I've just realised that — so far — I've been in four countries, spanning four language families (Finno-Ugric / Romance / Slavic / Greek) and three different alphabets in a row!
No surprise that I feel so confused …
A note to our fellows western travellers: I'm sorry, but you can't beat the Old Continent!
After a long bus trip from Bucharest, I eventually arrive to Constanţa. The trip includes a stop for the driver's lunch in some kind of spaghetti-western-saloon in the middle of nowhere (see photo).
Once at the train station (see photo), the "Quest For Useful Info" begins.
It seems that people working at information desks only know a few words in English: the numbers (for the prices) and "I don't know" (for everything else). Brilliant! No time wasting whatsoever.
Thus I ask somebody else for the bus station — that is just in the next block, as miss "I don't know" is probably aware of — and head for the Turkish agency: if you go to İstanbul you have to pass through Varna, don't you?
The man at the counter luckily speaks both languages: Turkish and Rumanian, but somehow I manage to eventually get my ticket to Varna.
And after a long bus trip from Constanţa, I eventually arrive to Varna.
On the train from budapest to Sighişoara, trying to sleep — with no success at all — I look over the window every now and then. I can assure you that Romania looks like you travelled in time kind of a century. In the past!
My camera battery is empty so I can't take pictures, thus you somehow has to believe me.
Apart of breath-taking landscapes — like moving 19th-century paintings — my attention is captured by farm workers.
An elder man is picking up with his hands the hay he just cut using a sickle. The most used transport — at least in Transilvania — seems to be the horse-driven cart, and crossing the countryside your sight may stumble upon semi-demolished warehouses, 18th-century houses and haylofts, women wearing traditional costumes for their daily life as well as some luxury-SUV waiting side by side with a horse cart at the rail-road crossing.
This really is the wild-west of Europe.
I'm now writing this notes sitting in front of my 0.71 EUR half liter of Ciuc beer (pronounced as in Italian) in a small deserted cafe in Braşov, listening to traditional music.
And no, I'm not in the 3rd stage cantos regionales!
Oh, and by the way, don't ask me about Sighişoara, because — not having sleeped all night — I fell asleep just during my station stop, proceeding happily to Braşov!
Notes to self
this kind of words in English!
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