First, Bran "Dracula's" Castle is about 30-40 km from Braşov, and to get there I had to take a maxi-taxi that leaves from one of the city's bus stations on the outskirts of the city. To get to the bus station, I had to take two different city buses. While Braşov is a pretty nice city by Romanian standards, the bus network signage still pretty much sucks. What should have taken about thirty minutes ended up taking about ninety--things weren't helped (including my mood) by the fact that it was drizzling and the buses were running less frequently since it was the weekend. When I finally got on the right bus, I grabbed a seat and quickly had my guide book out to check to make sure my route was right. All the sudden the bus hit a pothole, and I looked up and noticed that everyone was frantically crossing themselves and looking kind of frightened. I quickly stood up to see what was going on, startling a few old ladies in the process, just to see that we were passing a church that is apparently pretty important in the area. I sheepishly took my seat and tried to pretend that I hadn't just spazzed out.
Second, I have to be honest, I went to Romania not knowing a single word of Romanian. I tried to learn a few words when I got there and thankfully figured some phrases out that were pretty similar to Italian/Spanish, but I definitely used English as my working language on the trip (English has taken over as the default second language everywhere it seems). In most cases this worked out fine at hostels and such, but I did have some minor problems (sometimes). Turns out that in Romanian accented English, beer sounds incredibly similar to bill. So when thinking we were talking about the bill, this seriously happened once in Bucharest and once in Braşov, I ended up getting another beer (don't mind if I do). The other time this was an issue was in Sinaia, Romania where I had stopped to see Peleş Castle. I was trying to buy a ticket to get to Braşov where I had booked a hostel for two nights, but the lady at the ticket counter and I had some serious communication problems. After repeating everything twice in both English and German, I had finally managed to convey what I wanted, but we were stuck on the question of how I wanted to get there (there were about six different trains I could take all at different costs and speeds).
Thankfully, a nice Romanian university student (we ended up talking for a bit later waiting on the platform for our respective trains), came to my rescue and interpreted for a bit and got things sorted out. When it came to pay I only had a 100 Lei bill (4 Lei = 1 Euro) and the ticket cost about 27 Lei. Turns out the lady didn't have enough change for me. After a few minutes of what I dare to call communication, she took a few customers behind me to see if she could get enough change for me. No go. The Romanian student then went to ask her friends, apparently no one had change to break my bill. In the end, I had to go to a separate office to get change for the lady at the original ticket counter. I then noticed that she had sold me a ticket for a train that was supposed to have left thirty minutes before, when I asked the Romanian student she asked the lady at the ticket counter who said it was fourty minutes late every day, and I still had time to catch it. Such is life in Romania.
Joke: So I'm sitting at this one restaurant in Braşov, slowly poring over the menu deciding what to treat myself to. Under one section, I find something quiet strange. Apparently this restaurant serves fried crap. If my life were a TV show like Seinfeld, the scene would have continued with me questioning the waiter on the crap and the crap with salt., just to order something else and respond with "Sorry, I'm on a no crap diet!"
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