I’m officially in the Lightening Round now. For the Next 3 months I’ll be foolishly rushing through Europe chasing as many stamps as I possibly can as well as trying to get my money’s worth out of my astronomically priced Euro Rail pass.
The dust wont settle until November when I make my way to Morocco and transfer to Argentina. In the rubble, I will have covered somewhere between 15 to 30 countries.
I am now in Transylvania which is actually region of Romania (not a city). The city I am staying in is Brasov (pronounced Brash off).
Before I got here, I stayed in Valinko Teranova (in Bulgaria). Valinko is one of the more beautiful places in Bulgaria. Situated in the mountains, we spent the days wondering around the town eating from wild fruit trees. Several types of cherry and plum trees nourished our journey.
We stayed at one of the most mellow hostels ever named “Hostel Mostel”. It was completely conducive to social gatherings. Instead of a couch in the common room, we sat on oversized pillows. This is an idea that I will undoubtedly take back to the states when I finally come home.
The best part of Valinco was the night time light show that the town has designed around the historical fortress. But it doesn’t go every night, the town only turns on the light show if they are paid the 800 Lev ($600 USD) that tourist buses will pool together and hock out. It must have been designed by the Belagio in Vegas, because it was as classy as it was impressive.
We spent a day down at the local river/pool/waterfall. We could jump from heights of up to 60 feet into the water. We were disappointed with the locals who didn’t do any crazy flips. Come to think of it, the locals were very relaxed and didn’t even ever raise their voices. If this spot were in America you would get people getting ultra drunk and screaming at the top of their lungs.
We took a train to get to Brasov, but first we had to get through Bucharest. Bucharest is widely known by travelers as the most dangerous, ugly, and run down capitol city in all of Europe. The horror stories that come out of this city are amazing, but we decided to catch the next train out to Brasov.
Brasov is the most beautiful part of Romania. Situated in much more beautiful mountains that those of the Bulgarian nature, Brasov is a quaint town. We have only been here a day so far and have already interacted with amazing locals and enjoyed great meals for nearly as cheap as Bulgarian prices. I have been consistently seeing the same people from city to city because in Eastern Europe there are several very popular tracks.
The local Cops told us “You don’t have to drink here” (not you can’t drink here) and 4 locals approached us right after and asked us what the cops said, then they said “those guys drink here all the time”. Don’t listen to them!
Bran Castle is the fabled location of Vlad the Impaler which is the character that Bram Stoker took and ran with to create Dracula. Tomorrow we are going there. I am told that it is a tourist trap now and it is not menacingly dark.
The people in Northern Romania are very kind and helpful. So much for bad ass dangerous Eastern Europe 
On the Danger side, we saw a strung out wolf trotting through the town square. I was fairly sure that it was a wolf based on the size of it’s brain/scull. In addition it walked distinctively more wild than any dog I’ve ever seen.
A little more danger for you; there is a Brasov sign on top of the local mountain that is set up like the Hollywood sign in LA. It is a one hour hike to get to the sign. There are brown bears who frequent the area (at night) and killed a drunken sleeper last year.
We are staying at the rolling stone hostel at the moment and the gal that runs the joint is as eccentric as Dave from Varna! We think they should get married and start the “Rolling Flag” Hostel. It seems that Eastern Europe has the very most eccentric hostels in the world (so far).