My mind concocts eerie plans sometimes. One such strange idea was to drink red wine in the Poenari Castle in Romania at night on Halloween, which was promptly added to my "List of Things to Do Before I Die". So, in order to complete this (possibly considered absurd) wish-list item, I decided to hitchhike to Romania for Halloween. The distance covered, round trip, was to be approximately 3,167mi (5,097km) and the time I had to do it was from Thursday 2p.m. to Tuesday 1p.m. to be in time for my first class the following week. Despite the seemingly impossible time constraints, I successfully managed to get to the castle and back, just in time for my class on Tuesday (arrived back around 12:40pm!), cutting it just shy of being late to class.
Overall, the trip was... exhilarating! I headed south towards London, which was a relatively easy hitch with a jolly old driver who was going to visit his son. From service stations near London, I avoided the the London circle and headed southeast, toward the port in Dover, which meant a ferry crossing. This took a longer time but was completely manageable, but it took 3 car-exchanges to get to Dover, the third car actually crossing over the ferry to France, which was a pretty sweet deal on my part. From Calais, France I hitchhiked with a Belgian truck driver headed to Brussels, in Brussels with a German businessman headed home to Köln, then from Köln with a mother and her two children going to the airport in Frankfurt am Main.
One of the downfalls in hitchhiking during the fall and winter are the shorter daylight hours. By the time I was in Frankfurt, it was already pitch-black and impossible to go further, temperatures beginning to plummet, and drivers less willing to pick up a stranger. Thus, I decided to do what I've done countless other times, sleep at some random shelter, which happened to be a rest area near Frankfurt am Main. Early next morning, I headed out with a change of cardboard signs and successfully hitchhiked to Regensburg, changing cars twice. Once in Regensburg, heading toward Austria seemed problematic, once again. Seriously, for reasons unknown to me, no one in Germany seems to want to go to Austria! Instead of waiting indefinitely for a miracle-car or truck that would take me to Austria, I decided to hitchhike shorter distances toward Austria, with drivers going to smaller towns and villages in Bavaria (Hunderdorf, Deggendorf, Windorf). Finally, after almost giving up and perhaps decided I'd be better off hitchhiking through the Czech Republic, I hitched a ride with an Austrian truck driver going to Linz.
Finally in Austria, for some odd reason, the average wait-time was almost as good as in Slovakia or the Czech Republic this time around! The maximum wait-time in Austria ended up being only 7 minutes! With that I managed to hitchhike all the way to Budapest, Hungary with a German-speaking, half-Hungarian, half-Slovak driver who seriously wondered if I was in the right mind wanting to complete this insane trip, just to cross off one, silly, childish thing on my list. My response was that you only live once and so, why not do all the crazy things in life? In Budapest, I was able to contact an old friend who welcomed me into her home for the night and we caught up on a lot of things before I'd have to head out early on Saturday morning to head across the Hungarian-Romanian border.
Trying to read Hungarian is like... trying to stare wide-eyed at a needle pointed at your eyeball. This language is completely baffling to me and with so many consonants right next to each other, it makes me wonder if it really belongs in the Finno-Ugric language family... perhaps Finnish and Estonian took all the vowels and Hungarian was left with a combination of consonants? Once out of Hungary, after changing cars another handful of times, I found myself in a car with American tourists! Who would've thought? They, however, were headed to the Bran Castle, the much more famous and much much touristy "Dracula" castle in Romania. I attempted to convince them to go to the Poenari Castle instead, but they had already reserved a hotel nearby the Bran Castle and didn't know the area around Poenari too well. Who could blame them? That's what "normal" travelers do. They have concrete plans and hotel reservations. I guess I overlooked the fact that I am not a "normal" traveler. Still, thanks to them, while refueling in somewhere in the middle of Romania, I purchased my bottle of red wine. Then my time with fellow Americans came to a close once we reached a point where Autostrada Transilvania (Bran Castle) split off from E81 (Poenari Castle). I have to admit, Autostrada Transilvania sounds a lot cooler than the road I had to take, "E81"... how sterile!
Oh Romanian roads... how could I have forgotten you? Average wait time was 3 minutes! So with an exchange of a vehicles, friendly drivers eager to communicate in a mixture of Romanian, French, Italian, and German, I found myself on the impossible-to-pronounce Transfăgărăşan road. Transfăgărăşan... try saying that 3 times fast! In any case, by the time I was dropped off there, it was already getting pretty dark. I was told there would be electric plant at the foothold of a cliff/hill and should I manage to find the stairs in the dark, I could stumble my way up the 1,500 steps to the castle. Boy, that was quite a work-out. Finding the actual staircase took a while in itself. Then, walking up the stairs took at least a good 20 minutes. It didn't matter if I was the "stair master" due to the 4 flights of stairs I walked up and down on a daily basis for 4 years as a full-time high school student, those steps were still something, at least going up.
Saturday evening in the "haunted" castle on Hallow's Eve had attracted a few tourists, not necessarily for Halloween, but just because. I spoke with some of the tourists I met while there and told them about my wonderful plan of drinking red wine at night on Halloween inside the castle, to which they lauded my courage. I shared my bottle of wine with them, but saved myself a glass's worth for later. As the night got darker (and colder) the tourists slowly trickled away and I was eventually alone by the time it was midnight. I stood in a corner with my red wine and drank, completing my weekend mission. After emptying my bottle, I realized I had no plans as to what I would do now. Poenari is located on a cliff near villages, no major place for shelter could be found. I decided to sleep in the empty castle.
Unfortunately, that plan did not go over very well. It was cold and the sounds of howling dogs (or wolves?) kept me awake. In the end, I decided it just was impossible to sleep and decided to walk down the cliff. 1,500 steps down from the castle, I found myself on Transfăgărăşan again and walked aimlessly, attempting to warm myself up from the cold. Then I saw a bright light coming from behind me. I turned around, curious. They were high beams from a car as well as what looked like a light being blasted from a mini searchlight. It pulled up next to me and I immediately realized it was a police car. The policemen asked me what I was doing, first in Romanian then in English + French. Despite knowing how crazy it would sound, I told them exactly what I was there to do, what I did, and what I was planning to do. They laughed and then gravely told me it was not safe to sleep in the castle and it was very dangerous, saying that bears and wolves are in the area and I could get attacked. I didn't realize there were wild bears in Transylvania. Then they said they'd find a place for me to sleep and told me to get in the cruiser.
Second time hitchhiking with a cop car was perhaps even better than hitchhiking in a cruiser the first time, which was in Sweden and the police merely dropped me off at a better location from which I could hitchhike. Instead, the Romanian cops took me to what I assume was a convent. They dropped me off and they came out and talked to one of the nuns of the convent in Romanian. Following their talk, they told me that I could sleep there for the night! Wow! I was so surprised and thankful. After offering as many awkwardly, American-accented "mulţumesc"s as I could, I bade farewell to the policemen who then drove away as I entered the convent.
It was much warmer and much more comfortable there than in the abandoned castle and in the morning, a nun even packed me some food to carry with me. I guess I looked like I was starving or something. "Mulţumesc" is the most useful Romanian word you'll use as a hitchhiker! I hitchhiked early Sunday morning back towards Budapest. After a plethora of car-changes and more than 15 hours of hitchhiking, I was back in Austria, where I ended up spending a night in a rest area.
Monday, I was beginning to feel a little desperate since I was still a long distance away from England. Luckily, going from Austria to Germany is a lot easier than the other way around. About 12 hours of hitchhiking later, I found myself near Brussels and decided to contact people I'd met 4 years ago with whom I'd kept in touch. They warmly invited me to stay with them in the spare bedroom and I was able to spend a lovely, pleasant night with them. Unfortunately, I had to get up quite early the next morning to get back to England, so I had to leave them as soon as the sky started lightening.
It took about 6.5 hours to go from Brussels to Cambridge, but in the end, I made it by the skin of the tooth, just in time for class on Tuesday. That was my mini-adventure.
In more recent news, I realize saw that the election results from Tuesday are trickling in. I personally am an independent, neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but usually, I agree with more Democratic party platforms than the conservative Republican views. So I was a little concerned that the Democrats have lost about 60 House Seats and while they have a bare senatorial majority (51 seats of 100 as of now), the huge Republican majority in the House (240 seats of 435 as of now) is bound to make things difficult for the Democratic party agenda. Again, I was unable to vote (or perhaps unwilling to go through the paperwork to cast a ballot overseas) but my brother and sister (who turned 18 in September!) both voted for the first time this year! They are, as I am, independents, so they voted neither party. It is a little depressing to know that the chance of an independent candidate winning a major house or senatorial election is about the same as a snowball's chance in hell. Personally, I think the Swedes got it right with proportional representation, but I think America is too stubborn to change the two-party system.
Today's Random Picture:
