Romania

creepy "hollywood-style" Deva sign... in front of Deva's castle (not the one we visited, we visited a castle in the nearby village Hunedoara, where the Dracula was held prisoner for several years before being deported). Picture by Anja

We took the train from Hortobagy to Romania, early in the morning (because the trip takes 7 hours)... and I must say that the first impression of this country, from what we could see from the window, was not the best... quite "abandoned", with houses in ruins, a lot of factories and houses made out of anything and everything people could find. Of course, the weather also contributed to this creepy feeling, for it was cloudy and gray...




these pipes you can see at the bottom ran through the city we were passing by, exposed to the weather and full of rust... I would never trust those things...

We arrived at Deva and we just could not find the hostel! We didn't have a reservation (none of us has a credit card..) but we had the name that anja found through hostel world and a map from google that she took from a link that was there.
We were walking and walking around, people were looking at us, and two gypsy women tried to ask us something and teased us... it was not comfortable at all!
Well, I called João to try and find out if we were in the right place (poor guy, lol...) and he could not find the hostel on the website! but, if he searched on google, he could get to the page anja saw (probably it was taken down from Hostel World but the link was still up) and find the right location, which apparently was not where we were.
We asked some policemen for directions and headed to the newly indicated street...
...and again, nothing! We just could not find it!
We saw a "villa alex" nearby and we decided, ok, let's just try this one, it doesn't matter if it's more expensive or not, it's just one night and we cannot find a hostel here...
we knocked on the door.
nothing.
again...
nothing.
we started screaming "hellooooooooo! is anyone there????"
and nothing.
we found a phone number on a paper near the door, we decided to call them (anja was the victim), and someone on the other side "hello, welcome to Romania! I hope you enjoy your stay, bla bla bla..." and anja managed to explain to the lady we were at the door. But apparently, she did not understand english that well. Anja started screaming "WE ARE AT THE DOOR! DOOOOOR! HERE! DEVA! VILLA ALEX!" but apparently it was not working... and then the lady called her son because he could speak german, and literally put the cellphones (one with anja's call, the other with her son) in front of each other so that anja could speak to him! lol!
Of course, the sound was terrible and Anja was struggling to understand and be understood, but eventually (not sure how) they realized we were there and wanted to stay there for the night. Uff! The man opened us the door (finally!) and we found out we were in a really really nice house, well furnished and with big rooms.
We were able to pay in Forints...we had no Lei because the intention was to drop the bags in the hostel and go to a place to change money. The german girls pay 6 euros each time they use an ATM, and I did not want to use my card in Romania because, well, my bank could think that my card got stolen again, so we had a lot of forints to change. (ah, the lady in Debrecen's train station information office told us that in Deva we would be able to find a place to change money almost everywhere, which proved to be false).
The lady was actually kind enough to cook us dinner (it was already 22h, if I'm not mistaken?)
... of course, we later found out they took way too much money compared to the average price of the food! Oh well, not a big problem...


our exquisite bathroom!

On the next day I went to an atm and took money for all of us, because it was sunday and nothing else was open, and we needed money to pay the entrance in the castle.
Actually, we just saw a van (with ten seats, or something like that) that had a label saying "hunedoara" and we just pointed to the driver, who stopped and allowed us to get in. (definitely a weird system!).
In Hunedoara, we found a taxi and just took it (we were 4 and it cost around one euro to each one, quite cheap indeed) and finally, we were at the castle!





aaaaand...
...it was not that creepy, lol.



The weather was fine, sometimes even sunny, and I believe Romania itself, the surroundings of the castle, were far more scary that the castle itself.


view from the castle... such a chaos! I think "urban planning" hasn't arrived to Romania yet..


the entrance, over a river (like a real castle! hah!)


inside...


Theresa and Anja trying to warm up in the sun... they were so cute, trying to fit into that sun frame!


picture by Anja, while she was in the "warming-up spot"


view from the castle.




detail of the painting covering the main tower.




the sun was almost setting when we decided to have lunch... (a picture by Juliana)


picture by Anja. They had these "pops" of color everywhere... it's strange, you would see old, ruined gray/muddy houses, next to colorful (and I mean reaaaally colorful) facades, popping out from the gloomy atmosphere.


another colorful house, picture by me

After lunch, we decided to walk all the way down to Hunedoara... and on the way there was this cute animation for the people crossing the street, and Juliana filmed it.




...and an ice-cream house. (picture by Juliana)

We then bought some food in a supermarket for the night, and took the bus back to Deva, grabbed our bags from Villa Alex and headed to the bus terminal... we were going to take the "Orange Ways bus", that would take us the whole night from Deva to Budapest... we were searching for the terminal, and searching, and searching... the only thing that said on our ticket was that it was next do mac donalds, but the whole bus terminal was next to it! we asked a guy, that sent us to a building... but the lady in there sent us back to the place near mac donalds... we were getting a little bit desperate when we finally realized that a big orange bus had just stopped next to it, on the street!
Uff!
It was time to go back to Budapest, to rest for 3 days before our second part of the trip...