Romania

These beautiful sun-drenched pictures are of and around Brasov, Romania - specifically, the region known as Transylvania...people who know me for even a brief time know that I love cloudy, foggy, roiling dark skies, and can become almost comatose with despair when the sky is relentlessly sunny. I have someting I call "sun (bad) karma", where, no matter where I go the sun is there: Portland, Scotland (as you will see), San Fran & the Netherlands all just go on high fry when I arrive. I don't want to rant about it too much because most of you have heard it too much already! But imagine my surprise to find Transylvania like Houston in August - full on sun BaBAY! So we stayed a week in this beautiful place (sunny, yet cool), a mountain town near a ski resort. I scored yet another great find on Hostelworld: the private home of Eugene & his sweet elderly mother. We basically had our own apartment with computer at a very cheap price. Our host, Eugene, also provided tour guiding services, so for one entire day he carted us around to look at lovely buildings & gorgeous scenery. The top photo is of Will in downtown Brasov, a nice pedestrian-mall type area. The building with the red tile roof is what is popularly known as "Dracula's" Castle - a non-scary & bright domicile with a cold, bare interior. On our tour we also went to a fabulous old fort, and that beautiful palace in the second photos...if you want historically accurate details & place names you've come to the wrong blog! So we would not be bored on the driving part of the tour, our host regaled us with his conspiracy theories about various topics...some bizarre enough to have us questioning his sanity...but spending time with an educated local, who lived half of his life under communism was extemely satisfying. We asked him tons of questions about what it was like and how things had changed, and got a real education about communist Romania. So many myths busted on this tour so far: the "evil" commies, the street urchin pick pockets everywhere, the dreary vibe of Eastern Europe (which I would have loved). So far we had met only kind & gracious people, felt completely safe - even bold enough to wear my "special white man wallet" conspiciously OUTSIDE of my shirt, and a climate so balmy & festive (to some) it could have been mistaken for the south of France. Was it going to get grittier in Bulgaria, our next stop? Would it ever be overcast before Scotland? We'll see......