Now here's the Eastern Europe I've been looking for

My first stop in Romania was supposed to have been Timisoara, a smallish town near in Transylvania near the Hungarian border. Unfortunately, I couldn't tear myself away from Budapest soon enough to make it there, so I skipped it and headed straight to Brasov via 15 hour overnight train on Saturday night. When I got to the hostel on Sunday, I checked in and then set off to explore the town. It was pretty small, and I was easily able to see the entirety of the old town in a few hours. I started at the main square, where i found a huge festival going on, with food, handicrafts, and clothes from a few nearby countries (mostly Hungary and Moldova). There were a ton of people there, and mostly, from what I could tell, not tourists. Unfortunately, the town hall was under construction, so i couldn't really get a good idea of how the square ordinarily looks. Then I sneaked behind a school group to get into the Black Church, which is the focal point of the old city. It was gigantic, and very impressive, but really, I'm over churches, so I'm glad I didn't have to pay to get in. I headed up to the Black Tower, which was underwhelming, given that it's one of  only a couple well known (somewhat) sights in Brasov, and also not really black. Still, the view from the hill was incredible, and there were a couple sunny benches from which to admire it for a while.

Then I moved on to the White Tower, which was much larger, prettier, and more aptly named, as it was actually white. Then I just spent a few hours in the old town, wandering the (very few) streets until it started getting cold and darkish, when I made my way back up to the hostel.

Monday, I took a bus to Bran Castle, aka Dracula's castle, although Vlad actually only spent a few nights there as a prisoner - Bram Stoker apparently thought it a suitable lair for his vampire. The walk to the bus station was a little... rough. The buildings I passed were not the beautiful old European buildings I've seen so many of in the last few cities: these were crumbling around their inhabitants, or yet were deserted altogether. The bus station wasn't even marked. I wouldn't have found it if I hadn't been curiously peering into the gates I passed. I did find it, though, and found a bus that said "Bran" on it. It wasn't until we started moving that I realized I didn't really know what landmarks I should be looking for to know when to get off, and the bus driver wasn't really making any effort to announce the stops. It was a little like being on a Nairobi matatu, except most people had their own seats, and the driver mostly stayed in his own lane. Luckily, the Romanian woman sitting next to me took pity on me and pointed out where I should get off, which I did with many thanks. As soon as I got off the bus I could see the castle, but when I walked through the gate I was kindly escorted back out and pointed down a row of souvenir shops selling mugs and t shirts with Dracula's face on them. Lest the tourists pass those by, you have to walk through them all to get to the castle. The castle itself was pretty compact, but it was attractive.

Not quite the place where I would put my famous vampire, but I guess it worked for Mr. Stoker (I learned, among other things, that Dracula is the second-most published book of all time, after only the Bible! Can this be true?!). The exhibits inside were interesting: all the furniture was original and all the descriptions were written in English alongside the Romanian. There was also a good deal of information on what everyone there really cared about: Vlad and vampires.

I don't know that you can really say "in reality" when talking about vampires' immortality but there you go. Once I finished my tour of the castle, I wandered a bit in Bran, where there was still snow on the ground from the week before, despite the sun and the rather warm temperatures. That, and especially the wooden architecture and mountains, made the whole town look like a cozy ski resort, which I think it is, in the winter.

Then I hopped on a bus back to Brasov for the night. The bus driver had curiously chosen to hang as many air fresheners as possible from the ceiling.

Tuesday, I got a morning train to Bucharest, about 3 hours south of Brasov. I arrived around noon, and found the hostel close to the train station. i went first to the market that the receptionist had pointed out for me, and bought mushrooms, peppers, grapes, and bread, to last me a few days. I had a couple days set aside for a city relatively in tourist attractions, I spent that first afternoon wandering up to a park in the north, but didn't really rush to see anything specific. At the entrance to the park is Bucharest's Arc de Triomphe.

Ceausescu had a France thing (there's also a Romanian answer to the Champs Élysées, but Bulevardul Unirii is just a bit longer... He also had a size thing). I did manage to follow most of the major streets and hit most of the major squares, and I found that Bucharest is not like other European cities (hence the title of the post). The buildings are clearly communist and not gothic. There are a few "palaces" in the city, but they are austere and not pretty. Nearly all the signs advertising non-stop shops hang outside abandoned buildings, and the nighttime walk I took after dinner on Tuesday was creepy and dark. Which isn't to say the city isn't interesting. It certainly has a lot of character, and, if we remember back to the Moscow vs. St. Petersburg debate, I came on this trip looking for "gritty" cities anyway. Romania looks like communism, and that's just what I was expecting from most of these cities.

On Wednesday, I explored the old town. It's not very compact or easy to get around. There isn't a central square like classic European cities have- there's no town hall or market square. Instead, there are a few places where major roads come together and traffic backs up. I walked past the Parliament Building, which is the 3rd largest building in the world (after the Pentagon and a shopping mall in China) and is incredible. Like the rest of Bucharest's buildings, it's not overly attractive, but its sheer size is impressive.

You can see, both in the Parliament, and in the apartment buildings around it, the communist architecture. It looks like Dushanbe, but the side across the river, where everything is made of concrete.

The rest of the old town is similar, though with one or two rather prettier buildings that were somehow spared by the war, and a few churches that the communists forgot to tear down.

Wednesday evening I took a walking tour, where I basically saw all that I had seen on my own earlier in the day, but also learned a bit about what I was looking at, and heard a lot about the 1989 revolution and execution of Ceausescu. After the tour, I went out to dinner where I had polenta (I guess famous in Romania) with mushrooms and chicken.

Then, unfortunately, I had to walk all the way back to the hostel in the dark, down some pretty deserted streets. Again, creepy.

On Thursday, on the recommendation of  a receptionist, I took a trip with one of my roommates to Mogoshoaia Palace, just a few kilometers outside of Bucharest. Although the palace was small, and even though it was so close to the city, it was situated on a beautiful lake, and it was lovely to sit in the sun and hear only birds and no traffic. I hadn't realized how noisy and busy and city-like Bucharest is, until I got out of it, but it was so nice and much needed. Coming back to the city felt like returning to Nairobi after rural week, except not so welcome.

Today (Friday) was my last day in Romania, so I took advantage of it and walked back into the Old Town to see a few things again (specifically the princely court which was the actual ruling place of Dracula, but which is completely in ruins now). Then I walked back up to the park in the north of the city and spent a good couple hours walking around the lake (it turned out to be much bigger than I thought!). It was a good last day, and I enjoyed the time in Romania, but I feel like I have seen (more than once) everything in Bucharest. I'm excited to be moving on, and I am now just killing time until my train to Sofia leaves at 11 pm.