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.