TRIP WITH KATIE (Friend from the US) - May 27 to June 12....ish

We traveled by train and went through 4 countries on this trip, and saw many castles and ate many ice creams =D

We bought train passes that allowed us to travel whenever we wanted as long as we started from Galati in Romania, and we ended up in Bremen in Germany. We had 30 days to make use that route. It was a pretty sweet ticket.

So our path took us from: Bucuresti, Romania->Galati, Ro->Mastacani (my site), Ro->Sebes, Ro->Deva and Hunedoara Castle, Ro->Budapest, Hungary->Vienna, Austria->Salzburg->Austria->Bremen, Germany->Hanover, Germany->Oradea, Romania->Bucuresti, Romania

Again, all by train and sometimes we slept on the trains too. Sometimes we paid for the full bed, sometimes we had the reclining chairs you get in airplanes, and once we just slept all night on the train benches to save 80 Euros.

Here is me picking up Katie from the airport. I was right on time to pick her up. She's napping on the big box of goooodies she brought me =D
It contained 5lbs of Bull's Eye bbq sauce, 2 bottles of sparkling apple cider, a whole bunch of marshmellows and other fun surprises! I'm happy that nothing broke.

So I first dragged Katie to an environmental international conference in Galati. I'd been looking forward to this event all Winter and Spring and we'd planned it so Katie and I could both attend.
We stayed at a hotel, and here's Katie's Romanian breakfast. Yum yum, hot chocolate from a machine.

See! Here's the conference. I understood more than 1/2 this time! It was being translated from German to Romania and there was English sometimes. I tried my very best to translate for Katie. We had headsets and listened in on the translator.

The conference took place mostly at the Gradina Botanica Muzeu (the Botanical Garden Museum, which is also the city aquarium too). I like it there, and it has a beautiful view from the terrace. We also had our catered lunch there too. It was a very different atmosphere from my daily setting in the village.

We did our share of mingling with people from all backgrounds in Romania, and with some people from other countries too (this was an international conference).
Oh! About alternative wastewater treatment (examples from Austria) and solid waste management (because Romania is being forced to comply under deadline, and needs ideas of how to tackle this large problem).

During a coffee break, Katie and I paid a visit to the aquarium (we couldn't help it because we're science nerds at heart). They have few, but really well cared for displays.

pretty.

Yes. Our catfishes here are very large.

After that, we took a walk to the gardens. Then aliens landed and tried to befriend us.

OR, it's a coco cola promotion for girls to wear eye helments and give us free cans of sodas and eye patches.
Beleive what you want to.

Katie didn't like what they served her (it had delicious sauteed mushrooms), so we switched.

We were both VERY happy with desert. We also got wine, so I traded the dude across from me for his desert with my wine =D mauahahahaha

Here is the car that Stelian (one of the organizing staff members) was driving. I thought it was a funny car to be officially driving around.

ANYWAY, then I took Katie to my village to see my pets. Here are the chicks when they were sooo soo small. Tiny. Here's a horse cart.

Unfortunately, Katie caught...the flu? or more likely Strep throat when she got here. She got to my site and the symptoms started to hit her. It was better that she got sick at my place than while on the road. She was very sick while at my home and I mostly just let her sleep. Unfortunately, she didnt' get all better immediately, but we decided that we wanted to get on the road anyway. She's a trooper.

And look at ALLL the bacon themed foods I found her in Romania. The bacon chips lied. They tasted nothing like bacon and they lasted very much like Chinese Shrimp Chips (which also taste nothing like shrimp).

AND THE READ TRIP BEGINS......more to come

TRIP WITH KATIE - Castle #1: Corvinesti/Corvinlui/Hundedoara's AWESOME castle!

So here the trip really begins:
One of these pictures is taken before our first stop, and the other is after. Katie and I traveled day and night! Lowest class and not the lowest class! Compartments and wagons! With others and alone!
I'm sure her expressions here don't represent the quality of the trip, probably just the quality of the mode of transportation.

But let me start from where we left off....

Katie wasn't feeling well, and I had bought her every bacon related snack I could find in Romania.

Which we started to test out on our train ride to our first castle. She claimed her throat could handle bacon chips.


It was a beautiful trip through a region I had not been before: East to West through the middle of Romania. Those are the Carpathian mountains under the clouds.

Old watch towers, hotels in this Transylvanian area (yup! West Romania is Transylvania, I live in the Moldavian side of Romania and I have an Moldavian accent too).

Katie saw the coolest thing and got a picture. A cross built high on the mountain top! It looked so ......I can't find the word. Awesome is a poor description.

We were lucky to have such great weather. Pretty.

We arrived in Sebes (where a fellow PCV lives) and were planning to visit a castle in Hunedoare the following day.


Julie was sweet and showed us around her small town. Transylvania; it's a place of its own.

We ate at a nice restaurant where Katie enjoyed her 2nd? 3rd? Vegetable chiorba (Romanian veggy soup that's sour).
We then took a walk around and saw some amusing sites.

The next day we left Sebes and took a train to Deva, and then a short bus ride to Hunedoara.


There was something cool on top that hill in Deva, but we didn't have time to check it out.
We had only that day to get to the castle and continue on our journey. So the search for this castle begins. I only knew about it from online and it's not a top tourist side so it was a bit hard to find.
Here was the only sign we saw at a T-intersection.

So we took a left.
This building wasn't it. Impressive, but mayor's office.

Also grand and tall with several towers, but this is a chuch.

THEN! We see a castle-like building, that's pink and says Castle! but then we saw the title "restaurant" too.

Then! after more walking and no sign of any more "signs"..we saw this thing:

And then we're like..."hey, let's just keep walking still and maybe this tower isn't an active nuclear plant."
And then we found this!! on the left and...

Before us we see TADA!

OoOooOO

Here's the walls of the castle and paths in case we wanted to walk around it.

Nope, we want to cross the bridge and enter through the front gate.
In we go!! (this wasn't the real front entrance, it was a door from the wall into the courtyard)

Here is the main hall. Kings and royals probably entertained here. It was big and there's a long table there. We saw banners and took some pictures, but there wasn't a lot of printed information around.


We went exploring whereever we could go. See the very very bottom? We tried going down there too but go stopped.

Outside view was nice too. Here's a real authentic castle courtyard. As Katie said "this is a real castle because castles are really fortresses for village folk to run into when armies attack." I can imagine a crowd of people down there, waiting for the battle to be over.

He's a path but behind the castle. The villagers can then Run into the forests over yonder, to safety.

We were up, and thoroughly checked the bottom level too.

To the deep dark places.

Guess what room we're in.

Then Katie and I deducted that it must be the bottom floor defense fighting room, not a prison. The spikes from that cage overhang probably allowed the person inside to shoot attackers below without getting slashed.
There was some information written about knights.


Pretty cool stuff! Real stuff!

It wasn't extensive...and Katie and I tried so hard but we couldn't find our way into the other rooms: bedchambers, servants' quarters, stables, etc... =( boo to that.

BUT, it was a real Castle. Not like a museum, but a defensive building for the villagers below.

With its own ar...OH! I forgot to mention that Vlad (the real prince dracula) was held prisoner here for 7 years so he couldn't become king. That's his only connection to this castle.

Towers. =( Which we couldn't find the entrance to.

This was interesting.



That last picture was the well, not part of the animal pit. In the following picture, I am standing IN the wall of the castle.

Here I am shoting a pretend incoming army, and Katie is turning her back to them.

The army left, and Katie managed to live.

OK. CRAZY CIRCUMSTANCE. So Katie and I saw all the tech people setting up and we were thinking: wedding? Goth concert? movie set? wtf?

Turns out (I forget who gathered the gutts to ask) that Microsoft was going to rent the whole castle for a conference that following weekend. Fog makers and all.

I tried looking online but I was never able to find the article on that. I believe it was ~June 3-6th.


Those secret treasures tucked away. I think this was an amazing castle castle. Untarnished by tourism..but I wish we could have seen more of the unopened rooms. The entrance fee wasn't bath either and there were maybe only 4 souvenir shops (which isn't a lot for a castle!).

So: We woke, left Sebes->Deva->Hunedoara (so about 9-4pm). Then we had to make our way back to Sebes to catch the train for our next destination: Budapest, Hungary. But first, we needed a bite to eat.

It was a 12 lei meal = ~$4. Not bad eh? Oh, Katie's was an 8 lei chiorba (so like ~2.75).
Lol to our wait for the train that night.

We got to Sebes at 8pm, then caught the 9pm train from Sebes ->Alba Iulia...and from there ect.. to Budapest, but my point is we were in this small station to about 1am just sitting there inside this one building in the middle of nowhere. This was a personnel train (I tried to shield Katie from these, but this one was inevitable). It was a short and memorable ride. I told her not to use the bathroom even if she was going to pop, and we stayed away from the door that wouldn't' close.
We were very glad! to be on our second train where we had couchettes (beds!). Then we slept the night away to arrive in Budapest at about 9am. Night.