12th August 2019 – My visit to see Count Duckular

Walking down to Livada Postei I caught the #16 bus to Autogara 2. An American girl and an Irish girl were there, who were going the same way. At the Autogara they helped me find the right bus stop for Brasov. At that point I met Mike, a Dutch guy who arrived at the hostel the night before.

The bus was slow and hot. Road works made the journey less fun than it could have been, but it was bearable.

When we arrived, we decided to try and get inside the castle. We had come a long way and sat on a long bus, so we may as well give it a go. And it wasn’t easy to get a good photo from a distance. I missed having my hat. As we crept up to the ticket booth (40 lei) we found out that there was another queue after walking through the gardens. The information was that it could take another 2 hours!

Continued…………………

Where Am I? 14th August 2019

I must have started this entry on the Brasov – Zurich bus. Was the bus trip a good idea?

Bran is a brilliant tourist trap. The sun was beating down, the queue was deceptively less short than it was, and people travel a long way to go there. Mike wasn’t sure about leaving the queue, so I called for Izzy to wait a moment.

In the middle of a massive sausage in a bun with a beer we met up with some Turkish girls who had been in the queue behind us. They went for smaller sausages and no beer.

I saw the Irish girl stomp past and we met her when we went to catch the bus to Rasnov. She made it in to the grounds for 20 minutes to take some pictures and left. Rasnov was one of the places I’d been advised to go to instead of Bran. Pictures will say more than I can. <Lazy blogging!>

After the bus ride home, the group split up. The Turkish girls said goodbye, the Irish girl gave an “Irish goodbye” – just wandered off. And We parted with Izzy at a grocery shop. Oh! and Mike had arranged to meet up with the Turkish girls later. The more outgoing one invited me too.

Back in the hostel, Camile the French volunteer was starting her two day leaving do before she moved on. She looked lovely in her long dress. She was haning out with a woman from NZ and she seemed pretty cool. They’d both had the same job in the hostel. The NZ girl had moved to and worked in Turkey for a year after something happened in her life and was now working in a bio diversity farm in the countryside. A teaching job was waiting for her somewhere in the near future.

I was happy in the common area, being offered wine and dips. Mike appeared and I put on my best (very creased shirt) and met the Turkish girls, who really made an effort with nice dresses. Only one of them spoke English!

The evening could have been awkward, but everything just about turned out well. They were modern Turkish girls with an open world outlook, probably from well off families.

The food was basic, chips and sausage, or pasta. And the desert was enormous . There’s a traditional dish of two doughnuts and blackberry sauce. The best I could do was eat half of it.

My very pretty company was very young looking. She was charming company given that we couldn’t communicate very well.

We paid up and I used all of my spare cash. It was just enough.

At the square on the way back, we said our goodbyes and the me and Mike headed back to the hostel.

After thank yous to Camile and NZ I needed to get ready for my bus from Brasov to Zurich. That’s 26 hours of bus, starting at 0730 in the morning.