Greetings from a sketchy internet cafe in Romania

---

It's been a few days since I last wrote so I am going to do a quick run down. Going back to Turkey. Our second day in Istanbul has been the best of the whole tour. It is hands down my favourite city so far. We started the day off with a bus tour around the city and stopped at a rug place so people could buy really over priced turkish rugs. You couldn't spend less then $400 on a rug and that got you a shitty small one made of the worst material. Some people dropped a couple grand which blows my mind. They weren't even that nice but I guess they're good quality. Next we split up and went to the Turkish Grand Bazaar. This was like heaven for me. 4000 shops under one roof and everything was fairly cheap. I bought a pair of puma running shoes for 20 turkish lira which works out to be about $15 canadian dollars. I also bought a hand painted turkish bowl that i'm in love with and a few other items. The only thing i didn't like was arguing over prices. That was best left to the girls I was shopping with. After a day of shopping we went to a place that does turkish baths. What happens when you do a turkish bath is you strip down and wear only a towel in. Then you walk into a room with about 15 other naked women who are all lying on a marble platform and the room is like a sauna. So you join them and take of your towel and wait for one of the over weight naked people that work there to grab you and lay you down. Then they scrub you down with some exfoliating rag and pour water on you and to make you turn over they smack your ass. Then they suds you up with soap and give you a massage and after about 15 minutes they lead you to a sink where they sit you down on the floor and wash your hair. They cover your whole face with soap and dose you with water. I made the mistake of trying to breath and choked on a bucket full of water. After that's done you lay back on the marble slab until you feel ready to leave. It was very very strange but relaxing too. Well as relaxed as you can feel when your in a room naked with all your female tour mates. We hung around the city a little more after that and then went to a club to end off the night. The next day we bused it to Bulgaria where on the way we decided that one of the couples on the tour were going to have a mock wedding once we got to Brasov Romania. So that night we had mock bachlor and bachlorette parties. They were hilarious we even got one of the guys to be the stripper. We went out for drinks and gambled at the casino a little. The next day we departed for Romania. We went to the capital Bucharest the first night and did a city tour. There are tons of street kids and you just can't help but want to help them all. We were at a gas station and one boy that couldn't have been more then 7 was begging us for money and we bought him some lunch and he sat down with us while our bus was being fixed. My friend took a picture of him and showed him and it made his face light up. We couldn't understand a word he said but he talked constantly. We showed him other pictures we had taken and when a mcdonalds one came up he said Ronald McDonald. It was too cute. We said goodbye after about half an hour and went on our way. We had a wedding to get to. The mock wedding was the funniest thing i've ever seen. We did it in the lobby of the hotel and we all had jobs, mine being part of the choir. Other jobs were preist, drunk uncle, father of the bride, the wedding party and angry ex girlfriend. Nothing was looked over we had vows, speeches, marriage certificates and even a guest book. It was pretty funny and we drew a pretty big crowd after a while. The night ended with dinner at a steak house and drinks at a kareoke bar. This brings us to today. We are in Cluj and we haven't done any site seeing yet. So I better get going. Oh and one more thing. ·On the way to Brasov we stopped at Dracula's castle. The castle it self was pretty cool but the shops at the bottom of the hill were really cheesy. They sold halloween costumes and weird vampire stuff. But anyways my friends are gonna leave me if i don't get off. till next time.

---

Comments

[Roxanne]

Too Funny
You are way too funny Laura!!! I have enjoyed reading about your travels and am thrilled you are having such a good time. Alex has been giggling with me as I read to hear your recent bathing experience and your salad adventure. Keep the details coming. Enjoy, be safe, can't wait to see the pics. Love Roxanne and Alex.