Woohoo - back in the states! Flight was dealyed 3 hours yesterday I think partially due to the raised alert level and trip rerouting around cities like Chicago. Damn terrorists :debil:
Natty - yeah Tony was our navigator as we stayed in 5 different cities. Without him, we both would have been screwed. Peace Corps people aren't allowed to have cars, so we had to take advantage of busses, trains, subways, taxis, and the dreaded maxitaxi (big van thing). And we did a bunch of walkin as well. We saw a KTM shop in Brasov with a few enduro and MX bikes and a Honda supermotard bike in a shop in Bucharest - so yeah they have dirtbikes as well. The terrain is killer in the country so I imagine there might be some sweet places to ride. While on the train I saw a mountain with like 30 mountain goats - it was pretty cool to se something like that and not be at the zoo! :)
Dracula's castle was rockin and so was Peles castle (used from around 1870-1947 by the 4 different kings of Romania)! Dracula's castle has a bunch of cool secret passages and tunnels and stairways and stuff so that's pretty neat. And the inside of Peles was amazing with all the detail - and all the gold and silver and woodwork and precious stones and everything else. Some of the churches were amazing too - the Black church in Brasov is the biggest church in a section of eastern Europe. We hiked the Brasov mountains and got some cool photos. Then Saturday, I dropped my already duct taped camera and it's officially dead but I should be able to get the photos off the memory cards in the next few days somehow.
We took a train on Saturday and somehow ended up on one of the most high classed trains I've ever seen - it rode so smooth and had automatic electric doors and a fancy dining car and we had our own little very clean compartment with music and temperature controls, a table, lots of storage, and even a waiter who came by to get us drinks! And, to my biggest disappointment, it had REAL bathrooms as well... so no dumpin on the tracks :( ..... :confused:
I forgot to mention - all the guys that work at the Milan airport look like Zio's long lost brothers! Italian guys.... mmmmm! :cool: