Ok so after the funny, not so good things about Romania... back to the amazing experiences I had there.
So the last I wrote I was in Brasov. Joe, my Brittish buddy, and I continued to Sihisoara from there (where we stayed at the hostel with all the drunken people running it). On the train ride there we rode with these two Irish people, both of which had been living in Russia for sometime. One guy was so smart! The whole train ride he told us so much about Russian history and contemporary Russian society. It was a pity to find out a few days later that this intelligent Irish boy had been arrested for stealing a flag from a Romanian government building... what was he thinking!!!
Sighisoara is supposively the only medieval city left with the people still living in the original fortress. We had the luck of being there during their music festival, so we got to experience all sorts of traditional romanian and Roma music and dancing. It was really funny cause one night we saw a Romanian `American southern rock band´. It was hilarious to hear them sing just as if they were from Louisiana or such, then speak in Romanian. They were quite good!
As a daytrip I went to Sibui, the current Cultural Capitol of Europe. It was definitely the most beautiful of all the cities I went to in Romania... very colorful houses and a beautiful town square. I was very sick that day though, so I didnt enjoy it as much as I would have liked. The ride back to Sighisoara went through the most pristine farming villages of Romania and was just amazing! The ride back was filled of Romanians gawking at the unique Americana.
Then I went to Cluj Napoca, where I hoped to get to do a tour to some nearby villages and such, but as I previously mentioned that didnt happen. Cluj is a University city, which probably would have been really fun if the students had been there, but without them it was quite boring. I met some really cool Brittish girls and chilled with them.
The next day I went to Suceava in the North. This is the city you go to if you want to see the surrounding painted monastaries. By far the best hostel I stayed at in Romania. The lady who ran it, Monica, was so sweet and helpful. She took us on a tour to a few of the monastaries, which was great cause she knew everything about them!
These monastaries are Romanian Orthodox and I think from the 12th century. The outside walls have been painted to depict Biblical scenes through the traditional Byzantine artistic style of beautiful blues and gold... really graffiti at its best! If Monica hadn´t been there to explain all the scenes I would have been totally clueless, it really means so much more when you know what you are looking at.
The hostel I stayed at was so homey and nice. There were four of us there and we cooked a big dinner and drank some vodka and wine as we discussed politics and history throughout the night. One of the guys at the hostel was a Finnish boy working at the embassy in Bucharest. He really knew so much about Romanian society and politics so it was really interesting to hear everything he learned from his time there.
Throughout Romania I continuously ran into travelers either coming from or going to Moldova and Ukraine. Thinking that I would need a visa to go to these countries they had never crossed my mind. But as of 2007 the visa requirements for Europeans and Americans had been droped... so hell why not! It was off to Chisinau for me!
