Eastern European Swing

So after hanging in Albania, it was time to try to make it all the way to Sofia Bulgaria, as there was a bus from Ohrid, Macedonia in the evening that I could possibly make. So I was going to have to do a ridiculous route of bus jumping to get to where I needed to go.

So I couldn't fall asleep until 4 am and had to be up at 5:40 am to run down and catch an early bus. I arrived and found it was a mini van thing, and so I hopped in there. I figured I would sit in the backseat and sprawl out if there wasn't very many people in the bus, but unfortunately there's tons of people always taking these damn vans! So I get in there, and try and sleep for a few hours on the road, but the roads are sooooo bad and bumpy that we would keep hitting these huge potholes and I would actually be thrown up and keep hitting my head on the roof, very uncomfortable! I also wasn't entirely sure where I needed to get off, just that I had to try and get off near Rrogozhine again...so I eventually was able to wrestle my way up to the front of the bus near where I was pretty sure I needed to get dropped off. I was hoping to get dropped off at the petrol station where I was picked up from earlier in my trip, but unfortunately they dropped me off at some other random spot near Rrogozhine where there were a bunch more mini taxis....so I figured I would just hop into one of those and guy to Elbason, as there was supposedly a bus going to Skopje from there....well I sat in the mini bus for a good 30 minutes before he had enough passengers to fill up the van (one of the more frustrating parts of riding the mini buses in Albania is that they will try and cram as many people as possible, and take however long it takes to find those people before they leave, not very good when you have a schedule to keep).  So we're off to Elbason, and then I get dropped off in the middle of town, and have no clue where the bus station is, so I dropped by a restaurant to grab a bite to eat and ask directions, but of course they didn't speak enough English to direct me towards the bus station..damn!

So after eating and finding an internet cafe, it's already like 1:30 in the afternoon, and I'm thinking I probably won't be able to make it to Ohrid, but still not too sure. So I start wandering around and find a travel agency and ask them if they know if there's any buses going through to Macedonia, but in broken English they let me know that I could only get there taking mini buses....so they direct me towards the mini bus stop, and write down some instructions on a piece of paper in Albanian. I wander over to the bus station area, and a mini bus driver says he'll take me to where I need to get to, so I hop in his van and wait....and wait...and then we grab 5 more people and drive to another spot in the city and wait....and wait....and wait some more.....and then we drive back to the previous location and look for more people and wait....and wait....then we drive back to the second location and wait some more....and finally after sitting in that damn van for about 45 minutes or so, we find another 3 people to fill up the damn van and are on our way!

So I eventually get dropped off at the Macedonian border, and am told I could probably catch a taxi when I get across the border, although there was a couple and a child who were also walking across the border, and from what I understood, they were going to Ohrid and could share a taxi or a ride with me, so I crossed over the border with them, only to find they were being picked up by a friend or something, so they all get into the car and wave goodbye as I'm standing there ha ha....but fortunately there was a taxi there who said he would take me to Struga for 8 euros....but then I tell him that I'm going to try and catch the bus to Sofia from there, but he insists there isn't one running from there, even though the Struga bus station website said there was one, and insists it only leaves from Ohrid...so we argue for a bit over this, and then he calls his friend who speaks better English, who also tells me that it's only leaving from Struga. So he convinces me to go to Ohrid, but then says it will now be 15 euros for the ride there, which is BS since I paid only an extra euro using a mini taxi to get from Ohrid to Struga on my way to Albania, but whatever...I'm already in the vehicle and just want to get there in time to catch my bus. So I eventually get there, but don't have enough in Macedonian to pay him the proper fare, but he accepts some Albanian Lek as well, although he ended up only taking 10 euros in total...I don't think he knew the exchange rate! Ha ha, minor win! So yeah for anyone looking to travel from Saranda to Ohrid, take a mini bus to Rrogozhine, then a mini bus to Elbason, then a mini bus to Qafe Thane, walk across the border, and then hitch or take a taxi to Ohrid. 

So I was actually over an hour early for my bus, so I had some time to kill, and then it was off to Sofia....I eventually arrived at like 4 in the morning...so it was a 22 hour day of travels...fairly grueling. I was chatting with a Lithuanian dude who spoke Bulgarian, and he spoke to a taxi driver who told me it would be 8 Lek (4 euros) to my hostel by taxi....so I agreed to that...and then the f***ing asshole skewed the meter, and it ended up costing 48 lek to get to my hostel.....f***ing corrupt taxi drivers in Bulgaria! I argued with him over this cab fare but there wasn't really much I could do. Looking back at it, I probably should have pulled out my phone and pretended to call the hostel (since I didn't have any credit) and fake a conversation with them about asking them to call the police and then telling the driver that the police were coming. But alas, I was way too tired and rattled to think of this plan, so I begrudgingly paid, swore at the guy, and checked into my hostel and caught a few hours of sleep. Unfortunately, there was a time change that I wasn't aware of, so I slept in an hour past breakfast, even though I thought I was in time for the free breakfast. I showed up and found yogurt and sliced tomatoes on the counter, and thought wow this is a really weird and crappy free breakfast! So I had my yogurt, and then chatted with the staff and found out about the time change. After breaky, I decided to just wander around the city for awhile, and found some nice sights. Sofia is actually a pretty small place, and there's not a whole lot to see, but it still provides a few nice sights as seen here.

Palace of Culture

I guess it's getting close to Xmas time :)

Communist Memorial

Weird statue

It's our Guaranty!

Law School I think

Creepy Mo pic!

Alexander Neveski Cathedral

Statue Park

"Do you find something comical about my appearance when I am driving my automobile??"

The British Embassy....sticks out like a sore thumb!

Self portraits!

epic time for photobombing!

Well dressed chap

So after wandering around for awhile, I stumbled into a little market where I bought two sweet Soviet Era flasks for 10 euros...shopping win! After about 4 hours of walking, it was getting bloody cold, so I just found a coffee shop, and hung out there for awhile, while checking out couchsurfing. I found that there was an event going on that night so I signed up for that, and I also noticed that an American dude had signed up for it and mentioned he was staying at the same hostel. So I wandered back to the hostel, and saw the guy and decided to have a little fun with him, and pretend like I knew him, so I approached him in the common room, and started talking to him...needless to say he was a bit creeped out ha ha, but all for a good laugh once I told him I saw him on couchsurfing. So we ended up chatting for awhile, and then just chilled out over the free dinner and beer offered by the hostel...eventually quite a few of us from the hostel made our way over to the couchsurfing meeting, and hung out there for a few hours, and then some locals took us to some club...well most of us got split up and ended up going to different pubs and clubs, but it was still alright.

I ended up hanging out with the French guy and meeting a few local girls and having a pretty fun night, as most of the locals could speak some decent English. At one point I did start chatting up a girl who was a local, but she didn't speak very good English, but was more confident speaking in French. So for the first time since way back in high school days, I had the longest conversation in French that I've had....good fun actually, as I'm starting to remember more and more of the language...not fluent by any means, but a work in progress. So anyways I ended up being left behind and roamed around the nightclub until about 5 am, and finally decided to call it quits and head back to the hostel. Unfortunately, I got fairly lost (even though I had a map!) and what should have been about a 10 minute walk, ended up taking about an hour and a half! ha ha ha...damn I'm such a brutal navigator at times. So I get back and don't get to sleep until about 6:30 am...

Obviously, based on the late night, I didn't feel like waking up to check out and actually ended up sleeping until 4 pm, oops! After finally waking up, I caught up with Ryan and the Aussie girl from the night before that I was hanging out with for awhile. Those two were already into their second bottle of vodka, and were going pretty hard...crazy cats! Ryan was showing me some sweet pics of his brother's Lingenfelter Viper on Facebook, and said if I ever make it to Cali, I am welcome to come for a ride in it..so I think I will definitely have to take him up on that! I hung out with them for awhile, but then wandered over to this amazing Turkish restaurant just near the hostel.....the food was soooo awesome, I'm totally looking forward to getting to Turkey for a few days before heading off to Bali!! So after my dinner there, I made it back in time for the free hostel dinner (pasta with sauce again, as it was every night), but I still had a bit of room for it. After dinner, I decided to just buy NFL Gameday so that I can watch all the NFL games on my computer instead of hunting down a pub to watch games. So I just ended up hanging out all night watching the games. I was pleasantly surprised when 3 people that I had met in the Skopje hostel showed up at our hostel, so it was good to catch up with them, and they had even picked up another Canadian who was from Saskatchewan! So it was good fun to chat with a fellow Sasky for awhile too!

Eventually people were starting to head to sleep, but being the hardcore fan that I am, I ended up staying up until 5 am watching the games...this time change difference is a real killer for me!! I also decided to try and get up for 10:30 am to catch the free breakfast (I haven't been up early enough for a free hostel breakfast in like 3 months now ha ha), and I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed just in time to catch it. It ended up not really being that great but oh well! So after breakfast, I figured I would catch the free walking tour that started at 11 am, and I thought that it actually started from our hostel, but then found out that it actually started like 7 minutes away, so I ran out the door thinking I could get there on time, and that I could find the place without any issues....well of course I went down the wrong street, and totally ended up in the wrong area of town to meet at the right location....so I grudgingly walked down towards where they were meant to meet just in case the tour started a bit later, but of course the tour was already gone. Fortunately, I looked over a block and a bit and could see a gaggle of people, several of whom had nice big cameras around their neck (a sure sign of tourists) so I just ran over towards that group, and sure enough it was the walking tour group and there even happened to be 2 Aussie guys and one Brazilian dude on it who were from my hostel....so I got to experience the walking tour for the 2 hours, and learned some interesting history about Sofia, including how it came to be called Sofia (there was a church called St Sofia, and people would often say they were going to the city to visit St Sofia's church, and that eventually was shortened down to "I'm going to Sofia", and of course that eventually lead to the city just adopting that name instead).

We also toured some of the old ruins around the city, that were from Roman times, some of which are even encased in glass below a 5 star hotel in the city. There were a few other interesting people on the tour, as well, including this Japanese guy was cycling from Lithuania towards Istanbul, and basically squatting in deserted buildings or stopping at people's houses in villages if they happened to wave at him...crazy guy. He also shared a story about him hanging out with a Swedish cyclist and heading out with some Serbian guy a week earlier, and the Serb got so drunk and ended up crashing their vehicle, breaking the Swede's arm and leg (thus ending his cycling trip), cutting open the Japanese guy's head to the tune of 25 stitches, and the Serb was actually in a forced coma to recover for his injuries...crazy, guess I shouldn't be hopping in vehicles with locals if they've had some drinks anymore!!!

Mosque, which is near a Synanogue, which is near a Cathedral 

Old Bathhouse...might be renovated and reopened

Old Roman ruins underneath one of the main motorways

Courthouse and Finance Ministry

Oldest building in Sofia

Yellow Brick road donated as a wedding gift to the Royal Family

National Theatre

St Sofia Church (where Sofia got its name from)

No room for a bell tower on the church, so they put it in the tree!

Memorial to the Fallen Soldier

Disco Egg!

So after the walking tour, the guys of the group went to some good and cheap Bulgarian restaurant with the tour guide and had a nice meal there. Then we all just wandered back to the hostel, and I was just so exhausted that I ended up having an hour and a half nap in the common room (even though the Skopje girls were teasing me a bit while I was trying to sleep). The girls and the other Aussie guy Viktor had actually strictly returned to Sofia because they had been on a pub crawl there and had so much fun, so they decided to return to do the pub crawl one more time. So that was the plan for the evening. After having the free dinner at the hostel (pasta with sauce again ha ha), we hung out and recruited a few more people for the pub crawl, then made our way down to meet up for the crawl. As it turned out, our group of 7 were the only people who were up for the pub crawl, so it was going to be a fairly small one, but ah well. We started off at a rock bar (where 3 of the girls hadn't even brought photo id and were turned away at the door, so they had to head back to their hostel to get id), and it was an alright place, but pretty empty...I suppose keeping in mind it was a Monday night, and Sofia is entering winter, there's not a whole lot going on.....So after hanging out there, we wandered over to the next bar, which was an "illegal" bar. While walking there, one of the girls from Skopje bailed hard (she was pretty drunk) and ended up face first, almost planking on the street, it was pretty hilarious once I realized she was okay.

Statue of a politician who survived an ax to the face in real life!

Pub Crawlin'

So the illegal bar is this little underground place with no electricity, and I guess you need a special knock on the door to get into it! There's no cash register or any way to trace any money flowing in or out of the place, so it's pretty legit and underground. After hanging out there, we moved on to the next bar which was a cool brew pub that came with a tap per table, so you basically had an hour to pour and drink as much beer as you wanted to at the table. Unfortunately for me, I was the only person who seemed to have any talent at pouring the beers without creating too much foam, so I ended up being the designated pourer which limited my time for my own beer intake, but ah well. After the brewpub, it was then off to some cool Apartment pub, where it was an entire apartment with several different rooms for chilling out in, and of course loads of unique cocktails, juices, and snacks. We had a pretty good time there playing some fun card games, and then finally made our way to the final stop of the night, which ended up being the nightclub that I had ended up in 2 nights earlier. By this point everyone was fairly intoxicated and we didn't all last much longer at the last place. I made my way back to my hostel, to find that the Brazilian guy had brought back the British chick to our shared dorm room, but since I was the only other one in the room, I didn't really care too much and just put some headphones on and went to sleep. Ah hostel love ha ha

So the next morning I woke up and had planned to go for some Sushi for lunch before wandering off to Veliko Teronovo. The Brazilian and British girl were still hiding in his bunk, so I made sure they knew I was ready to go, so I told them to get out and get the walk of shame over with ha ha...so Becky slinked out from the bed, and was going to go back to her hostel, but I reminded her that we were all supposed to go for sushi before a few of us left Sofia. So she waited for us, and then we all wandered back down to the hostel where her and a few of the others from the pub crawl were staying. Unfortunately, Becky isn't very good with directions, and had no idea how to get back to her hostel, and all she could remember was there being a McDonalds in the near vicinity of her place, so I tried to help her find the place, and managed to get to two different McDonalds which all ended up being the wrong ones! Fortunately, Sofia is a small enough city that we were able to eventually find the right one. While walking towards the hostel, I bumped into an older man and apologized, and upon realizing I spoke English he wanted to have a conversation....so we started chatting and he was a director for some alcohol distributor company, and kept talking about wine. So we walked and chatted, and he said he would give us some good wines to try, so we pull out this piece of paper, and he takes forever to start writing things down, getting lost in his train of thought. After about 15 minutes of just standing there, slowly talking and writing so slowly, we ended up with a list of wine that read like this:

Red Wine
Cabernet Sauvignon
Merlot
Chiraz

White Wine
Chardonnay
Sauvignon Blanc

Now, this might not seem much to you, but keep in mind this guy basically delayed us from where we were getting to, talking about how he worked as a director for a wine company, and told us he would recommend some great Bulgarian wines to drink, and then took another 15 minutes to write down these types of wine and not even the brand names or labels! ha ha ha.....after this fiasco, Eduardo the Brazilian, was quick enough to mention we had a bus to catch so that we could get away from the guy....nice enough fellow, but definitely a bit out of it!

So we finally get to the hostel, grab the others, and head down to the Sushi restaurant. The sushi was really good, and the server was named Stella, which lead to some fun yelling moments for me (Stellaaaaaa!!!! from a Streetcar Named Desire). At one point during the discussions, I mentioned to the people at the table that everyone should have to wear a tag on their shirt that says their name, their marital status, one interesting thing about them, and their preferred sexual position....I think this would be a hilarious way of really getting to know people around the world in 4 quick questions! So I had to put my money where my mouth was, so when Stella approached the table to take our order, I made sure to introduce myself, my marital status, one interesting thing, and then as I was casually perusing the menu, I let my preferred position be casually mentioned, much to the laughter and enjoyment of the others at table...good times...of course poor Stella wasn't in on the inside joke, so she didn't understand the hilariousness of it, but oh well!

So after our lunch, Eduardo and I said goodbye to the girls, as we were off to catch a bus to Veliko Tarnovo with Victor and a dude named Tim from Melbourne. So we got back to the hostel, found the guys, and were on our way back to the train/bus station. The cab ride cost us 4 Bulgarian Lev from the hostel (compare that to the 48 Lev I paid when I arrived in Sofia and you'll understand how badly I was ripped off). So yeah in any case NEVER TRUST THE CAB DRIVERS AT TRAIN STATIONS OR BUS/TRAIN STATIONS IN SOFIA AS THEY WILL RIP YOU OFF IF YOU'RE A FOREIGNER!!

Anyways, we arrived at the station, grabbed our tickets, and were on our way on the 5 hour bus ride up North. We arrived later in the evening, but you could tell that Veliko is a very scenic city, even by night. After getting picked up at the bus station by the hostel staff (Hostel Mostel, great hostels if you ever make it to Sofia or Veliko), we were at the hostel, and enjoying our free dinner and beer. Unfortunately, the free dinner servings weren't really that much, so we wandered down to a restaurant for a late night second helping of food, and found a nice and cheap restaurant with a great view of the hillside and river. A great meal and beer here only cost around $10 which is pretty amazing considering the view and the quality of food, I would expect to pay around $60-70 back home for the same establishment. After dinner, we just wandered back to the hostel and called it a night. When we got back, we heard a funny story from a guy named Tom, who we had met in Sofia and was staying at the same hostel as us. In Bulgaria, when you nod your head up and down, it actually means no, and if you shake side to side it means yes. So he was getting a sandwich from a place, and the lady asked him if he wanted some garlic sauce on it, and he said no and shook his head, so she put a bunch of it on there since she thought it meant yes, then she asked if he wanted hot sauce, and again he shook his head to say no, and he received a bunch of hot sauce....hilarious stuff. But yeah after that, I just hung out watching Entourage and following the ice hockey games for awhile, before hitting the sack.

The next day we just did a little 4 hour wander around the city, taking in the imposing Fortress overseeing the city, as well as a nice wander near the university and down to the downtown core. We ended up finding another good restaurant next door to the place we had stopped at the night before, and had another really great meal. Myself and Tim kept having a group of young 16 year old Bulgarian girls creeping on us throughout the meal, but of course they were much too young, so we didn't bother going to talk to them, but it was still funny to keep catching them creeping on us...damn young Bulgarians! So after dinner, we just wandered back to the hostel again, hung out there for awhile, and then wandered out into the city to find a night spot, but since it was a Tuesday night, there wasn't a whole lot going on...we managed to find some small nightclub, but it was pretty quiet, so after one beer we just went back for the night.

Leaving the hostel

Walking towards the fortress

Old fortress ruins

View from the Fortress overlooking Teliko

Massive Bulgarian flag

A dodgy ladder? Why not give it a go!

Awesome Frescos in the church at the top of the Fortress

Walking back towards Veliko

By the University

More bad ass statues

Bulgarian parking brake! 

The next day, we decided to wander on towards Romania since Veliko was a fairly small place and pretty quiet. We were going to take a train to a nearby small town and then another train, but the hostel staff convinced us to take a cab to the small town nearby instead, and save ourselves some time and money, so we did that. Fortunately, when a hostel calls a cab for you, they don't rip you off, so that worked out pretty well. We arrived at the train station a bit early, and eventually found our tickets and got harassed a bit by some Gypsy child, but wouldn't give him anything since it just encourages more behaviour from them.... At one point, I was smoking my Cuban cigar, and the kid wanted the little paper thing that it's wrapped in, thinking that it was of some use to him, so I let him have it, but wasn't giving him any money. Another interesting thing happened, when Victor gave the kid a bit of change, but not much since he didn't have much left, and the kid got mad and asked for more..ungrateful little bugger! But yeah eventually we got our train and were on our way.

The train ride reminded me quite a bit of the Canadian prairies as there's quite a lot of flat ground and grain farms littering the Romanian/Bulgarian countryside. The border stop itself was quite long, and I was briefly worried when the Romanian customs agents grabbed my Kindle and started asking what it was (I have heard of police officers in countries taking items from travelers and keeping them for themselves, leaving the traveler with nothing to do about it), but fortunately they were nice enough guys and just curious about it. So we arrived in Bucharest, and were kindly greeted at the train station by the hostel owner. He was an older guy and didn't speak much English, but very friendly. We were staying at the Green Frog Hostel, which is a very cozy and lovely place, with an atmosphere much like staying with your family. They prepared a nice breakfast every morning, and if you were around in the evenings and the owners were making dinner, then they would offer you some of that as well. All in all, a great place. Basically on arrival, we were introduced to an Italian guy who owns several hostels in Europe, and was going to a couchsurfing gathering that evening, so we decided to tag along with him for that. Even though the guy had been in Bucharest for awhile, he obviously was terrible with directions as he lead us towards where the pub was, but took such a long round about way (of course we didn't know this until the next day when we went on our own walk, but yeah it took us an extra 20 minutes longer than it should have to get to where we needed to go).

Crazy sunset on the Danube

At one point, even though he told us he had organized the meeting, he was lost and couldn't find the pub we were supposed to meet at. At this point, I had to laugh because the hostel staff had told us that there was an Australian guy who didn't make it back the previous day and a half to the hostel and they were worried that he was missing and were wondering if they should report him missing to the police. At this point, I was thinking to myself that he probably had just gone walking with the Italian guy, who had gotten him so lost and the guy was still lost somewhere in the city...later on we would find out that he was safe and sound and made it back okay, so all good. Anyways, we eventually did find the pub and met a bunch of cool people from all over the world who were studying, working, or just passing through Bucharest. I ended up meeting a pretty cool Romanian girl who I was told liked Canadians, so I started chatting her up and we got along quite well. We hung out there for awhile, and then moved on to a Karaoke bar, which was also great fun, although the waiting list to get a song was much too long. After hanging out there, one of the Portuguese guys we met, took us to a student night at another nightclub where it was 2 for 1 drinks with a student card, but I first arranged to hang out with the Romanian girl the next day or two. It worked out well at the Student Night as I kind of looked like the Portuguese guy  so I was able to borrow his card and get the good deals as well.

We hung out there for quite awhile, meeting new people and generally striking out with girls, but all in good fun. Tim the Aussie eventually disappeared so we figured he had found himself a lady friend, while Victor and I just continued to menace girls, but without luck. Eventually we were pretty gooned, and figured heading back to the hostel would be a swell idea. We first found a kebab shop, and then asked some local guys how much we should pay for a taxi to get back to our hostel before even bothering with them, as they also like to rip off foreigners. Fortunately, we found a good taxi driver who gave us a fair price, and got back to the hostel for the night, where we found Tim still awake as he had just arrived back and had been locked out since he didn't have a key! Fortunately he was able to awaken the Aussie who had gone missing to let him in. And since it was like 4 am, it was time to watch the Thursday night NFL game on my computer, which I attempted to do, but in my drunk state, I ended up passing out and dropping my computer off the bed, waking up at one point to find only the headphones in my ears and the computer on the floor...oops.

So the next day we were all feeling the effects of the previous night, and were contemplating heading out on a pubcrawl that evening, but first needed to go find some eats. We wandered by a small Romanian restaurant and enjoyed a nice meal there, although the lamb that I ordered ended up being a bit too tough and chewy, but it was still an alright meal. After eating there, Tim decided to just head back to the hostel and chill out, while Victor and I decided to wander down to the Natural History Museum. Now at this point, I should have really made sure I paid attention to where we were walking or at least grabbed a map, but I didn't think much of it, and ended up just following Vic's lead to the museum. We arrived there and toured around, but he wasn't so interested in some of the sections I was, and since I take my time reading everything, I ended up losing him. By the time I wandered outside, it was dark and he was nowhere to be found. I thought I might know my way back, but no, I got pretty turned around and ended up taking well over an hour to finally find my way back, as opposed to the 15 minutes or so it should normally take. Sweet life Reilly! But eventually I got back, and found the guy ready to go out for a late dinner to some nice Italian restaurant, where we enjoyed another cheap and amazing feast. Unfortunately we all ate too much, and kind of lost the urge to actually head out that night, so we just stayed in and rested up.

Lamb and Polenta

This is the way Pigeons should be treated!!! Destroy that foul creature Mr Eagle!

The next day we met to meet up with Oana, the Romanian girl from 2 nights earlier, who wanted to take us on a walking tour around the city. Now, I'm going to quote the Lonely Planet for a second here on the typical thoughts of Bucharest; "It's dirty, it's gritty, it's stiflingly hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter; there's nothing much to see other than except a communist era mega-palace; there are dogs, beggars, and scammers galore." Now I'm not going to lie, and when I thought of Bucharest in the past, I did imagine a big dirty city, that was run down and filled with gypsies who would just want to rob me a soon as I arrived, but of course my impression was quickly changed of the city. The city is actually quite modern, and it's fairly clean, and filled with well dressed and beautiful people. The architecture is also a very nice mix of modern and ancient, which gives it a unique and sexy vibe.

We met Oana at Unirii Square, which was one square further to the south than the one that Victor thought we were meant to be going, so of course we were 15 minutes late, but fortunately they were still there to meet us. So she took us on a walk around the Old Town, showing us some really old taverns, churches, and meeting locations for both present day Romanians and Middle Age Romanians. We stopped for a beer in one of the oldest and most prestigious Brew pubs and it was just awesome, the decor and the vibe was most excellent. After our beer, we continued wandering over to the Romanian Parliament (the communist era mega-palace). Now, to give you a bit of a back story on this building, during Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship, he decided to bulldooze one 6th of Bucharest (forcing hundreds of people from their homes and into apartments) and create the world's second largest building (next to the Pentagon) to house his government. The building has 330,000 sq m, and took 3 shifts of 20,000 workers 24 hours a day for 5 years to create. It's an absolute beast, but quite a sight. One of the many nasty side effects of the building creation was that thousands of dogs were forced into the streets, since their owners had no room in their new residences to hold these dogs, which lead to a crazy outbreak of wild dogs (hence the common perception of Bucharest). This building is so huge, that Top Gear even had a race in the basement in one episode of a recent season. The place is crazy!

So after wandering around there and a nearby walking park, we continued our walk through Cismigui Garden, which ended up bringing us right by our hostel (good to know for when getting lost), and then continuing on towards Victory Square and then University Square, where we stopped for a necessary coffee break since Bucharest is getting awfully cold these days!! (Looking forward to escaping to Indonesia and the warmth very soon!!).

Near University Square (I joked that it was Bucharest's Occupy Wall Street movement)

Orthodox Church

Wicked old Tavern and Inn

Vlad the Impaler!! (Inspiration for Dracula)

Even though there's road construction, restaurants still find a place to put seating on the streets

What a perv!!

Priceless photo of Victor stuffing his face

Near one of the Romanian bank HQ

Bank HQ

Inside an old tavern

Small graveyard for a church!

What could they be fishing for in the foul river...and how did they get there?

Oh they must have came by boat!

Romanian Parliament...accommodates all 280 workers easily!

Massive building!

Cismisgui Garden

Walking in the Gardens

Cool Pub that has a tree growing in the middle of it

University Square

It was starting to get late, so we decided to head back to the hostel, although I wanted to hang out with Oana a bit more, so we agreed to have dinner and then meet up with the others later on for a night out on the town. After a quick shower, I met up with her and we wandered around Old Town until we found a nice Italian place for dinner, and had a nice time there. Eventually it was getting close to the time where we were meant to meet Victor, Julia (a Ukrainian couchsurfing girl who came with us for the walk that day), and Tim, and a bunch of American girls from our hostel. So we wandered over to McDonalds to meet them, but found that only Victor and Julia had showed up, as all the Americans had bailed out on the night out, and Tim had decided to go check out the pub crawl that night (he showed up about 15 minutes later saying that it absolutely sucked and the people on it were brutal) ha ha. So the 5 of us wandered around for awhile, trying to find a place that didn't have cover charge or really expensive drinks. We eventually settled on a cool pub called the Elbow Room, where they had Absinth shots for 10 Lei (2 euros) so I figured may as well start the night out right and get everyone one of those...ughh what an awful shot...I should learn to never have them, but oh well.

So after hanging there for awhile, we decided to wander down to a cool nightclub called Club A, which is owned and run by students. It was a pretty packed place and pretty awesome and cheap...we hung out there for several hours, and had a blast. It was eventually 4 am though, and after having made out for like 2 hours with Oana, she said we could head back to her place, but only as long as I spent the night on the couch ha ha...so we found a bus and wandered down to her place, but of course she let me share the bed :p. All in all, a pretty fun night.

About to have the Absinth, Victor and Julia not impressed!

The next day Tim, Victor, and I were meant to wander up to Brasov, but I had a bit of a trek to get back to the hostel. After leaving Oana's place, I took the wrong exit and got fairly lost in suburban Bucharest, no surprise right?! Eventually found my bus, and got back to the hostel, only to find the boys had already left. Unfortunately for Victor, he had left his nice leather jacket behind, but I was able to track down his number and figure out what hostel they were staying at, and head up to Brasov with the jacket in tow. I arrived in Brasov, and asked a cab driver about the fare price to the hostel, and of course, he tried to rip me off, asking for 10 euros, when the hostel brochure said no more than 2 euros...I showed him this, and he just muttered something in Romanian and wandered off...prick! So I just caught a bus, and arrived at the hostel, checked in, and had a quiet night of rest, since I was exhausted from not sleeping much the night before ;) Oh yeah, I almost forgot, check out this monstrosity I made from McDonalds. My mate Tim calls it the McGangbang...it's a McChicken stuffed in a Big Mac...needless to say, after eating it, I was sneezing and my body was definitely saying "F U, don't do that to me again!!"

The McGangbang!

The next day we wandered out on a bus to Bran, where we visited Bran's castle. The castle is often associated with Dracula, as it has some similarities to the castle in Bram Stoker's novel, although the character who Bram roughly based Dracula on, Vlad the Impaler, never actually lived at the castle. It was a pretty sweet place, and we wandered around the small Saxon town, and took in a tour of the castle. The castle was a pretty massive place, and if certain rooms weren't cordoned off, I could totally see myself getting lost in the place...it was absolutely huge, but cool! After wandering around there for an hour and a bit, we stopped at a cool traditional Romanian restaurant for a delicious meal, and then caught the bus back to Brasov. We just hung out at the hostel for awhile, then Victor and I wandered down to some basement tavern that served Romanian food. We both ordered the Transylvania Stew, and different Soups, but the server didn't speak very good English, and ended up bringing us Transylvania Soup and then our other soups we ordered...which lead to lots of confusion.....but either way it was very delicious food and quite filling, and we left full and satisfied. We just retired back to the hostel then, and I watched Sidney Crosby make his long awaited return to the Penguins and wow what a performance! I didn't get to sleep until 5:30 am, so a very late night, even though I should have gone to bed much earlier!

Wandering the mean streets of Bran

Markets in Bran

The impressive Bran castle from a distance

Nice wintery park near the castle

Mo pic with the castle in the background

Wandering inside the castle

Secret stairway connecting the second to 4th floor

Nice bear rug

Fit for a King

the King's Bed....not King Size I noted

Sexy Lion

The next day I slept in of course, and figured Victor and Tim would have left to go wander the city, but found them still lingering around, so after a shower and a shave, so that my Movember mo is more pronounced....if you haven't donated...remember http://mobro.co/internationalmoustacheofmystery


I joined the boys, and we went on a nice little walking tour of Brasov. It's actually a very lovely city as well, and even has a big Brasov sign up in the hills, similar to Hollywood. There's debate about whether Brasov copied Hollywood or vice versa! We wandered along to the main square, saw the Black Church, and then wandered up along the fortress walls to two of the guard towers built to defend the city against Turkish invasion. After walking around for a few hours, we wandered over to the train station to buy our tickets for the next day, as we are all departing for different destinations, saw some sketchy old dude trying to use what may have been a stolen debit card in an atm, and then just went back to the hostel, and chilled some more. Eventually Victor and I wandered over to some Chef Training school/restaurant near the hostel, and had another super amazing meal....the food here is so cheap and so good! We were meant to meet up with a couchsurfing girl that night, but she ended up bailing, so we just lingered about, played with the hostel dog (who is a little menace and has chewed up my shoelaces, attacked my computer cords, and bitten me several times), kicked the hostel dog outside due to his awful farting that just skunks up the room, and hanging out blogging....fun times all around!

Hollywood.....er Brasov

Taking shortcuts through Brasov backstreets

Cheeky Mo pic

trying to find the McDonalds

Getting another late day start

Main Square in Brasov, quite nice

This guy is telling you to donate to my Mo!

The Black Church

Wandering along the fortress walls 

View of Brasov from one of the watch towers

The White Tower

Downtown Brasov

Want Nothin' ....

I ended up staying up until like 6:30 am skyping people, even though I was meant to be getting up at 11 am to catch my train back to Bucharest...so I was absolutely exhausted when I did get up. I said my goodbyes to Vic and Tim, and waited for my taxi to show up, which didn't show up, so I had to run along and find my own cab, but fortunately the guy didn't rip me off, so not all Eastern European taxi drivers are scam artists, nice to know. I even tipped the guy well out of appreciation. So I was on my train, and crashed super hard and slept the whole way to Bucharest.

Upon arrival, I tried to get a hold of Oana, but she wasn't answering her phone, so I had to linger around the train station for awhile until she would get back to me. While wandering around aimlessly, some guy approached me about a taxi ride to the airport. He offered me a cab, and told me the train to the airport from the train station wasn't going to my airport (Otopeni) and that he would only charge 50 Lei for his ride....so I later found out that the train to Henry Cuanda (which is the name from Otopeni) was only 8 Lei, and that a real rate for a cab should be 25 Lei or so....so if a guy with the company called Cosaceanu Aurelian (cosaceanu_trans@yahoo.com) offers you a ride, tell him to get lost! So after waiting and waiting, I finally got Oana and arranged to meet up with her at Romana Square...so I wandered down there and met up. We didn't have much time to get down to this concert that she had arranged for us to to go. So we hopped on a few buses and made our way down to Radio Europa, which is Romania's largest radio station. They host a concert every 2 weeks in their parking basement, and it's usually only by winning a radio contest that you get to attend, but Oana had worked for the radio station in the past so she got to attend the concerts whenever she wanted. So we arrived and it was quite an interesting experience, as the band sang only in Romanian. I guess they sang rather terrible lyrics in their songs such as "I'm a sheep, I drive a car and chase girls" ha ha ha....yeah Oana said they were so terrible and that she was sorry for bringing me to watch them....but I didn't think they were alll thaaaaat bad.....maybe their voices weren't good, but their background music was alright and they seemed like they were having fun and getting the audience into it. So after hanging out there for 2 hours or so, the concert ended, and we just went back to her place for the night and had a nice evening together.

the concert

Sexy Dragon

She had to work the next morning, so it was a relatively early morning, and we were off on our way to drop her off at work. I still had her Romania Lonely Planet guide in my bag that I checked in at the train station. So I wandered back there, grabbed my bag, returned her book, and then tried to find a medical clinic so I could get my hepatitis shot.....so I finally found this hospital that Oana had suggested I check out, and found I could get my shots done. Well they were able to do my shots, but didn't have the exact medication that was prescribed. But they had an alternative one that they suggested would work just the same way. So before I got the shot, the doctor asked me for my immunization card...and I searched for it all over my bag, and realized that I have lost that....so that brings me to a point where I should probably list all of the things I have lost over the past few months since I'm having a pretty rough string of luck here...so here goes!

1 iPod in Scotland
1 sleeping bag in Scotland
1 tshirt in Estonia (taken from my laundry that I had done at a hostel so not really lost but yeah)
1 umbrella in the UK somewhere
1 pen made of old bullet casings from Sarajevo, lost somewhere in Albania
1 pair of Von Zipper sunglasses lost somewhere in Albania
3 separate individual socks lost in various places
1 travel towel lost in Copenhagen
1 travel towel lost in Munich
2 Hipster hats (1 in Macedonia, 1 in Germany)
1 pair of Hipster glasses in Poland
2 bottles of shampoo (1 in Macedonia, 1 in Romania)
1 tube of toothpaste in England

Chicken and Cube hanging near the balcony where the 1989 Romanian Revolution began

Revolution Square

So yeah, rough couple of months for losing things, but oh well...c'est la vie. So anyways, I get my shot, and head back into the city for a little bit. Wander around for a bit more, then head off to Otopeni Airport via train (again only 8 Lei) great deal and super easy. I get to the airport and am several hours early (which is quite shocking for me really) and find a cafe that has WiFi so I figure I'll eat there and grab a coffee and use the WiFi....well the bastards wanted to charge 5 Lei for internet use, even though I was paying over 40 Lei for dinner and coffee there...F***ing scam artists!! Bon Life I think it was called...so yeah if you're ever in Otopeni Airport, avoid the crappy service and crappy food of that place! It's on the right hand side of the terminal...right near the stairs heading to the 2nd level. 


So eventually I go to check in, and find that the airline wants me to use those ridiculous waste creating plastic bag wrapping machines...I'm thinking to myself, come on it's a backpack I've never had to wrap this thing, but they were insistent...and I was already a bit pissed after the rip off at the cafe, so I tell them I'm not paying to get it all wrapped up, but they give me a free voucher to wrap it...so I grudgingly go do that...check in, and shortly thereafter, I am on my way to Istanbul, Turkey!!

So I arrive at the airport, and find that I have to pay $60 for a visa since I'm Canadian....the most expensive visas in Turkey damnit!! So I pay that, clear customs and arrive, and find that my pickup that I thought I had arranged wasn't anywhere, but fortunately there was a fellow picking up some Germans to go to the Harmony Hotel, which was just down the block from the Harmony Hostel....so I talked with him and he agreed to give me a ride, so I was all sorted. Originally I was quoted for 15 Euros for a ride to the hostel, since the airport on the Asian side is so so so far away from where I was staying...so I talked to this pickup guy, and he tells me 10 euros....so I figure that's a win...then we take the 1 hour ride, maybe 1.5 hour ride to the hostel, I get dropped off, and there was some sort of misunderstanding between the driver and the other guy at the airport, and the driver tells me that the hotel paid for the pickup, and to just tip him..so I give him 5 euros..and am at my hostel for 1/3 the price! yeehaw....and thus I'm in Turkey where I will continue with the next posting :)

Cheers,

Rye