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Visited 35 UN countries (18.1%) out of 193.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Sighisoara in the morning. Brasov in the afternoon


June 10, 2014
This morning after breakfast I climbed to the top of the hill in Sighisoara.  You have to go up a ton of stairs in a tunnel. At the top is a very interesting cemetery. Have I mentioned that almost everything in Transylvania is written in German? If they would write in Romanian, I could understand most of it because Romanian looks like French spelled a different way. It was a very misty morning. I've been reading Dracula at night on this trip and the misty morning just fit right in. 



Then we got taxis to the train station to go to Brasov. The trip to the train station turned out to be pretty eventful. We need four taxis for our group. I was in the taxi with Ishwar, Judy and Paul. When Judy closed her door, she pulled on the handle that opens it by mistake. It came right off.  The driver wanted her to pay but it clearly was already broken. Then, when we arrived at the station, another driver couldn't get his trunk open. Naviana and Cindy's bags were in it. Naviana gave our train tickets to Peter and told us to go to the platform. The train was supposed to leave in half an hour at 11:16. She also gave instructions on how to get to our hotel in Brasov. We could see Naviana was very stressed.  We went to the platform, but, fortunately, the train was delayed 80 minutes.  Then another train came in about 20 minutes. We didn't know whether to get on, but thought it wasn't our train. Naviana came running to the platform to say not to get on that train. I should mention that to get from the entrance to the station where Naviana, Cindy, and the taxi with their luggage were, you had to go down the stairs and up again to get to the other side of the tracks. The guys trying  to open the trunk tried taking out the seat, but there was a tank In the way. Then they went through the backseat to disconnect the hinges. When they did that, the trunk popped up and broke the rear windshield. But they got the bags out and Naviana and Cindy were able to join us while we were still waiting for the train. Naviana was so concerned about us that she went into tne station coffee shop and bought us all ice cream cones, plastic cups, and three huge bottles of beer.  The ice cream was good. The beer was way too much. 
The train was lovely. We had to get the luggage on those overhead racks, but people helped each other. It took about 3 hours to get to Braslov. When we got there, all the taxis insisted on not turning on the meter (illegal) and charging 20 leu. The metered price is 13. (3 leu = 1 dollar)
After we settled in our hotel rooms we went out to see the black church, built in the 14th century. It's called the black church because there was a fire in the 15th century that blackened the walls. 

Then we wanted to ride the cable car to the top of the hill to see the view. We climbed up tons of steps to the entrance and got there at 5. It closed at 4:45. 

For dinner, we went to a great Romanian restaurant. The waiters were dressed in traditional clothes. On the tables they had placed really delicious bread and fried bacon with raw onions. I chose not to try any, but some others loved it. We ordered our own things, but also ordered  Sarmalute, a typical Romanian dish to share. It's just stuffed cabbage with polenta. The cabbage is much more sour, though. 



Tomorrow, we'll see a few more things in Braslov and then continue on to Bucharest.  






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