November 17 - November 19: Our Last Days in Europe! (Madrid)

On the 17th, after posting the last entry at around 3pm, Anton and I walked over to the Reina Sofia Museum. As we were waiting to cross the street to the front of the building, we saw two guys across the street from us getting into a fight. They were about the same size, but one was a little bigger, while the other was smaller and in better shape. They were throwing punches at each other in the middle of the sidewalk, right next to a busy street, and I was waiting for one of them to fall into the street like in Cruel Intentions. But, what actually happened was the smaller guy wasn't putting up a very good fight, so his buddy jumped in and handed him something in the middle of the fight. It was something wrapped in cloth, which he put in his hand. The bigger guy after seeing this, tried to walk away, as the smaller guy began removing his jacket. But the traffic was really heavy, and instead of waiting, he just ran out into the street and the smaller guy with the suspicious object in his hand (it must have been a knife or brass knuckles or something) chased him into the street, and they ran through on coming traffic down the block, forcing cars to slam on their brakes all the way. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see the outcome of the fight, so we don't know what happened after that point.

The museum was amazing. On the first level was a huge photography exhibit with some of the most amazing pictures I've ever seen, ranging from landscapes to portraits in both color and black and white. There were also many rooms filled with sculptures, and huge, elaborate installations (my favorite was three gigantic, brightly colored metallic rings set up leaning against each other). On another level was an exhibit on cubist paintings, and on another was a collection of work by Picasso (including the famous, huge Guernica painting).


The Guernica

In another area, many of Salvador Dali's paintings were on display, which really excited me, because (like so many other people) I adore Salvador Dali's work (my favorite is The Burning Giraffe.)



In one room, there was a large screen looping Dali's "Un Chien Andalou" and Luis Bunuel's "L'age D'or." It was the first time I was able to see "Un Chien Andalou" in it's complete, original form. "L'age D'or" was really long, and we only watched about 45 minutes of it.


Un Chien Andalou

After that, we viewed a digital film exhibit that had two screens playing the same footage from different angles of a street scene at night, being continuously altered by mysterious persons dressed in black who would dissapear into the shadows.

After the museum, we wanted to go to the park nearby, but it had gotten cold and the sun was already going down (it was about 5:30pm) so we headed back to our street to the Indian food place. A sign said it would open at 8pm, so we went into a Cuban bar next door, and sat upstairs and drank delicious Mojitos while we watched the employees dancing around on the floor to some Cuban club music. It was fun to watch people enjoying themselves so much while being at work (a place I never associate with dancing and merriment!) At 8pm we went next door and had a decent sized portion of samosas, vegetable rice, onion naan and a mushroom dish as well as one with veggetables and eggplant (I think). The food was a little expensive though and not really worth the price (Anton and I love our Indian food and we always eat as much as we can fit into our stomachs, even if it means sitting around the rest of the night feeling lethargic and bloated from too much food :) After that, we walked across the street to a little pub and had a drink, but the bar was too cold, so we headed over to the bar beneath our hotel where we ate lots of peanuts and chips and I had my first Bloody Mary, which was really good :) Eventually we got tired and went upstairs to our room and quickly fell asleep.

November 18th was a lazy day. We slept in as late as we possibly could, and it was really nice to just lay around. Anton went out and got us two boxes stuffed with vegan food from the buffet across the street and we ate too much, then layed around some more. Finally we decided to go out at around 4pm. We walked around the neighborhood, then decided to try to eat a little cafeteria, but after ordering for "dos hambuergesas vegetales" we recieved two plates of stale hoagie buns filled with iceberg lettuce, tomato, soft-boiled eggs, mayonaisse and leeks...eh...they weren't....good. So we left and went back to the Organic Market and Buffet AGAIN. It is impossible to resist food that good (salad, curry, seitan, vegetable lasagna, Spanish food, cookies, quiche, soy chai tea, fresh juices, tofu, polenta pizza.)
After getting stuffed again, we walked around more, then took out some cash and payed the friendly non-English speaking elderly couple who own the hotel, borrowed an alarm clock, and tried to get to sleep as early as we could (around 9pm.)

November 19th we woke up at 5:30 am (grateful we had gone to sleep so early) packed our things and checked out of the hotel. We walked to the metro stop nearby, and rode it for about an hour before arriving at the airport. We checked in and wandered around the airport while we waited for our flight (which had been delayed to 10:30am.) The flight was only a couple hours long, but arriving in Zurich was stressful because we literally had to run through the airport to catch our connecting flight that was scheduled to leave 10 minutes after our arrival. We ran upstairs, caught a subway, ran up more stairs, then before reaching our terminal we had to go through another checkpoint which wasted a couple of much-needed minutes, then the strap of my shoulder bag broke off as I was running and I almost fell on my face, then we had to go to the passport check station, which wasted a couple more much-needed minutes, but luckily we made it on to the plane at the very last minute and crashed down in our seats in the middle row of the plane. We were prepared for a hellishly boring 10 hour flight with almost no reading material and dead ipods. But it turned out that SwissAir is absolutely amazing and the 10 hours passed by completely painlessly. Our seats were comfortable and wide and we had our own individual screens that we could control with remotes to play a range of movies as well as video games! We also got vegan meals (which never happens on planes!) that were actually really good (spinach, rice, bread rolls, spring rolls). They also had free drinks (including alcohol) but I just drank cup after cup of coffee to stay awake. Anton and I spent the whole ride watching The Simpsons Movie, Live Free or Die Hard, Desperate Housewives and some documentaries and played lots of video games. We got into Chicago at 3:55pm and managed to acquire some pita and hummous at the airport from a sandwich shop, then boarded our (delayed) flight at around 6:30 or so. This flight was our hardest, because we didn't have as much entertainment and were starting to feel really tired. We arrived in Seattle feeling braindead, but my mom was there to pick us up and it was really great to see her and feel comfortable and at home again for the first time in so long. We were so glad my mom could pick us up so we wouldn't have to worry about catching a van or bus, and we fell asleep on the way home.

It is hard to reflect on our 40-day journey across Europe at the moment, as I feel that I'm still reeling from the whirlwind of travel fatigue combined with feelings of inspiration as well as a greater appreciation and understand of the amazing world outside the USA. However, I can say with full confidence that this trip will be impossible for me to forget and it has affected me mentally and physically in a way I never could have expected. From pampered hot springs at the Blue Lagoon in Reykjavik to begging gypsy children in freezing Brasov, from bar-hopping with old friends in Stockholm to sitting next to an old, senile man with a pet hedgehog in a plastic bag in the Roman train station, our experiences have been pleasant, uncomfortable, painful, beautiful and far more varied and extreme than I had ever predicted. The people we have encountered along the way, whether hostile, mentally ill or tremendously friendly, will leave a lasting impression in my thoughts. I could never be more grateful for the experiences I have had on this trip and feel extremely lucky every day for having had them. I can't wait for the next adventure!

PHOTOS
[I unfortunately do not have my own computer at the moment and I can't load all the photos to my dad's work laptop, because it would take up too much room. But here are just a couple of my favorite photos. More will be posted to my website as soon as I can get adequate storage for them and finish building the site.]

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND:









ROME, ITALY:


VENICE, ITALY:



FLORENCE, ITALY:


CORINTH, GREECE:






FRIENDS:

Jean-Philip (Reyjkavik)


Gry (Oslo)


Chris and Rita (Budapest)


Bar Friends (Budapest)

November 16 - November 17: Athens to Madrid

Yesterday, the 16th, we woke up around 9am, checked out of our hotel, took a train to the airport, waited around for an hour and ate some expensive airport food (lots of pasta and vegetables that tasted like vinegar) then checked in and sat around more, and finally boarded our plane around 1pm. Our seats were really uncomfortable and close together (my knees could touch the chair in front of me) the flight was boring, but not too unbearable. We landed in Madrid at 5:30 our time (4:30 Madrid time) then took a bus to a terminal where we tried to get our flight moved sooner (the whole money thing...) but no luck! So we decided to just have a really fun last three days.

We took the Metro in to downtown Madrid to find a hotel from our travel book, and after walking around looking for it for over an hour, stressing out a lot and fighting a little bit (we were really hungry and tired...) we found it and the lady said they were full. So, we walked down Calle de las Huertas near our metro stop and found a hotel called Hostal Lopez where we checked in and dropped off our things, then headed across the street to a really awesome little vegetarian/vegan buffet that we just happened to stumble upon with some of the most amazing food I have ever seen. After living in Europe for 5 weeks, it felt like we were seeing vegan food for the first time and it was so good! There was even desert... but I ate too much of course, and Anton got a headache, so we went to sleep really early...around 9pm. Then I woke up at 2am when I realized that our room is located directly above a bar and it was Friday night! I couldn´t sleep, so I knitted for a while and took a shower, then finally fell asleep at 5am.

This morning we slept in until about 11am, then went back to the vegan buffet, and it was SO good....oh man... all of my favorite foods combined...we ate our food at a little park in the sunshine. It is very beautiful here, not like what I expected. It is a large city, but still has a very open feeling, and I don´t feel chlostrophobic here. After eating, we went to the metro and got off at a stop where a museum called Reina Sofia is located, but we realized we can get in for free if we wait until 2:30pm, so we´re using the internet now to kill time until we can get in for free. After that we are going to get some coffee, walk to a park and sit around, eat some Indian food and wander aimlessly. Madrid is great :)

November 13-14-15: Athens

The past few days have been very nice and relaxing. Anton and I are taking full advantage of our nice little room in Plaka, Athens. We are sleeping a lot, eating a lot and taking lots of showers, because we don't have much money to do anything else, and are really, really tired from our long trip. We have been watching a lot of tv- BBC mostly. It turns out there is a train protest going on right now in France and Germany. We are so glad we got out of there in time! It would be really unfortunate if we had chosen to route our trip differently and ended up in one of those countries unable to use our Eurail passes!

Today we slept in late, then ate a big breakfast of soy yogurt and granola and pita bread and olive spread. We luckily found a little health food store last night, which is where we got the soy stuff. I'm excited to fly to Madrid tomorrow. We will leave around 1pm and arrive around 3pm or so, then check in to a cheap hotel or hostel. Whew... this trip has really exhausted us, but we are loving it... We are both very excited to come home and hang out with family and friends soon.

November 12 - November 13: Corinth to Athens

Anton and I were having a hard time finding much else to do in Corinth, and last night we just sat around, eating food, knitting, drawing and watching t.v.

This morning we had a great breakfast of beans and french fries downstairs at the taverna (it really was good! I ate all the beans) and the cute lady who runs the hotel brought us a free desert! It was sliced up apples with some bready cake thing and it was really good too. The people there were so friendly! After that, we paid for our rooms and took a taxi to the train station. Then we rode it to the airport and tried to move our flight to an earlier date, but were unsuccessful, so we got back on the train and headed into central Athens, where we are now. We dropped our things off at a really nice little hotel called Hotel Tempi that has tv, showers, toilets, a balcony and views of the ruins. It is really nice here, and we are feeling great, even though its raining. We're also excited to be here because we can finally go to a vegetarian restaurant now! Yay! I am really loving it here, but I do miss my friends and family a lot. I never realized how lonely traveling can make a person feel. I will definitely appreciate being able to understand my surroundings so easily when I am in an English speaking place again.

November 6 - November 12: Brasov to Thessaloniki to Corinth

As this trip has gone along, internet access has become less and less...accessible...so sorry for the long posts...

On November 6th we visited the Black Church, in the middle of the historic town square in Brasov. It was somewhat interesting, but wasn't really black, just...really old. And we went on a painfully long, crowded bus ride to Bran to see the castle, but it turned out to be closed, so we stood outside and froze our feet off until we finally got back to our hotel, where we ran our feet under hot water until we could feel them again. After that I put mittens on my feet, because all our socks are either too dirty or too thin to wear. Then we went out and had dinner at an Italian restaurant (the only places we ate at in Romania) and ate pesto with some beer and hot wine. Then we went to the bar and had another beer, then went back to our hotel and went to sleep.

November 7th we woke up at 9am to snow coming down heavily outside our hotel window. At around noon we headed to the train station to catch the next train out of freezing Brasov headed towards Greece. We were able to get tickets for a sleeper train from Bucharest to Sofia, Bulgaria for 140 lei ($50?). So after waiting around for an hour or so, we got on a 2 1/2 hour train ride to Bucharest, where we found a little cheap restaurant where we slowly ate pizza, beer and coffee for 3 hours (so they wouldn't make us go back outside for sitting inside without making a purchase) until our train arrived for Sofia. It was really nice to be on the train, where we could finally relax for a little while. We ate some bread and hummous and drew pictures until we fell asleep.

November 8th we arrived in Sofia at 6am. I immediately bought 2 tickets for Thessaloniki (the furthest we could get in the direction of Greece) and we boarded 15 minutes later, with barely enough time to buy a piece of bread that we ate on the train. Two station workers helped us get to our train in time by putting us on a little car, driving us to the train, then unloading our things (without our request, really) then asked us for 10 Euros each once we were there. We didn't have any euros, so we gave them some Bulgarian money, which wasn't much, but I was glad it was all we had. The train ride was long and boring, but the scenery was nice to watch, and we could feel the air getting warmer. At 1pm we arrived in Thessaloniki, where we walked down a hectic street to Hotel Acropol, where we would stay for the next two nights. It took us forever to find food (contrary to popular belief, hummous and pita are NOT available in Greece. The only time you will ever find pita is if it is stuffed with lamb, beef or veal, and almost every meal revolves around meat and dairy.) but we eventually found one restaurant with some stuffed peppers, rice and beans which we pretty much inhaled (I ate too much too quick and got sick.) Then we walked around the busy streets for a while. We bought a couple groceries and I tried to wash some clothes in a sink in our room. While walking around, we passed a pet store with puppies, kittens, rabbits, guinea pigs, and of all things chipmunks! It was terrible. They were locked up in tiny cages outside in the cold and the puppies were obviously sick. There were a lot of wild dogs running around and Anton and I always tried to find food for them. Almost nobody in Thessaloniki knew any English, so we had a somewhat difficult time doing anything, but we managed to get by.

November 8th we reserved a train to Athens to Corinth, then walked around and found an Italian restaurant where we ate lots of spaghetti, tried to go to an art museum which was closed, walked around more, petted some stray puppies, then watched A Mighty Heart at the theater, before going to bed.

Noevmber 9th we woke up, then rode a train for hours until we reached Athens, where we found some sandwiches and chips we could eat and practically swallowed them whole before catching a subway to Corinth that took about an hour and a half. After getting into Corinth, we took a taxi to Ancient Corinth, where we were greeted by the owners at Tasos Taverna and Rooms. They were extremely friendly and we were given the nicest room we have had on the trip so far for 30 Euros a night. It is a large room with a double bed, tv and balcony, with a minifridge and bathroom (with hot water!!) nearby. I took a bath, we had some drinks downstairs, then walked around the little neighborhood for a while before going to sleep.

November 10th, we woke up to loud church bells and lots of chatter from downstairs. We figured out that it was Sunday. We got up and went down the street to a restaurant where I ate a huge Greek salad and Anton ate spinach pie, which turned out to have cheese in it and made him sick. After eating, we went on a really long walk in the wonderful, wonderful sunshine. Our walk led us through a neighborhood to an underpass that looked like it was forgotten ruins, to railroad tracks, a highway that we ran across, to a little road where we passed dogs, a dead cat, a dying butterfly, a dead frog and a goat tied to a fence, as well as olive, lime, lemon, orange, palm and pomegranite trees, bamboo and wild corn. Eventually our little road led us to the edge of the Corinthian Bay. Ancient Corinth is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The water was teal and clear, the air is warm and the people are friendly. On the way back, the goat tried to eat my dress and also tried to butt Anton with his horns after we gave him some leaves to eat. When we got back to our street, lots of tourists were out (they usually come to Ancient Corinth in the middle of the day, then head back to Athens before night) We sat on some swings, then walked across the street to the archeaological musem and walked around ruins that were older than Roman ruins for about an hour. There were some amazing columns and statues and the ruins of an entire city right outside our hotel window.

Today we woke up to a room full of fly-tape and flies (there were about 30 in our room last night and we were starting to go crazy) and there are a couple left who continually try to fly into our faces. We haven't had any food yet, but got a taxi to modern Corinth where we are using the internet for the first time in a while. We will try to find some food soon, then we don't know what we'll do... probably not much for a while. I'm ready to go home, because I am almost completely out of money. I've passed my spending limit for the trip and am now using my savings that I need to pay bills with. I'll have to get a job really soon... I will just try to enjoy being here, doing nothing in Greece, because I know it wont last forever.

October 28- November 5: Florence to Rome to Venice to Budapest to Brasov

We arrived in Florence around 11pm on the 28th. As we were standing in the station looking for a hostel in our book, we were approached by a woman who said she had a room available. We usually ignore people who tell us this kind of stuff, because it happens every single time we get off a train, but this woman seemed really nice and said her room was only 45 Euros. So we followed her a couple blocks from the station over to her hotel, which turned out to be wonderful! The entryway was full of pictures of her family and our room was huge with really tall ceilings and a shower, tv, minifridge and nice furniture! The woman told us she had moved over to Florence from Mexico 12 years before, then we talked for a while and she showed us all the places in Florence we should visit on a map. After a little while we went into our room, unpacked, showered and went to sleep.

October 29th we slept in late, then Anton tried to get a hold of his parents, but it was taking a while and we were still in the room past our 11am check out time. Luckily, the woman in charge was so nice she let us stay until 11:30. Once we finally got a hold of them, we arranged to meet up at the train station around 12. So we grabbed our things and headed over to the station, then sat outside in the sunshine. The weather was so beautiful and made us feel really good after coming from the cold north. Around 1:00 we still hadn't heard from Anton's parents, then I think around 1:30 or so they showed up and we put our things in the back of their rented Volvo. We all walked around town, searching for a good place to eat. We ended up stopping at a really nice Sicilian restaurant with a funny waiter. We ate some really good pasta and drank a little wine, then kept walking and got some gelato, which was really, really good. After that, we walked up a really tall hill to a lookout point where we could see all over the whole city at dusk. It was just beautiful. The olive trees and the buildings in the distance and the color of the sky were all so wonderful. After that, we walked back to the station and got into the car, then headed out to drive to the place near Lucca where Anton's parents are staying. We stopped at a gas station and then after about an hour of looking found a pizzeria and had some of the best pizza of my life! We also had some wine. After dinner, we drove down some really winding roads to the chateau where Anton's parents and their friends were staying. Then we met 3 really cute dachsunds and talked to Anton's parents friends for a while before going to sleep on some couch cushions on the floor. We had a really great time with Anton's parents and were really glad that we were able to see them on this trip. It was also nice to have some free food and wine!!

October 30th we woke up early, around 8am, to catch an early train to Florence. From there we took another train to Rome, which took about 8 hours. After getting in, we walked a few blocks to a hostel called The Yellow Hostel. It was really expensive, considering it was the cheapest place we could find, and still cost about 50 euros total for a room that we had to share with two other people! The hostel was so stupid. It was completely aimed at the college fraternity/sorority crowd, with dance music and blue lights in the entryway and stupid rules posted all over the walls, trying to be funny with tired Chuck Norris and ninja jokes. Our roommates were a British guy named Lee and an Australian girl (I dont remember her name) but we were usually not all there at the same time and didnt get to know each other. We weren't able to drink at the bar at the hostel, because it was SO overpriced (7 Euros for ONE BEER!!) so we went and walked around in the rain until we found some cheap pizza and bought some beers from the store and drank them in the street (we can do that there!) Then we went to sleep early because it was too rainy to do anything else.

October 31st we checked out of our hostel as quick as we could, went to the train station and put our bags into lockers, then bought two expensive first class tickets on a sleeper train to Venice at 11pm (first class were the only ones available.) We spent 165 Euros on the tickets for the sleeper, figuring we would probably be breaking even by using our train as a hotel, then we wouldnt have to pay for the reservation and we would be saving time. We went and walked around town, took a subway to the Vatican, The Collosuem and The Forum which were all amazing. Unfortunately we couldnt admire them as long as we would have liked, because it was raining hard and we were soaked. For the rest of the day, we ate some pizza and drank some beers then watched Ratatouille which made us really hungry so we ate a big meal of pasta. At 10pm we headed back to the station and waited around for our number to appear on the screen so we could board our train. By 11pm our number still wasn't up, so we waited in a long line to find someone to talk to to let us know where we were supposed to go. After our boarding time had passed, a station attendant informed us that we were at the wrong station (the other one was about 4 subway stops away) and we would have to go there to find out what to do. We were really bummed out that we had missed our train, but headed to the other station hoping they might be able to help us. Arriving at the other station was one of the most depressing things I have ever done. The place was completely disgusting, there was pee and garbage on the floor, homeless people were sleeping in all the hallways and sketchy guys were eyeing us constantly. Not only that, but there was not ONE SINGLE PERSON working at the station! Nobody was there to help us and there were no police. When we were looking for help, a British woman came up to us and asked us where to find the police, because some guy wouldnt stop following her. We tried to find the police, but there were none. So after sitting on some stairs for a couple of hours trying to figure out what to do, since we had spent so much money on our ticket and had no place to sleep, we hauled all our things upstairs where we sat next to the information desk. After sitting there most of the night, a scraggly old man came in and sat next to us. I wasn't paying much attention to him until I noticed that he kept reaching into a clear plastic garbage bag he had set next to him. I was watching him from the side, and I saw the most random thing I had ever expected to see at that moment. He picked up a croissont out of the bag and was using it to pet the thing that was inside the plastic bag, barely alive- a hedgehog. Yes. I thought it was dead for a long time, but after a while it moved. He kept petting it with the croissont and trying to talk to it between pulling out his cell phone and pretending to talk to someone, then hanging up about every other 5 minutes. We watched him awestruck for a while, and Anton asked if he could take a picture, and the man said it was okay, but "no flash" because "Lucy" was sleeping. We continued to sit by the hedgehog guy for the remaining hours until 6:10am when the information desk opened up. I was the first one in line and I asked the guy at the desk what we should do since we missed our train the previous night. I asked if we could get a partial refund, or maybe get on another train or anything. The asshole just shrugged his shoulders and said he couldn't do anything. At this point I became extremely mad and felt like screaming in his face. We just spent the entire night without any sleep, no food, no water and no bathrooms, surrounded by piss and garbage talking to a man with a half-dead hedgehog in a plastic bag in order to try to get a refund or a train ticket and now he was telling us he couldn't do anything and didn't really care. I wouldn't have been so mad if he would have atleast tried to do something to help us, or atleast pretended to care. But no. I was going crazy. We decided to go back to the first station and try to plead our case again, and this time we were much more lucky. The guy at the desk could tell we had had a shitty night, as we probably looked like hell, and helped us get onto another train to Venice and another for that night heading to Budapest. We weren't able to get our 165 Euros back though, which was bad because we were already running out of money really quickly, but we settled with the train ride. We boarded the train and half-slept for a few hours. We arrived in Venice around noon, then put our things into lockers and spent the day wandering around the streets. We ate some of the worst chinese food I have ever had in my life (it was the cheapest vegan food we could find) and walked around some more, getting stuck in a huge blob of tourists in the town square. Luckily, the weather was beautiful and after having some gelato and pizza, we were feeling a lot better. We went back to the Venice train station to wait for our train, and sat there for about 2-3 hours in a small, smelly waiting room, being really, really bored. Finally we went back outside and waited, where we watched two different groups of two drunk old men get into fights. One guy even got slapped! Finally we got on our train, only to find that our seats werent sleeper beds like we thought, but rigid seats, where we would have to sit for 13 hours. It was a long ride to say the least. We tried to sleep, but weren't terribly successful, especially when the border police repeatedly woke us up to look at our passports throughout the night.

November 2nd we arrived in Budapest at noon, 2 hours later than scheduled. We called Rita and her boyfriend Chris came and met us at the station, then we took a bus over to their place and dropped off our things. Their apartment was tiny, with a loft bed above the living room area where we slept. Anton and I were so tired we decided we should sit there and rest a little bit before heading out. We both almost fell asleep once or twice, then we went out with Chris to a cute vegan restaurant, which was really good after going so long eating bread. Then we walked around, passing through the yard of a castle, before meeting up with Rita and heading back to the house to watch A Good Year and fall asleep on the futon.

November 3rd, Anton and I slept in really late, to around 11:30am. Then we went out with Chris to a shopping mall where we bought groceries, which we brought back to the house. Then Chris took us on a train over to historic Budapest which was really cute. We walked along the Danube, and the area was very pretty even though it was night time by the time we reached it and we couldn't see much. The historic part of Budapest was really cute and I bought a couple (my first) souvinirs. Then we headed back into town and Chris took us to a really cool bar that was in a secretive warehouse and was set up with benches and heating lamps and we all drank hot wine, which tasted like apple cider. After drinking a couple glasses, a middle aged man came over and started to talk to me. He was from New York and thought I was too and wanted to ask me about it. Then he said he had a Hungarian friend who was trying to learn English and asked if we would all talk to him. Of course we said yes, so him and his friend sat with us and we talked the whole night. Sometimes it was kind of difficult, because the guy was so drunk, but it was entertaining nonetheless. After that we headed back to the house, tried to watch a movie, and fell asleep.

November 4th, we woke up late again, then went out and walked around until Chris came home, then he went with us to the train station to get tickets for a sleeper train leaving that night to Brasov. Then we tried to take a bus to a castle, but we couldnt find it, so we went back to town and went to the Terror Museum, which was built in previous nazi headquarters. The museum was really creepy and had displays about communism and nazism in Hungary. Unfortunately, most of the displays were in Hungarian, but we still left feeling creeped out. After getting back to the house, we said goodbye to Chris and Rita. They were very sweet and very hospitable and we had a really great time getting to know them and learning about Hungary. We took a bus to the train station, where we nearly missed our train, but luckily boarded at the last minute and slept all the way to Brasov, where we got in yesterday morning (Nov 3rd) around noon.

We took a taxi to a cheap little hotel, dropped off our things, then walked around in the freezing air, checking out shops, and eating some of the best pasta and pizza I've ever had before getting some wine and going back to the hotel room. Then we just hung out and drank wine, then fell asleep.

Today we are going to try to find Bram Castle and are going to visit the Black Church (it's walls were blackened by a fire in the 1600s) and eat a lot of food.