Eastern Europe 2005

Brasov | 11 Aug 2005

Dear Dan

Claudio is going to give you so much stick for that email, and by the way it went into my junk mail.

Dear everyone else [and dan I suppose],

First off here is the map so far [note addition of arad and Brasnov, actually due to crappy PCs running on windows 95 I cant actually do all the funky stuff from the last post so I'll just reiterate what dan said earlier in the comments, it was I quote...

"I've updated and improved the map! I'm defending my geek nature with the fact that this is blatently much easier to follow for me and any of your other friends who might not have as good a sense of Eastern European geography as you.

Blogger comments don't allow html like the blog does, so you won't be getting the little thumbnail pics I made. :P

Here's the small version:

http://img360.imageshack.us/my.php?image=andyandclaudiostravelssofar205.jpg

Here's the big version for you hi-res whores out there:

http://img360.imageshack.us/my.php?image=andyandclaudiostravelssofar29o.jpg

They don't quite fit the screen, so wait for it all to load, then click on the picture. :) Blogger comments don't like links either, so it'll be a copy and paste job for you until Andy posts his next entry or you can click my name for the small version."

Last time I spoke I ended on the note of Sing Sing Disco. Well we went. We turned up 15 minutes too early before it opened at 11pm, so as not to look to sad we waited outside sitting on the steps watching all the people going in untill 11:30. Basically Sing Sing is quite a nice joint, lots of lights and UV inside as well as an outside terrace. However the clientel have much to be desired for. Claudio likened it to a nappy night. Lots of groups of boys and lots of groups of girls all egtting very drunk and dancing to awful music. The music was some hideous europop house dance stuff, presumably their version of cheese. Lots of eastern european hits which we didnt know but the locals absolutely loved. There were kids going crazy to some of the tunes.

However drink wasnt that cheap, Manchester prices to be fair 2 quid for a vodka and coke and 1.50 for a bottle of beer. we had one round each seeming as we didnt have to pay entrance fee. We left around 1:30am which wasnt brilliant because we were up again at 5:45am to catch a bus to Arad. Whats more, our little 4 hours sleep was rudely interupted by what i first thought was a verylarge moth going round in circles hitting the ceiling of our room. when i turned the light on to see what it was - after atempts to swot it with my role mat, I realised it was a bat. In the end i waited till it had done that hanging upside down business and smothered it in my t-shirt and let it out the window.

We caught the bus to arad and spent ages at border control. I slept until teh romanian border but after that the driver but teh aircon on full whack and i froze to death. Arad is a dump, industrial run down mankyness. Lucky for us we found the train station pretty soon, even luckier was that we found that a train went at midday to Brasov which was great because it meant we could leave Arad 11.5 hrs ealier. Even better than that was that the cost to Brasov was about a quarter of the price than had we gone straight from Szeged on the trains via Bekescaba. The journey was a good 400-500km but took 6.5 hrs - not very fast you see.

We got to brasov in the evening and we greeted straight away by people asking if we wanted to somewhere to stay. We lied saying we had a reservation at teh kismet dau hostel. When i went to change some money a chap at the window asked where we were staying, I said Kismet Dau, he said he was Kismet Dau, after some intitial scepticism I admitted we didnt have a reservation. However they only had one bed free, nevertheless he put us in contact with the Ivan Gabriel chappy who took us to his place and gave us a map and told us what was what and all sorts. really sound geeza depsite him wearing an all in one tracksuit and a white baseball cap - he somewhat resembled a romanian scouser but luckily didnt want to rob us or leave our car on bricks.

We went for a bite to eat in the old town last night. Was a bit of a trek from the new town but the old town is lovely - the book was right, its the new Prague but cheaper and with less american tourists. Always a bonus. We went to a traditional romanian place for dinner, had both main course and desert and bottle of romanian rose between us for all of 6 quid each roughly, bargain. Will have the name of the rose up tommorrow if you're lucky.

Today Ivan drove us to the Kismet Dau hostel where last night we had made a reservation. Its a really cool place and e're gonna chill in Brasov for a fews days. Will be in Kismet for another 3 nights then Bucharrest for one, rejected idea of Constanta on bacl sea coast because of no hostels but instead will be in Varna for Monday, hopefully staying for up to a week. Sea sun sand and party id f alls good.

Next few days will see some chilling, draculas castle and a walk up to some mountains. Pissed it down today tho, thunder storm style. Not nice

Got 45 seconds left
\bye

Locations Visited: Arad, Brasov

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