The Last Day in London II, the return of the man in black...

(Be forewarned, the title has little to do with the blog.)
Today was the last and least exciting day in quite some time. The only thing that we did out on the town was visit the British Museum, which is a very large museum of history from all over the world. It is best know for the Rosetta stone and the marble decorations from the Acropolis, formerly known as the Elgian marbles after the man who "saved" them from Greece. It was quite the museum with a healthy dose of dead bodies and mummies to boot. My favorite galleries were those on Mesopotamia and the African exhibit which has fantastic statues made from the remaining guns from wars in Africa that have been dismantled and assembled into art. So after three hours there I had good old fashioned fish and chips in a proper British bar. The last of our day out was spent on my final tube ride and shopping for dinner. Bev made her famous enchiladas and we had a very charming, very British lady over for dinner. Sadly it wasn't Mrs. Theresa Mabbot, who I emailed and lost her phone number in Romania, so if she happens to recieve a call from some strange person speaking a foreign language, she knows who to look for. It was interesting to hear a former San Fransiscan telling us how she hates Obama because he has caused all of the problems for UK and is not doing anything, even though those very problems were starting about 8 years ago with our former president Bush, so all I have to say is: don't blame Obama, he is doing a good job cleaning up all the crap he inherited from Bush while also dealing with all of the problems arising from around the world. Just think what it would be like with McCain ruling the US, nothing would be done and the everything would just be put off for the next four years before finally being cleaned up. She was very nice company and put into perspective the European dislike for the US, after all, it was Bush's fault for some of their problems. Oh, and there is no way US universal health care would be payed for or put burden upon anyone who is outside of the borders, unless they want to pay... And now I'm done writing about politics, for now, and will sign off with the anticipation for my final British pudding, so lets see how it fares against sticky toffee pudding...

Kindeys feel like a well ground steak

Today was long. 11 hours. Leaving at 9 and returning at 8. The first part was spent out at Portobello Market, which is a little bit like Canal Street in Ney York, but with more food and less crap. We walked along it all, and by ten, just as we were making it out to the top of the street, the crowds came, just flocking in filling the sidewalks and the street itself. It was surely a pickpocket's heaven, and walking up against the crowd made us a little less likely targets. We hopped on a bus and rode it to Piccadilly's Circus from where we walked over to the national gallery. It was a nice museum, but the majority of the fantastic paintings were not on display, as the computer told me. There were many examples of Bottechelli, Raphael, Van Eyke, Monet, Piccasso, Rembrant, Vermeer and even a Da Vinci, among countless less famous artists that were stored away in the basement. Considering the Small floorspace that was used, it is far more appaling what was stored than say the amount in the Louvre, which has over 375,000 paintings. After passing a statue of George Washington outside the museum (?) it was a walk along a few squares to the theatre to watch Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. It was really a fantastic play, with an astounding cast and some fun writing and songs, think traditional Phantom music with a little bit of a rock influence, even a song that was practically rock. After the play I treated Bev and Buz to a dinner at the oldest (continually operating) resteraunt in England, Rules. It was very fun, with political cartoons decorating the walls and an very eloquent feeling inside. I had, against my better judgement and only because of the traditinal nature of the dish, steak and kidney pie. The very first thing that I thought was that it smelled alot like the churches that we went in, my second thought was "only one oyster?" followed by "that certainly is a good looking oyster." It was... interesting. I don't think that I've ever had anything quite like it. It had some strange flavors and a very gross taste of the kidneys. I will have it again, but not for quite some time. The best part of the meal was the mustard, a very spicy English mustard with a very nice flavor before the heat swept through my mouth making my eyes water. So it was a nice tube ride back and finally home for the night.

Eyeing London

Today was a very long day, spending almost 11 hours out in the city. Starting from 10 we left and went out to Westminester Abbey, going through the church for and hour. As compared to the wooden and painted churches, this was a refresher of the traditional granduer that European churches bring to mind. This church has a great amount of famous and rich and royal bodies burried somewhere in the grounds. IT has everyone from Elizabeth I to Darwin to Laurance Olivier. It was quite elaborate and colorful, perfectly fitting for the coronation of the queens and kings. Right after we beelined it (as far as the tube will beeline) and walked across the millenium bridge, the one that is supported entirely from the sides, over to the Globe Theatre. After a lunch upstairs, it was to our seats on the second row up in fairly good spots. The play was Macbeth, and fittingly, the actors had some very convincing makeup with gashes and shine as well. It was a very convincing performance with a fantastic cast and directions. It was far more about the audience than I thought before, and people up close had to stand beneath a black piece of cloth with just their heads poking out to see to protect them from... liquids which were part of the performance. After the show we walked along the Thames to the London Eye, the giant ferris wheel that is all white and pretty well recognizable. It was another 30 minutes spent circling around the sky, looking out on London and getting dripped on by a leaky AC unit on the ceiling of out pod. And somehow that took up 8 hours, and it was in the tube with someone who had visited the SCL Burger Co. who was in a hurry and passed right by me, what a coincidence. So we then made it to the local pub and I enjoyed an impressive Asian Duck salad, something that I dont quite associate with pub food. Another ten minute walk, a stop for gelato and back to the house for the night.

5:30 am all day

We woke up early, really early. 5:30 early to make it through the 120 Km left to the airport before 10. Which we did, but barely. I luckily slept through it all, with my bag buckled into the seat next to me like another passenger. Apparently Bucharest was worse than ever before, with a 30 minute traffic jam just to go one block in the center of the city. Have I mentioned yet that every single road in Romania travels directly through the center of the town before opening up into the fast road again? They all go directly through the centrum, sometimes taking 30 minutes for a very small town. We made it through our flights, and the 2 Km walk from terminal 3 to 1 in Heathrow, through customs, into a van for hire and back to our cute little purple house. It was then rest and reaquainting before going out for Tex- mex in notting hill. It didnt have any mexican gravy, so it wasnt really Tex-Mex, more like Nevada-Mex, suprisingly good for England, just about the same as the Mexican in Bucharest. Finally it was a walk back home, stopping into the Tesco to buy fruit, milk, a newspaper and flowers for tomorrow morning. All day has been tiring, and now I feel like sleeping. Not the first time today, but it should be nice anyway.

There's a reason Dracula can become a bat.

Today was fairly slow, leaving Sighishuara and visiting a fortified church, not a monestary. It was high up on the mountain and had two special locks, one on the front door required flipping the key upside down after the first turn, opening another lock. The inner door had 15 different bars to lock, and 4 more directly in the lock part. After leaving that we traveled into another fortified town and had lunch and walked just a little while in the horrible rain storm covering all of the country. The local church has the REAL biggest organ in Romania, with over 6,000 pipes. Too bad it was covered with scaffolding. Then we drove another few hours to the site of Vlad Dracul's castle that he built during his life, of which only half is still remaining up right, because part of it all broke free and fell off of the cliff that it was built upon. We did not walk up to the castle because there was over 1400 steps up. That's with the modern sized step, I cant imagine what it would have been like in the day the it was made. We spent another hour driving, and ended up at out hotel in Pitesti with a taxi driver showing our way and a bolt in the tire. So at 8:30 I go outside and with a little help from Buz chandge the tire on our Golf, and put on the doghnut that is supposed to get us 120 miles to Bucharst in the early morning tomorrow for out flight back to London.

Music to My Eyes

We woke up this morning in Cuj, and... we did stuff, too late to remember what we did. We all went to an Ethnographical museum which had an impressive collection of local traditional items from fishing gear to clothing used during christmas and weddings. The new year's mask looks something like a Where the Wild Things Are Thing face, made from wook and leather designed to loook a little comical while scaring. We left and went out to a violin factory in the coutryside. We had to pretend that my new viola was made at their factory to let them give us a tour in the factory, and we got in and had a tour through all of the steps of the making process. Every part that they could use was clearly made in the iterest of cutting costs, with low quality in areas and corners cut in the final steps of the finishing. So we spent the night in the oldest inhabited walled city in Eastern Europe called Sighischuara (si(like simple)-gi(gift) schua(swash)- ra(random[with a lazy accent]). We took a tour led by two high-school students who knew far more about their city than I know all about Salt Lake City. We sat down for our last dinner and had my second most traditional meal this trip, after gulash. After I watched a Romanian film that won awards at Sundance and local festivals out in an open square just a few hundred feet from our hotel.
And the movie ended and I went to sleep. THe end.

Applebees of the East

For a change of pace today, we dove for no more than two hours all day. This drive was not seperated at all though, and we had two hour long stretches with just a break for a snack around noon. Before we left, we ran into the square of Baia Mare and found bathroom mats and a real hat for me, a nice brown rabbit fur hat. It is a million times better than yesterday's, but that was just for the experience. We arrived into our town very early in the day, around two, and checked into my tiny room in a quaint little hotel. I have a little room with a single bed, bathroom and little more floor space than my bag takes up. The nice part is that there is a little terrace with tables and an awning for when it rains, which it is now, almost as lound as a rock concert. There is also a little food area with a coffee machine, microwave, fridge, sink and a table for people who just want to chill out with a nice snack. It's very nice actually. We all walked down to the square and ran into the same band from a few days ago playing outside the little art accademy in town. We walked around and enjoyed the impressive display of buildings from every century since the 1400s. The little cobbled square has a roman street excavation and many statues made from recuclable trash, which was all recovered and put to use. We stopped in for a snack and ordered a "chocolate shake" which turned out to be chocolate syrup in milk with ready whip on top, with two bendy straws. It was refreshing, if not what I expected to find in a European bar, and being only a dollar, it wasn't that big of a dissappointment. We then ventured into the city's botanical garden, just up the street from out hotel, and found the natural forest to be relaxing, even with a simple Japonese garden in the middle of it all. We went back, cleaned up, watched Wimbledon for a little while and then waited for the rain to stop for about 45 minutes. We had our dinner in a large resteraunt with an open room on top with just a roof over it, and about 50 tables, whos chairs were covered in brand new Heineken beer cushions. We all ordered reasonable dishes, which were tasty, but far too sweet, and apparently Bev and Buz's wine was horrible, with "too much barnyard," never trust organic wine apparently. The whole place had the feeling of a chain resteraunt, with premade feel all over it, and having three in the city does not help that feeling. After trudging through another gale to our hotel, our day is now over, and the rain is not.

Wood is all the Rage

Yesterday was the day of painted churches, and today is the day of the wood churches. We went to three, but only entered two. The first church was a fairly simple church as compared to the other examples, with no interesting paintings or art and height. It was built on a little hill, with a large cemetary surrounding it. These churches are built entirely from from wood, tall and long with wooden shingles and biblical scenes painted directly onto the wood inside. After looking around the outside, an hour before the church would be unlocked, we left and headed off for the next church. It was also on a hill, something that was quite common among these churches. Built from about 1650, these churches were built quite quickly and were the most popular style for the area. Our second church was full of the most amazing paintings, almost 400 years old and very worn out, but amazing nonetheless. There were scenes of hell and the Garden of Eden, all of which were stained in comparison to the wood behind on which it was painted on. So we left this church and went off to the next monestary, but stopped along the way. We found a little stand of trinkets, run by an old man and woman, who were offering us a hat. I have been looking for one of the hats that the old men wear here, they are little alpine fedoras, small and worn on the top of the head. So we stopped and I tried a hat on, but it was poor quality, but being only 8 dollars, I figured that I might as well get it, just to have one in case I never have another chance. The greatest part of it all was the old man who was selling them, he was wearing three on his head and looked like a child of the soviet area. We did not understand a single word of each other, flapping our arms around and using silly hand signals to cummunicate our messages to each other. He was very interesting, happy and funny with a poor , inhygenic man, a perfect example of Romanian poverty. We made it to the monestary, the tallest of all the wooden churches, which was in the wooden version of a European Disneyland. With large elaborate houses and new wood and flowers everywhere, one was given the impression of being in a Disneyland. The next stop was the happy cemetary, which has its name arise from all of the wooden crosses that are painted in bright colors depicting the professions of the people burried there. Despite being no more than fifty years old, some of the crosses are in very bad shape with paint peeling and faded. It is almost surreal to see a graveyard full of bright blues, reds and whites spreading at least a hundred graves deep and fifty wide. That was the end of the fun of the day and all that was left was a two hour car ride along a widy road past a few gypsy camps into our Best Western hotel here in another inpronouncable city in Romania.

Religion Sells

Today was the day of church hopping. We traveled to 4 different monestaries: Suchevitsa, Voronets, Humor and Arbore, or the green, blue, red and the undefined color churches respectively. Suchevitsa was just a few kilometers from our hotel, and is very well preserved on all but the western wall, which is the main direction from which rain and snow come from in the area. This church is well known for its fresco depicting the family tree of Jesus Crist. It covers all of the eastern wall, and it has about one hundred different portraits. Voronets was the last church that we visited in the day. Voronets is without a doubt the blue church. Every background, and boarder is painted in a vivid blue. The most famous fresco in this church is the large perfectly preserved painting of the last judgement, in which the path to heaven is depicted, along side the scale of justice and all animals giving back to God what they have eaten. Each church has its own version of the last judgement, but this was the main focus of all of Voronets' attraction. Arbore was a wonderful church to visit, being small, out of the way and with no tourists or nuns in sight. The whole site is run by a 48 year old woman who has been working there for the last 17 years, learning French and German from the visitors to the church. I particularly enjoyed speaking to her and being the translator for Bev and Buz. She explained that all of the frescos in the interior of the church tell the entire story of Jean the Babtist. There were also some special paintings which she pointed out, such as the hands of God reaching out to Mary, composed of the souls of all of the people on Earth. Humor was a very red church, being mainly composed of warm colors and red borders. It was a fairly boring church, having very few frescos that were unique. After there was just a few hour ride to our sleeping point in Bistrita. In our hotel there is also staying a tour bus full of Southern Babtists who are on missions here in Romania to provide aid to little babtist churches in the Transylvania area. It is quite surreal to find about 80 Floridans and Georgians in a little city in a minor eastern European country who ask if you too are on a mission and try to give you the word of God as the Americans see it. We went into the town and had a very American pizza in the square, which was filled with people who were immitating a mideaval scene, with bands and horses and flag twirlers wandering through the blacksmith, cheese and cheap souvineer shops. After supporting a theremin player who actually crafted his own instrument, we headed back to the hotel and made it home before nine o'clock for the first time in several days.

8 Hours of Scratchy Cloth Hell

Yesterday was full of driving and waiting for the driving to end. We drove all the way through Romania, up from Brasov to the north in Sucevita. We passed through some beautiful areas, all the way through a massive george in the mountains, around the edge of a beautiful lake and over a perfectly paved pass maintained by the EU. We saw our first painted church, the Modavita monestary which was just amazing. The painted churches are monestaries that are painted with frescos both inside and out. Each painting tells a story from the bible, and each church has a unique color scheme that stands out among all of teh others. The Moldavita monestary is the yellow church, with the halos around the saints being a very vibrant yellow. We spent the night in a hotel, several kilometers off of the main road, which took a total of 7 kilometers to find in a city that is just 3 kilometers long. That was very nice but the advertised internet did not work so I have forgotted most of what I meant to write about yesterday. We all found out first hand why the leather is prefered over the cloth on this car, because at least the leather doesnt rub away your skin slowly

The Big Blow Out

Today was the first slow and quiet day of the entire trip, in comparison to all the others. We all awoke fairly early in the day to go out to Bran castle, the supposed castle that Dracula came from. In all reality he had nothing to do with it other than possessing a bed for a night or two. He is like Bush, he did very little but it's all people talk about. It was also a very boring castle in all reality, but that is not without a cause. This castle is very old, small and secure on a hill top to protect it from attack from the turks and the Europeans. So its as old as the egg, which came a few hundred years after the chicken, of course. Inside, the walls are layered after many different restorations, the outermost is a boring layer of white plaster over everything. The only furnishings are some chairs and a few permanent stoves and things, but for the most part it is all just wood floors and white walls. So we blew that oversized and over hyped popsicle stand and headed to a very picturesque, very closed citadel on the hill. Niticeing that it was closed, we we all like "oh no they di'int" and just drove away, leaving no trace. Driving home, we passed the lower difficulty ski area in Romania, with 2 gondolas 4 high-speeds and two bunny lifts, sans the ski bunnies, it was a very simplistic area that I will never bother to ski at. They were building massive hotels all around the resort, so many that if they were all full, one would not even be able to see down the hill past all of the pot bellied men and women. Back in Brasov we went and saw the Black church. No its not a gospel hostel, as you might be thinking back in the stated, but it is a gothic church, the largest in Eastern Europe, that burned in a fire and was scared black from the soot and burns. This has a 4,000 piece organ that is the largest in Romania, as well as 104 oriental carpets on display, the largest in Romania as well. We then went to the Ethnicological Museum that houses many examples of native dress, and traditional textiles and the way that they were produced were all on display. We then went to the not so impressive art museum, which had the artist who is featured on a portrait on the five dollar bill. We went back to the hotel where I typed yesterday's report. Then it was back out to the piazza to hear the real performance of the Orchestra performing Carl Orff. We had dinner in the square agian, this time at a little chinese resteraunt that had an interior more imressive than anything I saw at good old Bran. The food was alright, tasty and filling, but it was definitely Romanian Chinese food, with strange spices and fillers in the egg rolls. It was all quite strange food, which they would say of our "traditional" international food. Dinner was over and we went up into the massive crowd to look at the concert, which was much better set up than it was last night, with giant screens on both sides and some nice decorations on the stage. Right near the end, just a little while before the fireworks began, during a massive crecendo which ended with the symbols and drums smashing, there was an explosion. It smashed out through the square and it was the sound, so loud, that to keep the sound levels in proportion, pushed so much electricity through the systems that it blew out the screens and the entire sound system, nothing was working any longer. Once that happened, we were had seem enough and did not stay for the next few pieces, and our night was over.

Louis XIV or a Humble Ruler?

Yesterday was a day for the rulers. It started out with visiting the People's House in Becharest and touring just 4 of the 200+ halls in the building. The amazing part of it all, was the sheer likeness of the building to Loius XII's Verseille, later used by Louis XIV to rule more completely over his subjects. Each of the halls was vast and decorated with very ornate moldings over every surface, and each contained a liberal amount of crystal and gold plating. The whole building was built with dimensions that are far larger than they need to be, with 16 meter high curtains and rugs that are so large they needed to be installed by placing 6 different pieces together before laying it into the ground. The place is so large that 6 different conferences for international businesses were being held on that same day, closing off many different halls to touring. The People's House was built by Chachesceu as a place to rule and was in fact modeled after Verseilles. During construction, more than 30,000 homes were destroyed to make room for the building and the Soviet appartments that lined the fountained boulevard that leads up to the main driveway. So after visiting that hulking scar of revered hatred by the people, we left the hotel and went of to Peles, (the s with the lemecont is pronounced like sh, so it is like Bucharesht), the mountain palace of Romania's first king Carol I. He was the son of the king of Germany, and had a great reserve of wealth to create his palace in the Carpathian mountains. Peles is a very small and warm house that is fairly large, but not so massive as to seem imposing. It is made primarily made of wood, carved and inlaid by over 10,000 workers almost 40 years to complete this castle from 1883. It was all some very inspiring wood work, and he interior was for the most part designed by Carol I's wife, Maria. That man though, was one creepy guy, he was obsessed with weapons. He had over 4,000 pieces in his weapon collection. He kept most of them just outside his study, so if he didn't use his secret passage, he would wake up, walk through his massive gun and sword collection, possible look at the armored horse and gaurd set, then sit down and start working out the taxes of Romania. I mean, how can a man work like that? His mind drifting off to his favorite musket or the point sword over his mantel. So we left, and headed into a one hour and thirty minute traffic jam for a 100 meter stretch of paving. All of the waiting was particularly frustrating as the other side of cars just kept coming for about twenty minutes before our direction was let through for about two minutes at most. So we finally made it into Brasov (again, Brashov), a fairly large city in the mountains about 80 miles out of Bucharest. We checked into our falsely advertized hotel, that was supposed to be one star better than it is. Which is apparent in walking up the flight of stairs from Bev and Buz's "unacceptable" suite that could have passed as an appartment, into my tiny room with two single beds and a little tiny fan for air conditioning. So we left out for dinner, and were greeted with the same music echoing through the alley as we had heard at the orchestra concert several days before in Bucharest. The square, as it turned out, was full of musicians playing Carl Orff's music for the city. We sat down at a little resteraunt on the edge of the square and listened. After dinner was finished, but before we left, and about 2/3 of the way through the piece, it began to pour. I mean, 30 seconds later, the whole square was fully covered by a river of running water, near the edge of the square (which is more than a block in size) the water was running more than an inch deep. This lasted for about 45 minutes, in which we went inside and ordered desert and met two professors from Colorado University, and then went back to the hotel for the night.

Foiled by (post-soviet) Democracy

Check the news! Quick! Is there anything about Romanian protests? No? Damn! Well, if the US media wasn't just there to keep people watching you might be seeing something about Romanian citizens demonstrating outside of the People's House, the home of Romania's legislature. They were protesting the government's proposed cuts of 25% to the pensions and salaries of government benficiaries. There were close to 7,000 protestors surrounding the giant square building, which is gigantic and is as long as 8 city blocks on each side. These people were from syndicats representing people from police officers to some college students who were carrying dummies on the end of poles with pilitical officials faces taped over the face. These dummies were later burned and maimed by angry protestors. The interesting part was seeing later on TV the police who told us that even they felt that the government people were thiefs, doing their job and fighting the crazy crowd. Oops, I forgot to mention that these crowds stopped us from even looking inside the building, which is what we wanted to do in going there. I even at one point was given a paper hat from the polive syndicate from a drunk guy who said he hated Americans because we are arrogant, and the only president he liked was Reagan. I do understand that he helped bring down communism, but he was still a horrible president who probably never learned what his cabinet meant when they told him "Ronny, we dont have enough money, we are in a defecit." We left that place after seeing the European version of what looked like a Ku Klux Klan meeting that found a bad dry cleaner who accidentaly made their robes red and burned off their mask part. We headed for the museum of Romanian history, only to find it closed, on Tuesday... a sign of things to come. We went across the street to the bank, built in the late 1800s. I was closed, but the nice security gaurd let us look around, very nice architecture. Then we went down a little street and saw a beautiful church and had lunch in an 1879 beer hall. It was very nice and I had an interesting stew that was very traditional. So we left and walked another hour or so and saw a few more churches, all of which were closed on Tuesday, making the very long walk even more frustrating because it had no rewards.we made it back to the hotel in time to rest up and get ready for a concert. So, we all took cold showers and tried to reverse the oncoming dehydration. It is 35+ degrees Celcius with quite a high humidity content. We headed back to the national theater to listen to an acoustic jazz concert in the little room in the basement. While the musicians were very handsome, and they played some interesting and popular songs, it really wasn't worth a standing ovation. It was quite far from the performance my brother and I heard in New York in March. That concert was just superb. It was over, and so, apparently, was the downpour. The street around back was gutter to gutter water, 3 inches deep. Thusly, the resteraunt sat us inside, which was unbearably hot. We resituated ourselves outside before we ordered, and enjoyed a lovely Romanian dinner which all had polenta and some thick sauces. The day was over, and we made it back safe, well, as safe as one can be after seeing a drunk man try to wail over a taxi cab for three foreigners.

Good bye Mr. Pothole, oh! there you are again! Also known as: "Look at these damned roads!"

We all awoke early this morning to get out of Bulgaria early in the day, after visiting the fortress and one of the churches in the town that we were staying in. Both were old and had paintings, nothing too unique. However, the paintings in the churches were both with their own attractment. The fortress had new paintings with a very unique style, almost cubist, but a little newer. This all makes for a very intriguing picture of Jesus, especially the collage behind the altar. The other church was ond of the oldest, with frescos remaining from the 11th century. The most suprising thing of them all were the excavation sites of the burrial grounds. There were about twenty Bulgarian men removing dirt from around about five skeletons. It was quite the sight when you aren't expecting anything like it. Soon after we were off to the boarder, dodging some potholes, which at the time, seemed pretty bad. And then we reached the boarder. Situated on the Danube river, it involves a road tax on one side, a drive over to the other side for the customs passport check. Crossing the bridge, one sees a sign that reads "Romania" and thinks as follows: "well I'm in Romania now this is... HOLY CRAP, DID I JUST DESTROY MY SUSPENSION!?!!!!?!!!" Because, you see, about 10 meters from the sign is a giant hole in the road which for some reason only seems to stretch the Romanian entering side of the road. Its almost as if they are saying, "Welcome to Romania, here's a nice taste, now get used to it." How hard can it be to just take care of the roads? And from what I hearm the worst is yet to come... *dun dun dun* So we made it to Bucharest with for intact suspension corners and tires, and proceded to walk through the city and found that the local Orange mobil store had not only cushy chairs and free internet, but also little localy decorated statues that look like obese 1 foot tall aliens from the movie Aliens. The best part of it all was that with the exchange rate for the US dollar, they only cost about $100. Which for an origional (in more ways than one) piece of art is reasonable. Bev then informed us that she had found a Mexican resteraunt. Thats right, a Mexican resteraunt, in Bucharest, Romania. And the greatest part was that it was actually good. It wasn't quite New Mexican, but it was definitely better than Tex-Mex. It was some where in between California Mexican and Utah Mexican. Without the grease of the California Mexican, but with the cheap comfort food quality of a nice Utah Mexican resteraunt. And it downright made Virginia Mexican look like a Dr. Suess creation from Hell. So while I sat there with my three tacos overstuffed with super salty beef, I watched Bev and Buz slowly make it through their mojito and margeritas respectively. As the dinner progressed, Buz became just a little more flirty with the waitress, and Bev just a little bit more like... well... Bev. It just took one more taxi ride and a lovely walk up the stairs to make it back to the computer, and to wait out my hands as I type another post.

What the hell is that!

Well, today has been a pretty exciting day. I found out that the Bulgarians believe that an American breakfast consists of very nice rolls and french fries and eggs. Only the eggs reminded me of home. Good old Utah cuisine. So we left and I missed the first two hours of the car ride because I was completely asleep. Oh wait! We visited a mosque and thats where I first fell asleep. Actually it was very interesting, it was one of the best things of the day. It was built in 1744 in a very interesting Rococo style, all of the architecture was very elaborate and beautiful, it was very large and had some lovely molding all around the arched window wells way up high. So then we left and I fell asleep. I woke up and assumed the shotgun navigator position and witnessed three feet closer the horrors of the eastern European drivers. Zooming arond through the day, we witnessed an semi truck pass a car and another truck going down a hill near a blind corner, ending up with everyone braking to let the truck back in less than 100 ft. from a little car. Later the truck pulled off the same move, except this time it was ascending a hill, just a few hundred yards from the crest. It was all quite nerve racking. And of course there were the many times where we saw cars use the left turn lane as a passing lane near the high way, completely disregard no passing signs and the times where we had to avoid sich crazy people who open their door ten feet in front of our car. And thus the one situation in which we uttered the phrase "What the hell is that!" The next occurance was at Thracian tomb that was a UNESCO site. When we first arrived, we saw that it was all locked up and no apparent way in, "What the hell is this!" It took a little bit of contentment to find a way in, which we recieved with tickets that we purchased at the copy site, which we went in to look at and found out what we needed to look for. The actual tomb was amazing, dug out of a ground, there was a little slit opening into an antichamber which had some weathering damage on the frescos. Inside the main circular chamber was astounding. There were perfectly preserved paintings all around the head high cone ceiling, depicting all parts of the burial and a little bit of the persons life. It was interesting to say the least. The next time we "swore" as the Utahns would say were the two times that we passed soviet monuments. None of them made any sense, as they look like giant cement and iron mashes that are supposed to represent events.

There were two, one in our little town and one about half way. The little town we are staying in is simply picturesque. There is a nice river, and it is all built on a hillside in the renaissance sometime. I dont know when but it is beautiful. I had my first traditional bulgarian dish, in a traditional bulgarian resteraunt. It was old and wooden and had the traditional molding and everything. I had a stew, which completely blew my preconceptions away. It was tasty and well cooked, with a great mix of vegetables, egg and meat. Fantastic.
So we made it back to the hotel through the new street with shops and all. The nicest street today was a quaint little mountain road that was possibly even worthy for my dad on his motorcycle. It ran through the mountains with many smooth curves and a colorful forest off opposite the cliff. So that was my day, and if you want to hear Bev or Buzz's oppinions, then that is not my resposnibility. One more day, one more story, one more experience that changes my way of thinking.

I am getting a little behind.

I am sitting here in this AMAZING room in Bulgaria, trying to remember what I did in the last few days. There has just been so much that I have trouble keeping track of it all. So, I think the last post I had gone all around London, so that means that the next day we went to some of the museums around town, which was pretty cool . Bev and I saw an exibit on the exploration and life in the deepest part of the ocean. There was defenitely quite a bit to see in the VnA and the Natural History Museum. Then, the next day we traveled from London to Bucharest in Romania, where we were immedietly informed that the car company had up booked at the local private airport instead of the international airport that we pretty much had to go through. In the end we were given a nice new white VW Golf, which is pretty awesome. Go VW! We drove into the city where we met a very nice woman who was to be our guide for the evening.
We went to what was for me the greatest orchetra performance I have ever been to. It was held in the national theatre and was performed by the Romanian Philharmonic Orchestra along with some amazing soloists. The first half was a Piano Symphony by Bethoveen, which included a most amazing pianist who was beyond belief. After a quick break, I was back to the orchestra to perfom Orff's Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi with an amazing choir which sent chills down my spine. Good times. We went out and walked around the royal square of Romania, and had an amazing dinner before heading in for bed. This morning we set off out of Bucharest, with all of their crazy drivers who are actually quite appaling. We treveled through into Bulgaria, and had to ask directions thrice just to get to the border crossing, on the Danube. We made it through and after mant directions being asked ended up at two UNESCO sites and a Roman ruin. The first was a monestary in the cliffs, with frescoes painted directly onto the rock, ceiling and all. It was quite breathtaking. And then on our way to the rider carved into the rock, we stopped at a roman ruin, with outer wall and inner square completely intact from the base of the walls down. Last of all we made it to a UNESCO site that was a giant statue in a cliff, depicting a hunter riding a horse and hunting. Above it there was a fortress from the 12th(?) century. After seeing the tiny carving (8 feet high at the most) I decided to clim the 325+ stone steps up the cliff to the fortress. The journey was definitely as amazing as the destination. The steps were very old stone carved things, which near the top were almost 3 feet higher than the one before. At one point there was a little metal bridge that one has to cross to go across two points of the steps. At the top there was the entrance and two sides of the wall to a fortress and a few house foundations to explore. The walls went all the way out to the top of the cliff, on both sides, and it really made four secure sides. Before I went down I went in to a small partial clearing to look at a church foundation, but I stepped into the field and suddenly had about 50 bees fly out around me. I got out of there with just one bite which was red for a little while but no stings. I made it down after another twenty minutes of steps with a sheep cliff face off of one side and we set off for our hotel. We got into the city and spent the next hour trying to find the place (they really need more signs around here. There are very few that actually tell you what you need to know.) So we all finally made it to the hotel and found it to be fantastic. We are all in the most amazing of rooms, large, new and cushy. So now I believe theat I am going to bed, just after Star Trek finishes. You know that Kirk wins and the girl is heart broken but learns a lesson from it all.

I'm just too tired

Well, somehow we made it on a flight to London a day early. It all happened with so much luck it was amazing. We ended up running home and Bev and Buz threw all their stuff into a bag, they still don't even know what they ended up bringing. I got a row to myself, just like all the other 18 passengers flying in coach. When we got to London we spent the rest of the day trying to stay awake long enough to get into a semi regular sleep pattern, 8 o'clock here, noon at home. Needless to say, we didn't do too much. But today Bev and I took a sight seeing tour all throughout the city, I climbed all the way to the top of St. Paul's cathedral and all. London Tower, Tower Bridge, around all the parks, everything.
We had to get up really early to make it to the bus, and I am just exhausted right now. So, before I fall asleep, I will finish this sentence and wrap it all up.