coming to romania was quite the experience. i took the day train, even though it was a whopping 12 hour trip, as people had said that the night train was a tad sketchy. so day train it was, and what a ride. the landscape in northwest romania is rather barren, not much to see really. so i slept. but as i got further into the country, it turned surprisingly agricultural, and was fairly lush and green. oddly enough however, there was no machinery in sight. people were doing everything by hand.. cutting grass with sithes, loading it into horse-drawn carriages and the like. it was incredible to see. the whole way across the country it was like this. i'm not in western europe anymore folks, i assure you. i'm not even in western EASTERN europe (ie prague, budapest). no, no.. we're way off the farm now.
its good though, cause well, life is cheap. there's 32,000 romanian thingers to the dollar, which i find funny. i feel so rich with 1 million thinger bills in my pockets. but i'm not rich, nor do i need to be. the hostel here in brasov is great, for my $10 or whatever it is per night, i get free laundry, free drinks, (if i wanted them) free romanian cigarettes (which are horrible, aparently), free breakfast, yada yada yada.. its incredible. last night a group of us went out for a nice sit down meal, one of the best i've had in ages, complete with drinks and everything for some 100,000 thingers. yeah, like $3. its actually more expensive to buy groceries than it is to eat out. i'm still completely floored everytime i get a bill or i go to buy something. pennies. ha. prague and the czech republic were cheap. hungary was cheap. this is CHEAP. and i rather like it.
well enough about money, brasov as a city is quite nice. two nights ago, i essentially walked in the door at 10pm to quite a fanfair, as 3 guys that i had met in vienna were here already. later that same night, a group of 10 or so from the hostel went with one of the guys who runs the place to go BEAR watching. well, bear feeding actually. i had no idea what to expect, but here we are in the middle of the city (well, the edge actually), in the middle of the night, and here come these bears down out of the woods to eat from some trash cans. big brown ones. kinda sad, as aparently they do that every night, but it was something i'd really never done.
yesterday then, my usual routine of walking around and soaking in the town. the place is quite alive, as in the old town square, probably 5 or 6 blocks from our place, they're setting up for a ricky martin concert, which is tonight. a million thingers to see ricky martin. $30. thats about one third of the average romanian's monthly income. but sadly, i won't be attending it.
lets see, today, going to go hiking i think, through some mountains all around here. then tomorrow its off to DRACULA'S castle. i am in transylvania after all. pretty excited about that, aparently there's a cheesy souvenir stand at the bottom of the hill from the castle, so i figure i'll buy every corny dracula gifts. haha.
after that, who knows. i was REALLY close to packing up today and heading to istanbul with two guys i met. but, in the end, i didn't want to spend the stupid $100 for the visa, just to see istanbul, and i'd like to spend some more time here in romania. i'll probably be battling with going to turkey or not quite a bit over the next few weeks. its just SO CLOSE. just right there. and any place where you can get kebabs, AUTHENTIC ONES at that, for a mere 50 cents, is calling my name. who knows. for now, i'm off to go hiking...