Here I am in Transylvania-where are all the vamps?
Trip Start
Jun 20, 2011
1
8
Trip End
Jun 27, 2011
Zarnesti, Transylvania, Romania
Monday, June 20, 2011
Anyway, I managed to be ready for the taxi to take me the airport at 3 AM. Once at the airport, I checked in smoothly and was relieved not to be charged extra for a slightly overweight bag (2 kilos over!). One strange coincidence was that when I was boarding my flight to Doha, I swear to God I recognized this one guy in the queue. He was the same guy my friend Jad and I had had a giggle over while at a brunch at the Hotel Intercontinental just a few days previously. The man was memorable indeed and could have served as the poster child for a steroids abuse public service advertisement, i.e. he was ALL shoulders and biceps and NO NECK. Plus he'd clearly fallen asleep while laying in the sun (or, cough cough, a tanning salon). A definitely freakish sort of metrosexual football hooligan.
The flight arrived in Doha a bit before 6 AM due to the time difference and, as I'd never been to that particular airport before, I had an exploratory walk around the duty free area. While waiting in the pre-boarding area at my gate, I took stock of my fellow passengers and felt that I could definitely tell that they were of Eastern European stock but not so Slavic (as the Czechs). The flight to Bucharest was pleasant enough despite the temperature of the cabin and I managed to sleep for another couple of hours (bringing my grand total of snoozing up to 3! Ding, ding ding! We have a winner!). Customs was a breeze and my bag showed up (due to my history with errant bags I always suffer from pre-bagging claim anxiety) I was relieved to see that the woman who I'd been told would meet me at the airport named Maria was in fact there and had even managed to spell my name right on the sign she held aloft. Rebecca has a double "C" and only 1 letter "B,"thus endeth my spelling lesson. Class dismissed.
Maria took me outside where we caught the 780 bus to the Gare de Nord (Bucharest's North Train Station). While en route, we had a dramatic encounter with a ticket inspector on the bus. Let me explain by giving some background info on Maria. She was actually a new arrival in Bucharest herself - She'd only come a few weeks previously and was a French citizen who had been born in Romania but was then adopted by a French couple - so here she was in Romania, trying to discover her biological roots. In other words, she was somewhat unfamiliar with the public transport system of the capital city. Back to the unfolding ticket drama...
So this little man inflated with the pride and power that goes along with being in the law enforcement industry (A ticket inspector is sort of a distant poor cousin of the police, right?) started verbally chastising Maria because she hadn't properly validated our bus tickets. She'd tried to scan them in the machine when she should've punched them The inspector went on and on and on in a decidedly haughty, "shame on you" tone for quite some time while I could only watch and gape as this was all happening in Romanian. When the man asked me for my passport and started writing down my name and number on a card, I definitely felt a major "Uh oh! They are going to report me to the KGB" moment coming on but, thankfully, he only charged Maria a fine of about 20 euros and gave us both properly validated tickets to use for the remainder of the day and we were allowed to proceed. Whew!
Once at the train station, I bought a couple of pastries as I wouldn't be arriving at my pension until about 9 PM which I felt was too late for dinner. I also exchanged 60 Euros for Romanian Leis (insert obligatory bad Hawaiian joke here) which I would need in the villages where they don't use Euros. Then we sat down and looked at all the materials from World Walk Tours. Luckily, I showed her the information on my hotel the last night in Bucharest which I'd booked independently because apparently I'd booked it next to the WRONG AIRPORT (its proximity to the airport was the ONLY reason I'd chosen it), so she offered to cancel the reservation and make a new booking for me at another hotel. She said she'd call my pension to confirm these new arrangements so I hope she remembers to do so!
Maria waited with me at the station on the platform until the train arrived and made sure I got on the right compartment and found my assigned seat - very impressive customer service. There were 2 other young Romanians seated near me - one fellow with a backpack who was surgically attached to his mobile phone and a young pretty girl who looked like she was only about 16 years old but smoked unfiltered cigarettes. Both spoke a little English.
Just before the train left the station a young gypsy girl entered the wagon and started begging, albeit very politely, for money. The weird thing was that she didn't walk but instead sat on the ground with her legs in front of her and pushed herself along the floor with her hands/arms. I gave my female traveling companion a questioning glance once the beggar had slid by and her only matter-of-fact response was, "She can walk." Okay then.
There was a bit of rain as the train pulled out of the station at 3:45 PM and as it left Bucharest, but once out of the city, the sun came out to play. I didn't see much of Bucharest but from what I did one can still see the signs of 40 years of communism, such as the dull and somewhat dilapidated Stalinesque apartment buildings, but there was also abundant evidence that capitalism now governed the land as there was quite a lot of hustle, bustle and building going on - not just in the capital, but also in many of the towns we passed through during the train journey.
The journey was exhilarating as the scenery became progressively more beautiful as we left the plains of Bucharest, entered the foothills beyond it and then finally reached the Carpathian mountains, a range that reaches well over 2500 meters. I didn't take any pictures because the train was moving too fast unfortunately. One last thing to note was the significant number of stray dogs I saw at each station we passed through. Mind you, these dogs looked healthy and acted friendly, plus they did not resemble the mutts I'm accustomed to seeing for they all looked like exotic purebreeds.
Maria had told me that I would need to buy an additional train ticket in Brasov for the final leg of my journey to Zarnesti but, much to my delighted surprise, a young man came up to me at the Brasov terminal holding a sign with my name "Rubecca Wull" on it (please refer to my earlier spelling lesson for the correct spelling of my name). So this gentlemen had been instructed at the last minute to collect me by car and drive me to the village instead of waiting another hour for the train. This was great news for me and my weary bones!
The proprietress of the Pensuinea Garofita Pietrei Craiului (say what?!?) spoke no English, but we managed to communicate that I only needed a light meal (since I'd had those 2 pastries on the train). I sat down at 8:15 for a meal which consisted of a coleslaw salad with tomatoes a and a dash of dill, some carrot and potato soup and some baked beans which had not spent their collective life inside of a can. My hostess also brought me a shot of some sort of local liquor and we downed a shot of it together. I wish I could say that I liked the taste of it but..I think I'll stick to a bottle of Ursus, the number #1 Romanian lager.
I went to my room and fell asleep while watching an episode of "the Voice" on my laptop (Go Team Adam!). I was soothed to sleep by the smell of something potent burning, much like incense, from the pension's backyard.
