woke up, had breakfast, cleaned up our stuff, checked out and then kind of hung out using the computers there until 1. I had to part ways with the Old Navy flip flops that have saved me from the ground of many gross overnight trains and many hostels/hostel showers.

The person working at the front desk called a taxi for us. The taxi ride wasn't really too long (maybe 25 minutes) and we got to see some nicer areas of Bucharest. A lot of parks and a triumphal arc I didn't know existed. Okay.

Turns out we got to the airport way too early. We were probably there around 2-ish and they weren't going to check anyone in through Easy Jet until 3:30. So, we had lunch and sat around until they let us through. Checking in was hell. Easy Jet is anything but easy and the woman working at the desk clearly and unjustifiably hated us. So did this random guy who looked like Fred Armisan, who, after we were told to go pay to check in one of our bags at this desk somewhere across the airport and come back, insisted that we had to stand in the giant line to drop the bag back off. Somehow I think standing in the line defeats the purpose of having the easy bag drop off desk, but that's just me. Also, the guy working at the drop off desk later got mad at people trying to cut in from the check in line to the drop off line, so Fred Armisan man was just being stupid.

Getting through security was also fun. The guy at the security gate clearly judged us and the amount of stuff we had in our carry on bag, which backed us up a few minutes. This did give us time to notice the boxes of items that got confiscated from people going through security. There were a LOT of guns in those boxes. Oh Bucharest.

Oh, also, we had purchased a bag of these baked garlic bread chips when we were in Brasov. We were supposed to eat them with the rest of the salami we bought in Brasov, but that plan got destroyed when we discovered our salami stash was covered in Nutella. In any case, we brought it along with us to the airport to eat while we were waiting for the plane, but someone stole our bag of chips. Not our wallets. Not the camera or the tablet or our passports or anything else of consequence. Someone stole our bag of garlic flavored chips. It was heartbreaking, but I guess worse things could have been stolen. We were very sad about this, but when we had to use up our remaining 14 lei and found a vending machine that sold them.

The flight wasn't too eventful. I think Mia sat near crying babies and next to an awkward smelly couple. I really just read and watched Dr. Who.

When we got to Milan, we had to wait around for my bag to come in through baggage claim. This was an adventure. Everyone coming from Bucharest managed to locate their bags except for some older women, Mia's smelly neighbors, and me. We went to lost baggage to go try to resolve the problem and the other two groups had already been stressing about it. Based on my limited Italian, this is how their conversation went:

Passengers: Our bags are missing.
Guy at desk: Where are your tickets? Are you together?
Passengers: No. Why would we be together?
Guy at desk: well I need to deal with one person at a time.
Passengers: Well our bags from Bucharest aren't here. (one woman started going on a rant about how maybe things would be better if they spoke Italian and not English at the Bucharest airport)
Guy desk: Did you check carousel 5?
Passengers: Why? The rest of the bags from Bucharest came from carousel 3.
Guy at desk: Obviously you should have checked carousel 5.

Turns out, the bags were at carousel 5. The other passengers (and Mia) all ran at the bags as if that would have made a difference. I was just happy I got my bag.

We left the baggage claim area and found a bus to take us to the main terminal (I used my Italian to find this bus too). We checked into our hotel (which is literally at the airport), watched some soccer news for a while, and then went out in search of food. The food at the hotel was obscenely expensive, especially coming from a county like Romania, so we ventured into the airport to find food. Most things were closed or looked disgusting.  We ended up getting kebabs. It was that or McDonalds.

We went back to the hotel, used the computers for a while and went back to our rooms.

Bucharest (the post)

We were quite sad to leave Brasov. We really liked it there and we had grown quite attached to the good kebab place that we went to the night before. The check out time at our hostel was noon, which is relatively late by hostel standards. When I had originally planned this trip out, I thought the 10:30 train would be the best bet because it would allow us to get some sightseeing in at Bucharest. Because of the late check out, however, we decided to prolong our departure from Brasov a little.

We woke up around 10 and started cleaning up the room for check out. We had breakfast and Mia ran around unsuccessfully trying to find that Bruce cat she had grown so fond of over the past few days. We couldn't find him. I had seen him earlier when I stopped by the kitchen to grab our bag of sandwich bags, but he was nowhere to be seen after that :( Mia's still upset about this.

After eating, we decided that we'd get some kebabs for the road and went back to the kebab restaurant. We went back, finished packing up our stuff, and went to reception to check out and to ask if they could call a taxi for us. By the time we used the restroom and got our stuff outside  (which really wasn't that long), the taxi driver had been there long enough to want to drive away and leave. We had to run after him to stop him. That made the taxi drive over to the train station kind of awkward. He was also annoyed with me when I asked him what the taxi fare was at the end of the ride. Coincidentally, we also learned that we got hard core ripped off by the taxi driver who took us to the hostel on Wednesday. The guy today charged 6 lei (about 2 dollars). The guy on Wednesday charged 20 (about 6-7 dollars). In the grand scheme of things, it's really not that much, but I was annoyed.

Anyway, we got to the train station, made reservations on the 12:40 train and went upstairs. Just like any other Eastern European train, this one was late. About twenty minutes, which I guess is better than it could have been. Other than that, the train ride back to Bucharest was relatively uneventful. We were in a train compartment with pretty nice people. It wasn't abysmally gross. There weren't old people sitting in our seats that we would feel bad to kick out. The train conductors didn't decide that our tickets were invalid. Not bad at all.

Once we made it to Bucharest, we made our way over to the Metro station to get to the general area of our hostel. The hostel was relatively easy to find because it's between two major streets. Once we were there, we had to wait in the reception for a while for someone to decide to pay attention to us (they were too busy playing around on facebook). We got our stuff down and tried to rearrange our bags for our flight to Milan. Once that was done, we set out for some sightseeing.

So the guidebooks said as much as did our friend James from England, but Bucharest really isn't an exciting city. There's really nothing particularly thrilling about it. It's super urban and loud, but doesn't have any of the charm or personality that other major European cities have.  We walked through one street for a while and took pictures of building that looked like they might be important. Later, while we were eating dinner, I was informed by my Triposo app that we had seen most of the big sites of the city on the walk. Okay. It was kind of a sketchy street too. The only reason we realized it was a big street was because it had all of the upscale designer stores like the Gucci store.

In any case, we stopped for dinner (at Pizza Hut where they do have functional WiFi) and then regrouped and tried to figure out our plan. The big thing to see in Bucharest is the Palace of the Parliament/People's House. It's one of the biggest administrative buildings in the world. We decided to wind around our route a little so we could see one of the city's parks too. The Palace of the Parliament was pretty impressive. It was huge and imposing and almost looked more like the Venetian than the building that Romania's parliament works in. There is a park sitting in front of it, so Mia and I got some ice cream and sat around observing the giant building. I think that was the highlight of Mia's trip to Bucharest. We took Metro back to the hostel from there.

One thing I noticed that was missing from our short tour of Bucharest were stray dogs. Apparently Bucharest has had a problem with stray dogs that run amuck through the city. We had seen a lot on the outskirts of town, including a few that were walking along the train tracks a la Homeward Bound, but we really didn't see many walking around the city as I had expected.

Also, while we were checking our email and facebook on the hostel computers, we happened to be on CNN and notice the news on Hurricane Irene. At first, we didn't mind it too much until we also saw that it was going to hit New York. As in the city we're connecting through to get to SF in a couple of days. This was kind of a problem, so we contacted home to see if they had heard anything about it. Turns out our flight had been canceled (thanks for telling us American Airlines), so Umma rerouted our trip through London for us. Otherwise, I suppose we would have been stranded in Milan as super smelly backpackers.

Anyway, tomorrow it's on to Milan, where we will be staying in airport hotel. I hope the beds are soft. Hostels are more fun, but all of the creaky beds with bad pillows tend to wear you down after a while.

James from England, A Play in One Act

Setting: Anywhere in the world.

Characters: James from England, Anyone else in the world

James from England: Hi! I'm James from England!

Anyone else in the world: Hi James... from England. I'm [name]... from [place].

James from England: That's cool. I'm from South Bristol! I didn't grow up in Bristol, though, I grew up in London. If I'd grown up in Bristol, I'd sound like a farmer, teeheeehee

Anyone else in the world: I'm sorry if this makes me seem ignorant, but what exactly does a British farmer sound like?

James from England: ...

Anyone else in the world: Also, like, doesn't Skins take place in Bristol? They really don't seem farmer-ish to me...

James from England: Hey! Let's play a game!

Anyone else in the world: Uh.. okay... What game?

James from England: Guess how old I am!

Anyone else in the world: Well, this game doesn't really seem that fun, but uh... 24?

James from England: Close!

Anyone else in the world: Do I really have to?

James from England: C'mon!

Anyone else in the world: (sighs) 25?

James from England: Nope, lower!

Anyone else in the world: 23?

James from England: Yup! You got it!!

Anyone else in the world: So... basically... you look more or less exactly your age?

James from England: Yeah, isn't that cool?

Anyone else in the world: ...

James from England: Hey, you know what I really like to do?

Anyone else in the world: Not particularly, but I bet you're going to tell me anyway

James from England: I like to jump from rock to rock on mountains! It makes me feel like I'm seven years old again.

Anyone else in the world: Are you sure you're not originally from Bristol? Because that sounds like a pretty farmer activity to me. Also, did you look like you were exactly seven years old when you were seven years old?

James from England: I'm from London, I swear. Let's talk about something else.

Fin.

Traveling with Alea is a strange and mystical adventure

As our journey is coming to a close, I'd just like to describe what it's like to do a solo trip with Alea.

For starters, she has a tendency to become overwhelmingly attached to inanimate objects. This emotional attachment has been expressed towards $2 flip flops, small pieces of paper, etc. The most baffling is her childlike obsession with a stuffed bee. She becomes genuinely frazzled if you do anything to "insult" or "injure" Hank the bee, who is currently stuffed into a dark corner of my backpack.

Alea is like a bloodhound when it comes to finding something. Give her a map and a location to find and you can bet your HankLongBee she'll find it, regardless of whether or not you're with her at the end of the voyage. One minute you'll be standing next to her in a metro station. You'll casually look at some graffiti on the wall and by the time you look back, Alea is gone. If you're lucky, she's at the top of some flight of stairs, diligently staring at her map. If you're not as lucky, you're forced to frantically look around at a sea of rushed Romanians pushing their way through the subway until you see Alea in a corner. Usually in this scenario, she has already spotted you; however, instead of calling your name like a normal human being, she is staring at you sadly, as if you're doing this to her on purpose to annoy her. And on that note of the Alea sad face, there have been many moments where simple problem-solving could have sorted out a situation, but rather than take that step, she freezes and sits with a sad pout until you can convince her that it's not the end of the world.

Alea also likes to play mime in foreign countries. When buying something, ordering food, or on the rare occasions where asking for directions was a necessity, instead of using words, Alea points at things and makes strange gutteral sounds until the individual at the other end of this exchange ultimately replies in English. Then she smiles and starts formulating baby sentences while still pointing. You'd like to think that the limiting of words is something she does because she is shy and nervous being in an unfamiliar place where she doesn't speak the language. However, she addresses me in a similar manner: she'll bark out orders in strange Alea-speak and walk out of the room, not caring whether you've heard what she's suggested you do. Much like a drill sergeant with a speech impediment she is unaware of.

Now, mind you, Alea is not dumb, and I'm not in any way trying to imply that she is. In fact, our favorite little Juris Doctor is one of the smartest people I know. Aside from being incredibly intelligent, she is really good at taking a really stupid idea and, through some J.D. lawyer voodoo, convincing you it's the greatest idea in the world (i.e. Let's take this bag and fill it with stuff to make it bigger, then shove it in the other bag so it will take up less space). Additionally, she has an impeccable sense of smell, which comes in handy on trains when she gets excited that all she can smell is Nutella. I'm working on a theory though that when her crazy sense of smell kicks in, the rest of her ceases to function and you have to then walk her through logical steps of life ("Mmmm, all I can smell is Nutella." "Alea, isn't there Nutella in our bag?" "Yup. I hope it hasn't opened." "...Maybe you should check?" "OMG LOLZ IT SPILLED!! ROFL").

My blogs are less thorough than Alea's

In Bucharest, there are no children in public. They hide them all in an extravagant playground next to, and presumably modeled after an extravagant building. The building was something important, but I forget what it was. I was too busy enjoying my ice cream and silently weeping at the sight of so many birds. And so many children in one location.

Toodles.

Bucharest

We made it to Bucharest but there is no wireless in the hostel. Its not like we've done much today, but I'll write the post up and it'll be up whenever I next get wifi. We miss Brasov though and the Kismet Dao hostel.

At least we're done with trains. We fly to Milan tomorrow and then home the next day.

Transylvanian Castle Tour

Today we did a tour of some of the castles and a fortress near Brasov. It was one of the tours that you can do through the hostel.   We woke up early so that we could partake in the free breakfast, make our salami sandwiches for the road, and be in the reception for our tour by 9:30. This time around, there were two other people signed up for the tour with us, so they mostly hung out on their own and we didn't have awkward lunch conversations like we did on the Rila Monastery tour. That was good.

The tour today covered three places: the Peles palace in Sinaia, the Bran Castle in Bran (famous for supposedly being Dracula's Castle), and the fortress in Rasnov. The Peles palace was about an hour away, so we the drive over took a while. The Peles palace was probably my favorite of the castles that we saw today. It was very pretty. I took a lot of pictures of the outside, but you had to pay 32 Romanian lei to take pictures inside, so I didn't take any inside. It's a pity too because the inside was really nice. It was decorated with a lot of woodwork, there was a huge weapon room, and then they had a lot of themed rooms. They had a German-themed room where everything was from Germany, there were several Italy-themed rooms with chandeliers made from Murano glass. The coolest was probably the Moorish room. Apart from the themed rooms, walking around the castle also had a slight air of walking through the Haunted Mansion, especially with the big mirrors everywhere. Another cool fact about this castle is that it is like the first building in Europe that used an elevator and had central heating. It was a very nice palace.

Oh fun story from while we were hanging out with the driver. We were waiting for the couple to finish exploring the palace grounds. Our driver pointed to this family who were bickering about something and translated what was going on. One of the kids pulled a dead bird out of the fountain and showed it to his dad saying that it was very beautiful. The parents clearly were unhappy about this and we watched as the dad tried to brush the bird away with a branch and the mom watched disgusted and horrified. Then the kid tried to explain himself to the mom saying "But mommy mommy, it's so cute" and tried to touch the mom, who recoiled and shuddered in disgust. Then, the kid went back to the fountain for a second around and we watched as the dad was trying to pull the kid out. I'm so glad that he translated that scene for us. It was hliariouos.

The next stop took another hour and we were finally on our way to the Bran castle. Mia and I had purchased fake vampire teeth for this occassion so that we could take fun pictures in front of Dracula's castles. One of the things I was most excited about before going there were the cheesy souveniers that I was expecting them to sell all over Bran. Unfortunately, there actually weren't that many. They had cheesy souveniers, but they were not fun cheesy. I was hoping for "wooden stakes" or something like that and they had none of that. It's weird too considering how cheap and easy those would be to make.

In any case, we ate our salami sandwiches that we packed (the Bulgarian sandwich bread we bought was kind of gross) and headed up to the castle. The Bran castle was pretty much just a castle. It was not as cool or pretty as the Peles palace, but it was still a pretty cool castle. We took fun pictures with our vampire teeth and wandered around. There were some really great views of the area from the top of the castle. After exploring the castle, we went back down and met up with our driver.

After Bran, we drove over to Rasnov to see the fortress. This was closer and it only took about 15 minutes to head over. The day had been a pleasant one so far. There had been a nice breeze and it was actually almost cool. It was the first day in a while that I did not feel gross after walking around for 10 minutes outside. At least, that was the case until we got to the fortress.

The fortress is at the top of the hill and, as any other old stone fortress may be, it was incredibly hot there. Our driver left us at the bottom of the hill, and we had to take a rickety tram up to the top to get to the fortress. It took us up most of the way, and then we had to walk up another 5-10 minutes before getting gto the entrance of the fotress. Once inside, we had to walk around uphill even more. Mia, who hates exercise, sweating, heat, and dusty old fortresses was not happy with this place. We explored the fortress for a while and made it to the viewpoint at top before heading back down and getting ice cream. She was happy again. We took the tram down and met up with the driver and headed back to Brasov. On the way back, we talked a little about soccer. Apparently today's a big soccer day for the big Romanian soccer teams.

We got back and took a nap before heading back up. Unfortunately, we got out too late to make it to the free walking tour, so we just explored Brasov a little on our own. We wandered around the major pedestrian street for a while and made our way to the main town hall square and the Black Church (which is the big church in the city). From there, we went to "Rope Street," which is the narrowest street in Southeasteren Europe. I don't know if it should actually count as a street. It was more like a narrow hallway, but whatever. It was kind of fun to walk through it.

By that time, I'm sure there were other tihngs we could see around town, but it was 7 and we were hungry, hot, and tired, so we headed back towards the hostel. We grabbed some food from the supermarket and then got some really good kebabs and ate them by the park. These were really good kebabs. We're probably going to get them for lunch before we leave for Bucharest tomorrow.

Anyway, we've really enjoyed our time here in Brasov. Romania's probably been our favorite stop out of the three that we've been to on this leg of the trip and is probably the country of the three most worth returning to, especially since all of the medieval cities are north of here or something. Tomorrow we head on to Bucharest.

Oh, also, there's this cat at this hostel that Mia wants to kidnap. It acts like Bruce. I think she's renamed it Bruce Cat or something.