Vampire Weekend: Halloween in Transylvania

We did it. Not completely according to plan, and with more than a few bumps along the way, but we did it, and it was awesome. Let's cut right to the chase:

Thursday night: I went to meet Caitlin at the bus station in Sofia. She came in from Haskovo at 9, and we proceeded to buy our tickets for the 12:30 AM bus to Bucharest. We headed back to my apartment, where I did my last-minute packing for the trip, and we set off again. Once on the bus, it didn't take long for rather large, undeodorized Bulgarian man sitting next to/marginally on top of me to begin to reek of BO, so as a defensive measure, I went promptly to sleep. I would be periodically awakened by our bus swerving to avoid guardrails, our driver jamming on the brakes, a protracted stop at the border, and the flatulence of said very (very) large man. But, somehow someway, I scraped together five hours of sleep by the time we arrived in a very chilly Bucharest at 8 AM on Friday morning.

Once there, we proceeded to get very lost, though not without some serendipitous discoveries. After walking down a hill without knowing which direction we were headed, making a few turns, and walking back up a long, winding pathway, we stumbled onto the Patriarchal Cathedral, which was mobbed, as the relics of St. Andrew were being displayed there for the week. Working our way back down the hill on the other side, we found ourselves still lost, and proceeded to try to find our way for the next two hours, finally making it to the hotel where the third member of our party, Laura, was staying.

This mercifully afforded me the opportunity to take a shower, and after doing so, the three of us went on a walking tour of Bucharest. It is a beautiful city, to be sure, and we took lots of pictures (somehow, most of them ended up being of churches), like these:

Beautiful Orthodox church next to the Academy of Medicine

Another beautiful Orthodox church

Of note in the city: Sex shops (as abundant as the churches) and bad drivers (more abundant than the churches). Interesting to me was the mixture of Orthodox and Catholic churches, some of them right next to each other. After a long day of walking around and seeing other interesting things like this,

Fountains in Piaţa Unirii

 this,

Parliamentary Palace

and this,

Bucharest Opera

we had some dinner at a rather nice, not-too-pricey German restaurant and headed back to the hotel. I threw my things together and headed down to Piaţa Unirii to meet my host for the night, Dor, a fellow CouchSurfer. We met, and he whisked me away to an underground (not just in the sense that is was alternative; it was actually underground) metal bar where the Romanian Death Metal band Truda was playing. Keeping in mind the absurdity of the situation, I actually enjoyed myself quite thoroughly.

So much metal

I have a strict 2-hour limit when it comes to Romanian Death Metal, though, so we headed back to his tiny apartment, every inch of the free space of which was taken up by the air mattress he had prepared for my arrival. Tremendously grateful for a place to sleep, I slept.

Waking up entirely too early for a Saturday morning, I got back to Piaţa Romana to meet Caitlin and Laura at 9. After eating perhaps the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my life, we took the metro to a desolate corner of town we thought was by the airport, where we were supposed to pick up our rental car. Upon closer inspection of the map, though, we realized that we weren't really anywhere close to where we were supposed to be, so after a bit of quick thinking, we got back on the metro, transferred lines, and took it as far as it would go in the right direction. Upon reaching the surface outside of the stop, and with only the glimmer of a clue as to where we should go, I, without much choice (and commanding not a single word of Romanian) approached a man who looked like he was waiting at the bus stop. 

Christian, as it turned out, was fluent in German. Lobet den Herrn! Though mine was rusty, I managed to get directions to the airport, and our friend was nice enough to accompany us on the bus and tell us where to get off. Here our troubles began.

We had rented a car from Dollar Rental, and let me tell you, it could not have been a bigger mistake. After thinking we had gotten something wrong, we walked around Baneasa Airport for an hour trying to find the Dollar office. Finally, a nice gentleman from a competing agency told us that their nearest office was in Bucharest's other airport. Never mind that we had made the reservation for this airport. 

Luckily, the other airport was in the same direction and only 10 km further outside of the city. Taking a taxi there, we explored the area and still couldn't find where we were supposed to pick up the car. Finally, heading to the arrivals terminal, we found their counter, where we were informed that not only were we supposed to have been at the meeting place at 5 AM (not what we reserved), the car was gone, and so was our money. Having no other choice (though I have been in contact with "authorities"), we rented a car on the spot from Avis. Finally, three hours and €190 later, we were on the road.

Our first stop was Snagov Monestary, reputed home of the tomb of Dracula. But in order to get there, we had to find it, first. Which proved a rather difficult task (sensing a pattern?). Our crucial mistake lay in the assumption that Snagov Monastery was in the town of Snagov. As it was actually in the neighboring town of Silistea, we drove around, lost again, for a full two hours before finding our way with the aid of a magical GPS that arbitrarily decided to start and stop working at points unanticipated and the worried aid of my dad, whom I raised by phone from the other side of the world to get him to help us using Google Maps (Thanks, Google Maps! And Dad!) The experience wasn't totally awful, though - we saw some of the most gorgeous scenery ever, hidden in rural (think farming village rural) Romania.

But we finally arrived. And it was cool. Have a few pictures to see what I mean:

Island in the middle of Lake Snagov

The Monastery

Getting closer

Behold the tomb of Dracula

Having spent the lion's share of our day lost and confused, we had to rethink our schedule a bit, so we decided to head right to Braşov and see our intended stops along the way later. The drive was, like so many of our other scenic experiences, gorgeous, and we did make one stop, right before sundown, at a most incredible looking cemetery nestled high in the mountains.

After spending a few minutes in this little place, we finally made it Braşov, and after spending a little more time being lost, we finally found the guest house that Laura and Caitlin had reserved, and had agreed to let me stay at, my own host never having materialized. We got settled in, headed out to a late dinner, and came home, ready to put the day, and ourselves, to bed.

Sunday was a day made for sightseeing, despite the fact that my camera died upon taking the first picture of the day, and I subsequently had to rely on my phone's camera (pardon, therefore, the poor quality). So sightsee we did. After a delicious breakfast cooked by our hostess (seriously, she made us scrambled eggs and toast), we headed out into the brisk air. Our first destination was the Braşov Citadel, an old Renaissance fortress sitting atop the highest hill/mountain in the city.

Looking east

Looking south

After that, we headed down the hill to the center of the Old City, where we walked past some beautiful churches, street peddlers, McDonald's (even here, in one of the most picturesque cities I've ever seen, there was no escape from the Hideous Monstrosity), and fantastically cosmopolitan coffee shops to the Schwarzekirche, the Black Church - so named I don't know why, but super cool nonetheless.

One side

The other

After briefly heading back to the guest house, we again hit the road. Our first stop was Bran Castle, which was not Dracula's castle, but still cool, and packed with tourists (Irony!). After spending some time there, we stopped at Râşnov Citadel, which, to my mind, was even cooler.

Bran Castle

Râşnov Citadel

That's cool

So is that

After the length of this day, we were fairly tired, so we headed back to Braşov, had dinner at another German restaurant (where saw traditional Transylvanian folk dancing!), and headed back to the guest house to get to bed early.

No lederhosen, I'm afraid

It was a good thing we did, because 7 AM = wakin' up in the mornin'. We hit the road at 8, and at 9:30, after another half hour of searching, we found the utterly unmarked, hidden, and unadvertised Peleş Castle. As it was, we didn't have time to go inside, though we did get some super cool shots of the place. Like this, for example:

Peleş Castle

And so, having accomplished everything we had wanted to, we headed back to Bucharest satisfied, returned the car five minutes before it was due, and caught a taxi to the bus station with three hours to go before our bus left for Sofia. Perfect, you say? Hardly.

What no one told us was that Bucharest actually has six bus stations (Apparently, the idea of centralization hasn't swept Romania just yet). And so, we spent the next three hours walking and illegally riding the trams, weeping asking person after person if they knew where we were supposed to catch the bus to Sofia. No one did. Finally, defeated, we headed to the train station to see when we could catch a train. Not until midnight, apparently, and for 120 lei (about $40). Nearly at the end of our rope, we did the unthinkable and patronized a McDonald's, which, it just so happened, had Wi-Fi. Around 4:15, I stumbled across a website with the information on where to catch the bus to Sofia.

That boat having sailed (That bus having left?), we camped out in that McDonald's, wallowing in our sorrow and self-pity (or that could have just been me). Finally, we decided to head out to dinner to try to salvage a bit of pleasantry from the evening. I had a bottle of wine with me that had been intended as a gift for the host that never materialized, so I brought it, but was informed that we couldn't drink it in the restaurant. Rough day.

After heading back to the train station, we camped out some more until our train arrived, and at midnight on Tuesday morning, we boarded. I escaped our scorchingly warm car and made for the next one, which was thankfully empty, and fell asleep. When I woke up, we were at the border, and when I woke up again, it was morning in Bulgaria.

When we pulled into the station, I was again surrounded by Bulgarian, and what struck me was how comforted I was by it after a weekend of hearing a language (Romanian) of which I didn't understand one word (not that I didn't pretend otherwise). Strange as this may sound, it was my first "Bulgaria-as-home" moment. In my absence from it, I found myself wanting to return to it. It was cool.

There are two more things I want to consider here. The first: Though we spent a lot of time on this trip lost, that time was actually, once we got over the uneasiness of not knowing where we were going, a lot of fun. After all, we were exploring an utterly unknown place. And we saw some of the most incredible things as a result.

The second: As tongue-in-cheek as Douglas Adams intended his advice on hitchhiking, and by extension, traveling, to be, there is actually quite a lot of real-world value to it. That advice? Rule #1: Don't panic. Rule #2: Always know where your towel is. These things saved me, to greater and lesser extents, throughout this trip.

Halloween in Transylvania? Check. Here's to many more harrowing, delightful, scenic, trying, rewarding experiences like this one.