Bbbbbbb.... Bran and Brasov

So, for the past two days, we’ve been driving all over Romania for some sightseeing. We left around 8:00 am on Tuesday morning and made our way north (and a little east I think) to Bran. We stopped at (yep, you guessed it) McDonalds for lunch and then made it to Bran in the afternoon. We toured the castle there (known as Dracula’s castle even though that’s not really what it is) and we finished there around 5:30 and did some shopping. I wandered off and found the good hollow bread place (we decided to call it hollow bread since we didn’t know what to call it) and of course, everybody loved it when they eventually made their way over to get some. 

Once we were done with stuffing our faces with delicious bread, we headed out to the Wolf Hotel (where we stayed last time), checked in, and then had dinner around 8:00 pm. If you’ve noticed an eating trend so far, you’re spot on. We eat often and a lot usually. We are pretty certain that we have all gained weight already and it’s only been a week! After dinner, most of us (the “youngins”) all hung out in my room until we got too rowdy and moved across the hall to someone else’s room. We started coming up with prank ideas and ended up putting one in motion sometime late at night. It was a complete failure (i.e., Melody was supposed to go to John’s door with the camera and tape him as we would sneak in through the patio and hit him with pillows; unfortunately, John didn’t leave the door open long enough and he saw us coming so it kind of ruined the plan) but it was still funny! We reconvened and tried to come up with other prank ideas but we weren’t that creative as a group. Eventually, there was a knock at the door and it was John telling us that we should check to see if anyone is standing outside the door for 30 minutes listening to us plan and gossip, like he just was! After he shared some words of wisdom with us regarding pranks, we came up with another idea which was to just bust out in song (i.e., flash mob style) on the bus the next day. I started singing the Beaver Song (from summer camp) and we started recording those of us still up then basically laughing hysterically and trying to come up with a plan for how and when to sing it the next day. We ended up cracking each other up until prob. midnight or so and then I was up another hour and a half doing some work stuff in my room.

We got up early Wednesday so that we could head to Peles (which was one hour away maybe? Maybe two? I can’t remember) and we got in to the tour at 10:40 am. 

                                   (me and Emily on a lion)

After walking around there for a bit and doing a little bit of shopping right outside the castle, we were on our way back to Bucharest around noon. We stopped at a gas station to get snacks on the way since we were trying to drive back quickly so that Rica, Cathy, Chad and I could catch the 3:45 train back to Severin (instead of waiting for the lower quality train that would come next at 8:45). We got into the city around 3:30 and literally, we ran from the bus to the train station and then ran again to the tracks that our train was on. It was AWESOME!

We had already said goodbye to everyone on the bus and we were ready to hop off and go for it! We ended up on the train like 4 minutes before it left (completely on time) and then we proceeded to play Uno and sleep for most of the 5.5 hour ride. 

I think we only slept about an hour because Rica really wanted to play Uno so we did that for the rest of the ride. The train was not as bad as I had envisioned it. No one begging or smoking or doing anything else ridiculous like that but Rica made sure to check our bags at the Bucharest train station since pickpocketing is a huge problem there (we were all good). Sammy came to pick us up at the Severin train station around 9:00 and then we had dinner back at the house a little later. Afterwards, we hung out and talked for a bit and then we decided that I’d just stay at the house tonight rather than go back to the orphanage, so that I could catch up on my sleep and kind of sleep in. So, that’s where I’m at right now at 12:20 am… laying in the bed in the basement just relaxing!

Tomorrow, we might take the kids to some sulphur springs swimming area about an hour away or we might hit up Carrefour and run some other errands. On Friday, I’m heading out to Rogova with Cathy and Chad is heading to Lupsa with Rica to do some work. The Saturday, there are things like choir and orchestra (mandolin) practice and Chad and I are going to try to join in with both groups while we’re here. It should be a fun and busy two weeks for me and Chad is staying four weeks so he gets even more!

I think that’s all for now. It’s late (obviously) and I have some papers I need to grade for the class I’m teaching online now (yep, another thing to add to my already long do-everything-at-once list) so I might do that for a bit before officially crashing.

Just as an fyi, I have videos of the failed prank, the Beaver planning session, and the actual execution of the Beaver song but I think I’m going to post them on Facebook eventually (or link them on the blog through my pictures site… haven’t decided yet. I know you probably want to see them but the internet isn’t the most reliable and I haven’t really had time yet to deal with it all).

Here are the rest of the pictures from sightseeing. There aren't too many since I didn't pay to bring my camera into Peles and since I already took a lot of pictures there last time!