Transylvanian Stew Anyone?

Well, yesterday I took a flight from Istanbul to Bucharest, Romania.  It is my least favorite city ever.  EVER.  I was contemplating just staying in my hotel room, when a friend suggested that I go and check it out, that there had to be more to see in the city than the Peasant Museum.  That friend was WRONG.  The architecture is blah.  The one building that I may have wanted to see (the opera house) was being remodeled and the top of it looked like maybe it’d been hit by a WMD.

After an hour I returned to the hotel to have some dinner and do some laundry.  In the morning I got up to head of to the town of Brasov (pronounced Bra-shof) at the base of the Carpathian Mountains.  Guess what book takes place in the Carpathians?  DRACULA!  Guess what one of my four (yes four) favorite books is? Bram Stoker’s Dracula.   I went to the train station and went about trying to purchase a ticket and figure out the exact train schedule.  The line was ridiculously slow so I befriended an elderly woman (who spoke no English and I speak no Romanian) as we both just made exasperated faces about the line situation.  She became my best friend when she heard me say I was going Brasov because she was going there too.

I got on the right train, although needed some help with my luggage which is just packed all sorts of wrong and weighs more than my AMAZING 5 ¾ year old nephew Trey.  I took a brief nap and then read some during the 2 ½ hour ride and managed to get off at the right train station despite a lack of announcements or signage telling me where I was.  As I struggled to get my luggage down the stairs, many men walked by and did nothing (which is fine because I packed my own luggage, I should be able to carry it).  Then, out of no where two little old ladies offered to help me, I said no thank you and proceeded to make a mental list of things in the suitcase I need to ditch (this is the number one reason I never buy gifts).

Now, if I had been able to see Mt. Tampa I would have known I was in Brasov because there is a HUGE sign on the mountain that reads "Brasov" a la the sign in Hollywood.  Hmmm... guess where Kristen Stewart was seen cheating on R-Pat?  NEAR THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN, and they're in a movie series (worst ever made) about VAMPIRES... hmmmmm....

I made it to the hostel, which appears to be full of British and Australian men who are quite enthusiastic about the Olympics.   I started unpacking so I could figure out what to get rid off  (10 weeks of conditioner can now be consolidated to a smaller bottle, etc).  Eventually I went to dinner at Sergiana where I had Transylvanian Stew (sausage, pork neck in a cream and carrot sauce) with polenta.  It was quite delicious!

Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow.  Probably just going to explore (maybe hike the mountain that the town sits at the base of?) and reread Dracula!!!!!