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Published: July 15th 2006
Nıce street
the street from whıch our hostel jets off ofRomanian computers and internet have up to this point proven to be a bit behind the times. this is my third computer and still the programs are too old to recognize my camera...as a result i can't upload pictures which pisses me off A LOT. nonetheless, i'll continue...and pretend i'm still in cluj...even though i'm still i'm not in sighisoara...
after all of that frustration in budapest with travelblog, i did, indeed, go stuff my face with cake and ice cream. we headed to gertreaud, Budapest's supposedly finest cafe, having been operating since 1858. We got their signature multi-layer chocolate tort as well as this heavenly concoction with walnut, chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon ice cream topped with whipped cream, apricot syrup, liquer-soaked biscuits...all of that came in a chocolate drizzled home-made waffle cup. delicious to say the least...
the next morning we were all packed and ready for our 9-ish hour bus trip to Cluj-Romania, the former capital of Transylvania and Romania's largest student center. We bought tickets for pretty cheap and ended up on this 11-seater van...not quite the "bus" we had envisioned. Nonetheless the trip ended up being shorter than expected and our co-inhabitants were fine. We
Pıata
maın plaza ın cluj wıth the statue of the hungarıan kıng surrounded by romanıan flags drove through some gorgeous countryside with tiny villages on mountain slopes...i wish i had taken pictures out the window. At around 8 (we gained an hour) we were dropped off in the center of Cluj-Napoca, right in front of the controversial statue of the Hungarian king.
We found our hostel quite easily, right near the center of everything. we put our stuff down in an 8-bed dorm but there's only one other person there, a french guy about our age, which is nice. pristintely clean and with a nice bathroom and shower, we were very happy with our accomodations. since it was still relatively early, we decided to explore the place a bit, first getting out cash. due to a shaky economy, romania ended up revaluing all of its money, however, both types of bills are still in circulation. for example, a bill that says 500,000 lei is the same as the bill that says 50 lei. we had quite the time figuring out our bill the first day with our mix of bills.
we ended up getting dinner at this hotel and it was quite good. i'm officially into carbonated water, by the way, so i started
Vıew
lookıng out over Cluj from the cıtadel off with that. then i had a tomato salad followed by a mixed grill of pork, sausage, and other meats with heaps of hominy. really delicious. for both our meals combined, including tip and all of that, it came out to like 10 US dollars. no wonder they say translyvania is a budget traveller's paradise...we explored some more, checked email, and pretty much went to bed
the next morning we woke up and showered without problem. we intended to see all of the city in one day, which seemed quite doable. we started off with the main square, with the statue of the hungarian king corvinus (surrounded by romanian flags to remind people we're in romania, i guess lol). behind the monument was st. matthias' church. it had some nice stained glass but that's about it. we also stopped for some breakfast at a patisserie. i ended up ordering us placinta with mushrooms, which was totally fine, but had i recognized the word for mushrooms i would have asked for something different. oh well, there's always tomorrow...
continuing down the street, we checked out this big monument to Avram Iancu (don't recall who he is) and then the orthodox church behind it. it was my first time inside an orthodox church and it was really cool. byzantine mosaic lined the walls, and little greek-wedding-type grandmas prayed and begged on the ground. we were too scared to take pictures since we weren't sure if we were supposed to pay to be in there or not.
our next stop was the transylvanian history museum, somewhere east of where we were. the streets on our map weren't all market so we had quite the time finding it. we eventually did, obviously, but even once we got there it was confusing. heading up a flight of stairs we paid less than a US dollar to get in. The exhibitions were quite extensive and traced from prehistoric times until maybe the 17th century. there were some really excellently preserved mummies and skeletons, its just a shame the museum was in as poor condition as it was. it deserves better.
after the museum we walked through a plaza and back into the hustle and bustle of cluj. seeing a mcdonalds in the distance, we of course had to check out what interesting things were on the menu, but we were only disappointed. there was another cool plaza in front of it with a statue of i believe a famous romanian who had defended the city from the turks. there was a nice-looking market there as well but we weren't quite fluent enough in romanian to actually want to buy something.
before doing a late lunch, we walked up to the citadel to get extensive views of the city, but walking up stairs is only so much fun, we so we headed back in search of roata, this restaurant we had read about. we ended up having an excellent traditional meal there, starting with a really nice balkan salad with tuna, olives, etc. i've also officially become a fan of carbonated water. for my meal i had sarmale, cabbage stuffed with spices and meat and whatnot (aka golapki) with more heaps of mămăligă (hominy/polenta/cornmeal mush). really satisfying. kasia got these big mushrooms filled with sheep's cheese, which the waiter (a young kid) described as "you know....like the man....and the sheep" after hearing that we decided to take it, lol.
once we were finished with that we went to drop off our stuff at the hostel and chill for a bit before heading back out to do some shopping. despite there being kenvelo there, we couldn't find anything we liked and just ended up at an internet cafe that didn't have usb hookup aka i couldn't update my journal with pictures. that was upsetting...clearly it was time for more cake...
we went to this place called cafe mozart, obviously mozart themed. i ordered a cherry chocolate flake torte, which despite being on top of like chocolate dipped corn flakes, was really good. kasia got some of the best ice cream i've ever tasted - mint, chocolate, vanilla, and coffee with incredibly whipped cream. we also got specialty coffees..mine was orange and rum flavored.
on the way to attempt two at finding an internet cafe with usb hookup, i ended up making the mistake of stopping into this store to look at jeans. i bought a pair for over 3 million lei, which is like 350 regular/new lei, which is like 120 bucks us. whatever, i liked them. then i bought a shirt at another kenvelo we managed to find. i was bad that day...then after more internet we went back to the hostel where we saw a new roommate. once i heard him introduce himself to the french kid that was staying with us and i heard him say he was from spain, i knew i had to stop their little convo in french and switch it to a real language, that of course being spanish. so here in eastern europe i chatted yet again with a spaniard. my spanish is seriously pretty hot right now. i'm glad i'm getting to wipe some dust off the 'ole engines before i get to spain. this guy is a spanish and english professor and studies romance languages. he's here in romania taking a month-long romanian course. basically i envy his life.
now we're in sighisoara, but i'll update about that later. i'll hopefully be able to get some pictures up soon...
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Danielle
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I love reading about your adventures, Jeff! :) Danielle