Brasov, Romania

Nestled at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, the medieval settlement of Brasov served as a lovely home-base for us in Romania. The city was clean, picturesque, and centrally located, making it easy for us to take a number of day trips into the Transylvania region using the country's surprisingly well developed bus and train system.

Our dollar went unbelievably far in Romania. We stayed in a very comfortable, updated guesthouse - equipped with cable TV, kitchen, and private bath - for less than 90 lei ($25 USD) a night. It ranked among the cheapest and nicest lodging that we've secured to-date. Heavy, delicious, multiple course meals, accompanied by Romanian house wines (a local beer option wasn't available), managed to cost even less than our guesthouse - inclusive of tax and tip!

We were pleasantly surprised by how adequate the tourist infrastructure was, especially considering that Romania doesn't draw a large number of visitors. All in all, things were so comfortable, so wonderful, that it was really difficult to leave!

Our favorite moments in Romania:

- Eating! Like so much of Eastern Europe, Romania's cuisine is a tasty hodge-podge mix of neighboring countries - and with prices so cheap, we were free to liberally sample from menus ("We'll have one of everything!"). Some of our favorites: beet and horseradish salad, Transylvania bread, peasant potatoes, sour soup, sheep cheeses, polenta with cream, and cooked cabbage. About the only thing we missed while we were there was ice cream, as we found Romania's Betty Ice brand to be rather unpalatable.

- Climbing the black tower located outside of the Brasov's city walls for a bird's eye view of the gorgeous Gothic Black Church.

- Making day trips through the countryside to neighboring villages in order to see the historic sites of Bran Castle (more infamously known as Dracula's Castle), Pele's Castle, and the Rasnov Citadel.  We got a kick out of the white font hillside signage (very like the Hollywood sign in California) that marked each town we visited. 


Next stop: Krakow, Poland

Better Luck Next Time, Bucharest

Getting to Bucharest was a 24-hour ordeal involving trains, a bus, and a taxi (proudly only our first marked cab of the trip!), so when we finally arrived, dirty and exhausted, we were especially annoyed to discover our bank had shut off both of our debit cards.

We had been unlucky in attempts to reserve the comfortable sleeper seats for our journey, so by the time we sorted our bank situation out we were pretty grumpy from lack of sleep.

Given our crankiness, our initial lackluster impressions of the drab-looking city, and the fact that many of the other backpackers we had met advised against spending much time in Bucharest anyway, we made the split-second decision to cut our losses in Bucharest and try our luck elsewhere.

Favorite Bucharest moments:

- Elatedly being able to use the ATM and withdraw Romanian lei after the holds on our accounts were removed!

- Being seated in a train car with an eccentric old Romanian woman who didn't speak English but insisted on talking to us. At first, when we didn't understand she just repeated herself over and over, louder and LOUDER until she was yelling. Eventually, she grew frustrated at our inability to comprehend and perhaps our unwillingness to give her further attention (after an hour-or-so of yelling David put in his headphones to drown her out), so she found someone aboard and invited him into our cabin to translate for her. The highlights of her message: David has three girlfriends and will never marry because he values freedom over family, Bill Clinton was a good president to whom she once wrote a letter to, and Romania has a lot of homeless dogs (she began weeping very loudly while talking about the strays). Though we were really tired, this situation was bananas and provided quality entertainment for a few hours on a long train ride.


Next stop: Brasov, Romania

Vrsac, Serbia

The only Belgrade-to-Bucharest ground transit option included an unavoidable layover in a small Serbian city called Vrsac. We thought it would be cool to check out a less crowded part of Serbia, so we actually departed earlier than necessary from Belgrade to extend our time in Vrsac.

This ended up being a mistake, as there was painfully little to see or do in the rural Serbian town. After walking around aimlessly we bought some snacks at Vrsac's box store grocer and tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible among the stray dogs at the rundown train station.

Our favorite Vrsac moments:
- Leaving Vrsac.

Next stop: Bucharest, Romania

Biking and Bumming Around Belgrade

After visiting almost all of the countries that once made up Yugoslavia, differences are so apparent that it's a wonder that they were ever a single, united nation at all. Serbia felt like the biggest outlier of the bunch, even using a different written language called Cyrillic.

Serbia has historically been known as a place that doesn't shy from conflict, and Belgrade's violent past is apparent in its architecture - buildings have been damaged throughout the years, in both World Wars, and as recently as 1999 by NATO bombings related to the Kosovo War.

We noticed that Serbians tend to be opinionated and proud people, who take special care in their physical appearance. It's the only place we've been to since leaving North America that has had a semblance of a weight-lifting culture, with a number of gyms, ads for fitness supplements, and an abundance of muscle-heads who look like they could be on Jersey Shore.

We got a good laugh when the cocky, routinely shirtless guy in our hostel motioned to AD's biceps and asked in broken English if Dave worked out (Why yes! Thanks for noticing!).

Our favorite moments in Belgrade:

- Taking a four hour guided bike tour - a great way to get the blood pumping while checking out different parts of the city, including the famous party barges on the Danube, the ugly, communist-era buildings in New Belgrade, and the happy beach goers on Ada island.

- Having a traditional meal and drinking Jelen beers in the quaint cobble stoned Skadarlija district. Our dining companion was an American currently teaching in Tanzania that we befriended. It was refreshing to talk to someone from home while learning more about life in Africa.

- Eating bureks, delicious, fattening, savory pastries purchased from one of the cheap walk-up bakeries scattered throughout the city.

- Molly accidentally being mistaken for a prostitute while sitting in the park across from the bus station. The language barrier and Molly's naivete created a rather comical situation that was awkwardly remedied when AD returned to the scene and wasn't open to bargaining. :)


Next stop: Vrsac, Serbia

Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina

The strong Turkish influence in Sarajevo reminded us a lot of Istanbul, though Sarajevo is tiny in comparison and seemed much more relaxed. Beer, for instance, was sometimes difficult to obtain in Istanbul, but was readily available in Sarajevo. Dress was also much more casual in the Bosnian city, with women baring shoulders and legs even in cafes immediately adjacent to mosques.

Relaxed attitudes towards alcohol and dress are symptoms of a larger culture of tolerance in a city that celebrates its diversity. Sarajevo is one of the only cities in Europe where synagogues, Christian churches, and mosques can be found on a single city block. The harmonious mix made for friendly, good vibes.

Our favorite Sarajevo memories:

- Discovering that there are no Google street maps for the country of Bosnia, and having to rely on an old fashioned paper map to navigate our way through Sarajevo. Other than Bosnia, there are very few places in the world that Google has not street mapped (North Korea, for instance), so this made us feel a bit like travel adventure cowboys.

- Sipping traditional Bosnian - AKA Turkish - coffee in Bascarsija, the beautiful old part of the city. Though served very ceremoniously in special antique-looking serving ware the coffee was as sludge-like and bad as we remembered it to be from Istanbul.

- Skipping the packaged tours and choosing instead to make our own way out to the suburban town of Ilidza, to visit the Sarajevo War Tunnel Museum. Our independent tour involved taking a rickety old tram and walking a few miles but we arrived eventually and got a taste of a bit more of the common man's version of the country along the way. The Tunnel Museum itself showcases part of the secret underground passageway used to move people and supplies between Sarajevo and "free Bosnia" during the four years that Serbian troops surrounded the city. It is a remarkable testiment to the ingenuity and strong will of the citizens of the sieged city.

- Visiting the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which houses an exhibit on the siege of Sarajevo. Though the museum lacks the funding to properly pay staff or provide heating in the winter, it still manages to give a moving and emotional glimpse into life in wartime Sarajevo.

- Treating ourselves to a fantastic meal at the pescetarian-friendly downtown restaurant, Karuzo.  A culinary one-man show, Karuzo does not necessarily serve traditional Bosnian cuisine, but it does serve delicious gourmet faire; we ate mint soup, stuffed squid, smoked tofu with swiss chard, grilled peaches, and olive oil ice cream. Everything was refreshing, creative, well presented, and a fraction of the price it would have been in the US.


Next stop: Belgrade, Serbia