Moldova Days 1 and 2

To get to Moldova we took a 9 hour overnight bus from Brasov to Chisinau. The bus was filled with students heading home for Easter which is like Christmas here. We arrived at our hostel at about 6am and promptly went to sleep. Katie got in to Chisinau at 10am and we left soon after to see the Chisinau sites. Katie acted as tour guide showing us the two parks, some flower vendors, the cathedral, Chisinau's Arc de Triomphe, and the central market. This took a mere two hours. Chisinau is actually a nicely maintained city, but there isn't much to see.

The next morning we headed to Katie's town of Hînceşti (pronounced Hinchesht) via bus. It's a pretty quick 30 minute ride from Chisinau through farm land. Katie's host family house is in a nice neighborhood. The houses are fairly close together, all with good sized but not large yards with low fences. Each yard contains some mix of chickens, geese, ducks, and goats. Many families have guard dogs that live outside chained to dog houses. We took a quick tour of Katie's house (click here for a video tour).

We then set out to see the sites of Hînceşti. We ran into these puppies in the grass. We then crossed a large field and headed up hill to where Katie works. We saw a couple churches and visited her office. Her office is too small for one person, but they somehow fit three of them in there. She also does not have internet access in her office. From there we headed to the park where Katie recently organized 500 school children to clean up the park! There is a nice lake and some cabanas to picnic in.

After the park we headed to the monument where we walked down the steps to the main street. We then ate at a very awkward restaurant that mainly hosts weddings. We ordered deviled eggs and had some really bad moldovan wine. We then headed to a pizza place and had some pizza with mayo (very popular there). We then saw a large flock of sheep crossing the main road!

We headed back to Katie's to get a tour of her house's yard, including her host dad's bee hives. Her host dad let me hold one of their dozen or so chickens. He then showed us Dasha's puppies. Katie's host dad also gave us a tour of their basement. There are tons of jarred foods (we had some great tomato juice in the morning) and he makes his own alcohol which is very good. We tried his red wine, white wine, cognac, fake cognac, sour cherry liquor, and sloe gin which is made out of sloe berry.

Some random facts:

• In Moldova is it very important to clean up for Easter, so the entire town was being re-painted and Katie's host family was at work getting their own house ready.
• Wells are considered sacred and many people's wells are decorated with this cut metal.

Romanian impressions

Romania didn't leave the best impression on Amy and me. Its people have a reputation for unfriendliness and trying to cheat people. We experienced both to be true. We did like Brasov, the town we ended up in which had not one but two towers to explore (The Black Tower and White Tower, both of them actually light-colored), a historic church, fortress walls and overall cobblestoned cuteness. The food wasn't very good -- so much so that I even agreed to have pizza for our last meal and I usually don't want anything but local food. Although it should be noted that for Romania, along with Bulgaria and Moldova, pizza practically is local food.

Romanian food

Well, we don't yet have many nice things to say about Romanian food. This here is meat wrapped in cabbage with a sizeable side of, you guessed it, more cabbage. I thought the whole thing was sour and pretty bad. Although I do like the thing all Romanian meals allegedly come with, mamaliga , a polenta mush. Amy says it has no flavor but I like mushy flavorless things myself.

A whole plate of mamaliga and sour cream. I approve.

Ah, something delicious. These are dessert crepes (really more like blintzes) with sweet cheese and raisins

More picturesque shots of the city.

Note the Brasov "Hollywood sign" on top of the hill.

Seriously very pretty.

We have discovered that Romanian desserts are pretty impressive. The chocolate in the center of this roll was fudgy and delicious.

This is a traditional Romanian placinta, a layered dough that can have a sweet or savory filling. This one has sweet cheese and raisins. See the pattern?

Braşov, Romania

We arrived in Braşov, Romania yesterday after an almost full day of riding in:

1. taxi to train station
2. train to Bulgaria-Romania border
3. train from border to Bucharest
4. train from Bucharest to Braşov5. late-night taxi to hostel

This morning though we woke up to delightful free hostel breakfast and spent a diligent several hours walking around Braşov (during which we succeeded in taking in almost every major sight in town). Of course, pictures of the sights and food are below. Tomorrow, we aim to visit Dracula's castle and take an overnight bus to join Katie in Moldova.

Brasov seems to have a bike-renting program! How progressive and awesome

It is an unbelievably picturesque town. Although I now notice the KFC in this picture...

This is the narrowest street in Eastern Europe.

Amy enjoying the traditional Romanian tripe soup. It's so bad we couldn't finish it.

What Lonely Planet calls, "one of the nicest squares in Eastern Europe"

Bulgaria

We took the overnight train from Istanbul to Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria at 10pm. There were no sleeper cars, but barely anyone was on the train, so we were able to stretch out in our own cabin. They are repairing the tracks between Turkey and Bulgaria which means we had to get off the train at the border and take a bus through. The Bulgarian train was very luxurious, meaning that the bathroom had toilet paper. We got off the train around 4am, hopped on a bus, drove about 30 minutes, spent 2 hours getting through the border, and about another 15 to get on the train. We got off the train around 1pm and spent about an hour walking from the train station to our hostel.

We found a really great hostel called Hostel Mostel (http://www.hostelmostel.com) which I'd recommend staying at if you're ever in Bulgaria. Lonely Planet actually named it the best hostel in Bulgaria. It's completely modern, and they have a big common area with pillows, along with an outside deck (complete with fancy pet pigeons), and provide a free dinner with free beer. Alex, one of the staff members, made a couple great soups while we were there.

On the first day we had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the gorge. We had a ton of great food and a couple beers for about $8 each. We could not spend money in this country. We kept trying to get rid of it, but everything is too cheap. We then proceeded to nap, eat dinner, and watch a quick fireworks/light show before sleeping again.

The view of the city from the fortress

The second day we decided to see the main site which is a fortress. It houses the ruins of over 400 houses and maybe a dozen churches. The geography of Veliko Tarnovo is very interesting, so the view was great. We were very excited to find the Turkish ruins which the lonely planet guide described as "a mound of bricks covered in shrubbery." We think we found it but aren't really sure. After that we took a taxi to the train station and made our way to Brasov, Romania (in Transylvani) which we will be in until tomorrow evening when we reunite with Katie!

This is for our friend Cem

Turkey Day 3

On our third day it rained, so we planned to go to the Topkapı Palace which was built in the mid 15th century. We then had lunch and spent most of the rest of the day drinking tea. Note - you can click on the photos for larger versions.