Romanian Adventures with Wendy - part 2

2/5/07 - hey there all..well...i haven't been doing too well with this and never really finished up from when wendy was in town...so i'll try and do that tonight...although its getting late and i need to go to bed soon...life here in bucharest has been busy...grades were due today and of course that took up some time...plus, i have been getting out and experiencing lots of nightlife...i know some of you are saying what's new about that...but i am really trying to get out even when i have had a cruddy in traffic...its been going well so far...i have been to three new, cool places in the past few weeks...two restuarants and a fun bar :) so life is going okay at the moment and my friend jennifer gets here this weekend...which means another trip is just around the corner...poland and czech republic here i come....anyway...here are some of the shots from the rest of the trip i took with wendy...sorry they took me so freakin long to post....

this first shot is from a great town called sighisoara (pronounced ziggy-shwara)....its the birthplace of vlad tepes...aka dracula....very quaint place...and we stayed in this really cute pensione...there wasn't much room in this room...but the dresser shows you how it was decorated...it was really a nice place....both wendy and i enjoyed...here she is acting as vanna...

this is the town square in the tiny town of sighisoara....cute huh...just like i said...we stayed in the light blue building...on the top floor...so we had a slanted roof over our heads and the clock tower out the window...it was quite warm, so we tried keeping the window open...but the clock kept chiming every 15 minutes....even after having a fun night of drinking, it was still a pain....but overall the place was quaint and i am hoping to get back there....

as i typed above...this town is the birthplace of vlad tepes...also known as "vlad the impaler" or dracula...and here is bust of him with the main church of the town in the background...i am not really sure just what his history is here other than being born and growing up...but i am hoping to read up more on this guy sometime in the near future while i am still living here...

this next shot is of wendy and i outside of dracula's tavern...also the birthplace of the man, the myth, the legend...when we got inside, friends of mine from bucharest where sitting there having drinks and a snack...so of course we joined them...it turned into a great night with romanian music involved a bit later...it was a great place....

one of the reasons the night was so much fun, was because before we got to dracula's tavern we stopped at Teo's place...Teo's is about 85 years old and has a fake eye...a cool guy who only speaks french and romanian and makes his own palinca...which is the national drink of romania...its twice distilled fruit-ish brandy...its just like fire water let me tell you...and when you stop in to see Teo he keeps giving you shots...it was a bit crazy...but also a bunch of fun...here you see us after we have had a few shots and have purchased some palinca for the folks back home...yummy :)

on the way to the next town we were staying in we stopped off in bran...where dracula's castle is located...do you sense a theme to this trip??? maybe its the romanian theme :) anyway...in the town of bran we saw this cool guy selling pork fat, cheese and homemade palinca...don't you just love his hat...lots of men wear them here and women seem to wear similar ones, but theirs are generally made from fur of some sort....

while in bran we had this tasty hungarian pastry...this is a bread roll...which is twisted around a metal pole sort of thingy and they coated in a small bit of butter, brown sugar and whatever toppings you want besides...we got sesame seeds....YUMMY!!!! they were fun to watch make...and i even kind of ordered in romanian...not well...but kind of :)

here's wendy getting ready to take a huge bite of the hungarian pastry with the bran castle in the background...don't you love the foggy look even though its sunny...bran was quite crowded so we didn't stay long...but it was a quick trip with a tour of the castle and tasty pastry....

here's a shot of the last town we stayed at while wendy was here...its called brasov and is known for its really good hot chocolate...and unfortunately the place with the good chocolate was closed for renovations...ugh...what a pain...but this is the cute town square and seen from our room's window...we couldn't have asked for a better spot...

this shot is of wendy fooling around in our shower/tub....hahahahaha....she doesn't know this is here...gotta love that...but this is a typical set up for a romanian bathroom...a shower with a tub...and no shower curtain...its hard to get used to this and when you first use them you tend to make a big mess of the walls and floor...i am not sure how the europeans do it...i need the curtain...maybe i just make a mess too much...anyway...i love this picture....hope you do too :)

this last shot in brasov is on the pedestrian walkway...its a great place to walk up and down and people watch...unfortunately bucharest does not have one of these...they really need to get one...i think it woiould make all the difference in the world...we had a fun time exploring brasov and the other places together...wendy was a wonderful visitor, and if you know her, you'll have to ask her what she thought :)

this last shot is of wendy and i...we hadn't seen each other for more than a year...but this is one of those friendships that picks up where it just left off...the two ice girls had a blast and i hoped you enjoyed our adventures....the next posting should be from my visit back to the states over the holiday...its been a bit of time since i was there...but i promised some folks they would make the blog...hopefully that post will happen sooner rather than later...hope all is well...