Cant Wait to Ve in Tour Arms Again in Romanian

hiking in Romania

Arriving in Romania seemed to marker a new phase of our trip. I guess it was starting to feel like the end, as after Romania we would only have the Balkan countries left earlier flying to Norway and unpacking our backpacks.

Entering Romania besides marked something exciting: my 70th state! I'm not entirely sure how that happened, merely information technology felt good!

When Dan and I arrived in Cluj-Napoca, our Couchsurfing host Radu took us out to dinner with a agglomeration of his friends.

Their kickoff question for united states of america: "Why did you want to come here?"

Followed by: "Weren't y'all scared to come Romania?"

And: "Have you been robbed yet? Are you certain? Where'due south your wallet?"

It turned out Dan and I both still had our wallets, phew.

In fact, in a heed-boggling contradiction to the popular stereotype, we managed to hold onto our wallets during our entire two weeks in Romania.

Don't breathe sighs of relief too quickly, though. There's still a lot to fear from Romania.

To help boyfriend travelers out, I've come up with a list of the nine well-nigh of import things to expect out for should yous be so intrepid as to consider a trip Romania yourself.

Considering, allow's exist real, who doesn't adopt web log posts in the class of a list?

1. It'south like being thrown effectually a bizarre fourth dimension warp.

I had heard that visiting Romania would be like traveling back in time, where I could expect to come across plenty of quaint villages sprinkled with haystacks and horses pulling carts along dirt roads.

Sure enough, expect what I constitute!

Breb, Romania

Breb, Maramureș

piatra craiului national park

Piatra Craiului

Merely a few days after blissfully traipsing through pre-Industrial villages, I found myself smack dab in the middle of Romania circa ~~1993~~ 2015. At a Suie Paparude concert in Cluj-Napoca, to be exact.

https://world wide web.youtube.com/lookout man?v=-due north-RgLefrJw

And while zooming through the Transylvanian countryside, I didn't see many dirt roads. In fact, the roads I did run into were quite impressive compared to, say, the often one-lane national "highways" in Kingdom of norway. Futuristic much?

two. Vampires are real, and they're in Romania.

I try to be a savvy traveler, and sometimes that ways taking cues from popular civilisation.

If living in the age of True Claret, Twilight and The Vampire Diaries has taught me anything, it'southward that vampires are real.

It'south also taught me how to spot a vampire, and so I wasn't fooled by all the beautiful and incredibly charming people I met in Romania.

Plus, hello, this is the birthplace of Dracula, aka Vlad Dracul, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Mr. Creepy Pants.

Doesn't his hometown wait scary?

Sighisoara, Romania

Downtown Sighișoara – we stayed at this lovely pension

3. Palinka.

I shudder just at the idea…

4. If you hitchhike, you're up for some strong contest.

On the plus side, hitchhiking is totally normal in Romania, so no one is going to think y'all're a series killer. On the downside, lots of locals are hitchhiking too, so y'all'll have to compete for rides!

We usually utilise Hitchwiki to find the best spots to catch rides, but in Romania that tended to lead united states straight to crowds of other hitchhikers. A few times nosotros had to give up, which was bad news considering public transport in Romania can be surprisingly expensive.

Other times, however, hitchhiking in Romania was a breeze, and we found rides with some of the nicest people. My favorite was the father road-tripping with his x-year-onetime girl, which gave me a huge burst of nostalgia for bologna and mustard sandwich fueled father-daughter road trips from Massachusetts down to visit family in Kentucky. Oh to be x again!

5. You're going to have flashbacks to your high schoolhouse Latin/French/Castilian classes.

As Romanian is a Romance language, you'll have to forget the Russian that'southward been helping you through the rest of Eastern Europe and castor upwards on your Latin roots.

That's right, similar you're back in High SCHOOL.

half dozen. The state will soon be empty.

Plainly you shouldn't carp going to Romania, because before long the country will be abased anyway. Because, you know, now that Eu piece of work restrictions accept been lifted for Romanians, Britain is existence flooded past migrants looking to live off UK benefits or steal jobs from locals.

Oh wait, you guys, I might accept muddled my facts.

Information technology turns out the flood of migrants never came (those who wanted to work in Britain were already there, and perhaps the rest felt a tad unwelcome?) and when British news reporters waited for the first flights from Bucharest to arrive in London after the lifting of the ban, they were only able to greet a couple of Romanians on holiday.

Whoops.