From the looks of it….I love this place!!!!
What do people first think of when they think of Romania? Who knows, I have never asked anyone and I am sure they have heard of it, but many people do not know even where it is at. Let me tell you it has been on my radar a long time and I finally got the chance to go here with my friend Lucian who is from Cluj….
First, just take a look at the great countryside….pretty green and old fashioned? This is why I love it…
Me and Lucian took a bus up over night from Chisinau to Brasov. Brasov reminded me of an old renovated medieval town (which it was). We took our time and walked around to museums, sat on cafe’s and people watched, did a lot of hikes, and of course went a short drive away to Bran Castle aka Dracula’s Castle. It was extremely crowded but a really neat place. I believe in my opinion it is overrated, but I always wanted to see it.
Next we jumped on a train to Sibiu. The train station is Brasov was somewhat of a depressing place but oh well. We looked at the great countryside as we arrived into Sibiu at night and went out and had some of the best food of my trip!!! The next day we went around and saw the town, went to a pretty good art museum and just of course sat at a cafe and people watched. It was actually a pretty nice little town that I would like to spend some time in and relax…
We took a bus up to Cluj, where Lucian’s hometown is. Pretty much here, he had to get ready to leave for his masters class so he did a bunch of errands while I just chilled out and walked around the town. Went to a sauna one day, and just relaxed. He took me to a bunch of nice restaurants that served traditional Romanian food that I fell in love with. They have a great bar scene there with a lot of renovated old buildings turned into nice bars. This is a place I could live for sure (If I spoke Romanian).
My last stop was taking a plane down to Bucharest to meet up with a friend from Cairo. Matt had just moved there as he got a job at the international school about a month before. I stayed at his apartment as it was one of the nicer apartments I have seen. Pretty much my whole time here, I just chilled out and got ready for going back to work. I did a lot of walking around the streets to people watch. Usually at night we went to Lipscani which is an old artsy bar district. I fell in love with this place as many of the streets are lined with old cobble stone with some funky themes for bars. I also got to go to a football match between Warsaw and Bucharest. It was damn crazy and fun….
I was also meeting my friend Olav from Norway there as his brother was fighting in a championship bout for boxing. Olav and I did a bike tour of Bucharest around the park and then went out with Matt and some friends for drinks. Lets just say it was a long night. In the morning we rented a car and drove some hours to Galati which is an old industrial city on the the Danube River. The town was pretty much an old depressing place but we were there for the match. Unfortunately his brother lost, but we had a pretty fun time going around town and checking things out.
In the morning we drove back to Bucharest and dropped off the car and stayed in town for a night. The next day I flew out after having drinks at the airport…..back to Cairo via Warsaw for the non memorable flight back…..and thus ended the summer of 13…..