Transylvania is Draculicious

Before leaving Hungary, I took a beautiful four-day trip to Transylvania (Romania) with Ray and a group of 30 or so students from his school in Kisvarda. No, we didn't see Dracula's castle--or any other castle, for that matter--but next time we will.

We didn't know anyone's names, either, and spoke very little in common, so we were forced to give them names of our own, such as English, Tour Guide, Bus Driver, Snake, Leg Warmers, Skinhead, The Other Militant, etc., until the last night when they started speaking to us.

Among other things, we enjoyed:

• riding on a bus forever...and ever...and ever, stopping every 1 1/2 to 2 hours for a half-hour smoke break (for the children that is, as none of the adults smoked),
• not stopping for pictures, ever,
• not once being told the correct time to be anywhere, despite our best efforts (although we understood numbers and time in Hungarian, they always opted to instead use incorrect English),
• doing a little mountain climbing,
• being paid our change not once, but twice, in candy when a store didn't have coins,
• seeing plenty of women wearing only bras out in public, horse-drawn carts, many destitute gypsies, amazing scenery, frightened horses and cows charging down the main street during a hailstorm, and...
• seeing houses that had no running water, but rather a bucket-on-a-rope water well in the front yard, and yet a satellite dish on the roof.

Enjoy the pictures, though they really don't do it justice. One of these days, when I return to visit Budapest, I'll bring with me a shiny new camera and a rental car, so I can stop at my leisure. You can look forward to that.

Gheorgheni town square; parade as part of a religious celebration

















Sunset from the hotel window.




















Ray makes a new friend on one of the unnecessary bus breaks.



























No one told us we were going mountaineering. But that is exactly what we did. Look right between our heads and you will see a parking lot. That's where we started. I got a terrible sunburn and a week's worth of exercise. 100% worth it.


























The group at the top.


The mountain, undoubtedly the highest mountain in all of the universe, that we climbed in just under two hours.


Horse and cart--very widely used in Transylvania.




























Dinner at a farmhouse--we had goulash cooked over an open fire and a fried dough dessert with jelly. They lit a bonfire afterward.



















































Transylvanian coutryside (it's all countryside, actually). The metal roofs that you see in the second picture were very common, and incredibly ornate. They usually had detailed work even around the edges of where the gutters were attached.

















The strangest place you've never been. Don't bother. This bizarre cave is used for respiratory therapy purposes. People live in it temporarily, so they have playground equipment, a chapel, a snack bar, and a "museum" (subpar). You might be thinking that it sounds really interesting. It wasn't.




















Scary bridge on the last day of hiking.