Home-Away-From-Home Home Sweet Home It's Tuesday at 9:30 p.m., and we are nestled back in the comfort of Doug's apartment. We had a FABULOUS time!! I will make notes after I get some sleep--something we didn't do too often in Istanbul because we were dodging bullets or pulling off leeches...not really. Follow this link then look at the URL. Leeches. One of the yellow signs in front of the leeches for sale had a word on it that looked like "eczema." Maybe we should try that treatment in the U.S. Glad I don't have eczema, but maybe a jar of these [View Full Entry]

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On the night train from Budapest to Buhcharest I met one of the most amazing people not just on this trip but possibly in my entire life. Andras, our transylvanian sweetheart! We weren't on the train long before he had pounded upon us with many many questions! We were sharing the sleeper carriage with him and this other hungarian lady who made and sold perfume for a living. He told us of his country's history and everything about his own life until now. He spent a long time telling us of how he was a hungarian at heart living in Romanian [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday 9 April - Pozarevac to Golubac, 87 km. Poor breakfast - but that was to be expected.l We had a police escort all day, not a bad thing as no-one could get lost! We visited the excavations at a Roman town, apparently the largest Roman town ibn the Balkans with 50,000 inhabitants. Near this was a huge plant generating steam to drive turbines to generate electricity. Fired by powdered coal from nearby open-cast mines, carried there on immense conveyor belts. Impressive but not pretty! Most of the countryside was pretty ugly in the morning, mines and gravel pits and factories [View Full Entry]

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The night train was....HOT....with MOSQUITOs!!!!!! Did manage to get some sleep though...^^" I forgot Romania was an hour ahead!!!! so I lost an hour sleep!!! and almost didn't have enough time to get off the train!! ><" Got off and went straight to the hostel..and it was NOT OPENED.. sat outside for an hour or so before I manage to get in....-___-" Anyways, Bucharest.........VERY BIG BOOOOMING CITY..... There are constructions EVERYWHERE and dust flying all over the place!!!!! You can really feel the communism style here..... The city people are really....cold...the city is very...cold. Like, it feels soooooo Grey! and [View Full Entry]

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Lonely Planet said 'Travel no further - you have found what you are looking for' about the Maramures region of Romania. This surprised me because I hadn't emailed them about my love affair with Romania rural, peasant, horse and cart culture, but somehow they knew that this was exactly what I was looking for in Romania. They described the Maramures region as having a thriving peasant community, shit loads of horses and carts and a remarkable isolation from 20th and in fact 19th century practices, technology and fashion, due to the Carpathian mountain range that surrounded it. Modernity hadn't even touched [View Full Entry]

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Well, I spent three days in Bucuresti, which was about two days longer than is needed. I just kept walking, looking for the pretty old city that should be, must be, just around the corner. Oh yeah, that's right, Ceseceau knocked it down to build his Palace of the People, and the Road that is a few centimetres wider, and six metres longer, than the Champs Elysees. But Far, far more deserted. Finally, after weeks of planning, I met up with Sal and Emile (having slept for most of that day. Do not under-estimate the power of the Overnight transport [View Full Entry]

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Because I did the thing of saving money on accomodation by using overnight bus and train... two days in a row. But First, Two days in Sarajevo. Sarajevo was... fascinating. I have never been in a country that scarred from it's wars. Ok. It was the hardest hit in the Balkan wars. I know. Yes, Sarajevo was under siege for nearly four years, relieved only by UN Air support and a tiny tunnel. Yes, The town of Srebrenica is in Bosnia. This atrocity and all others were ten years ago, and yet, it feels like yesterday. This is the only country [View Full Entry]

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Had a bit of sleep-in in the morning and when I got up I was hearing from the Istanbul kids all about the night out they had. Damn I was regretting not being able to. They had seen some extremely hot girls getting up on the bar and stripping off, dancing. “Ireland” (we all ended up using the country of someone’s origin instead of their name) said she was in no way bisexual but she would’ve jumped at the chance to try it with these girls. And I spent the night watching some paedophile perving on young girls. Damn damn damn. [View Full Entry]

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I was up a bit before 7 in the morning to go driving out to the ruins of the real life Dracula’s castle. Now I had made a big mistake in hiring this car that I hadn’t worked out yet. 1. they drive on the other side of the road, which means the rest of the car is to your right not to your left 2. the car was a manual and I drive an auto, so I was changing gears with the wrong hand 3. the map that the hostel had provided me was not so good for driving - [View Full Entry]

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Felt a little seedy the next morning and didn’t get going until about 11am. Retraced my way back to the train station and got myself a ticket to Bucuresti (Bucharest is the English version), which is a two hour train ride south on the Wallachian plain. 42 lei for a first class seat, or 38 for second class... seemed like a no brainer and I thought better to pay a little bit more and be looked after a bit better away from the gypsies, but turns out when I got on the train it was one big carriage. First class was [View Full Entry]

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