Sophie À La Carte!

I arrived in Bucharest around 8pm on Wednesday night. My host, Dan, was waiting for me at the station. That night, he took me to Dristor Kebap, a fairly popular fast food chain in the city. We got there kind of late, and there were all types of people waiting in line for food. It reminded me a little bit of Chipotle in that sense, but much more chaotic, with about twenty people running around the kitchen while customers placed their orders. Dan ordered me a chicken kebap with a little bit of everything (lettuce, french fries, olives, sauces, etc. etc. etc.) and a Turkish yogurt drink- I’d never tried anything like it before and found it really refreshing. Afterwards, he took me on a driving tour of Bucharest to point out interesting buildings and historical spaces. Throughout my Romanian trip I was learning constantly about the Communist regime that dissolved in the late eighties/early nineties, so I took the opportunity to ask Dan about some of the events he had been present for ...

Hey friends, I ’m really close to getting you all up to speed on my trip through Romania. Hitting up a new city every couple of days made it difficult to stay on track and continuously update the blog, but now that I’ve settled on a farm in Bulgaria for a couple of weeks I have some more down time. Let’s see, where was I... I arrived in Brașov on a Sunday night after an hour train delay. Brașov is nestled among mountains in Transylvania, and I could tell as soon as I got off the train that it would be a chilly couple of days. I was tired and hungry, but fortunately my host, Eftenie, picked me up from the station, brought me back to the apartment, and fed me homemade tomato soup with dumplings, plus chicken and roasted potatoes. By the time dessert (delicious apple cake) came around, I was feeling myself again. Unfortunately, the weather was not too kind to me in Brașov. The next morning I awoke to clouds and rain, the first bad weather I had experienced since I left Italy. ...

Coincidentally, my Cluj host Lucia was headed to Târgu Mureş the same day I was, so we took the bus together. We sadly parted ways when the bus dropped us off, and my new host Danny picked me up. Danny’s a software engineer who’s lived in Târgu Mureş all his life, with brief stints traveling and interning in the United States. He lived in a bloc close to the river, and gave me my own key, so I could wander around the city freely. The P.O. boxes in Danny's bloc That night though, before he took me back to his place, he dropped me off at a coffee shop so he could help his Dad with his bicycle. I didn’t mind, and ordered an espresso at the cafe. The espresso was 6 lei (about $1.50) and so when the guy came with the receipt I gave him 10 lei...and then he didn’t come back! Was it because I was a foreigner? It was strange. So I went up to the counter and was like, “Can I have my  change?” and he was like “Oh, yeah, sure. Here you go.” I didn’t know if that was a normal thing ...

Last Monday, October 5 View on the way to Cluj My alarm goes off at at 5:45am, and I ready myself for my longest train ride in Eastern Europe to date. Six hours barreling through western Romania into Northern Transylvania, arriving at Cluj-Napoca in the early afternoon. What could be bad about that? It turns out, nothing, save for the moment I allow myself to leave the carriage to go to the bathroom, and find myself in a developing country, smells and sights included. I resolve to limit my water-drinking on travel days from now on. For those of you who know I have a constant sidekick in my water bottle, this is easier said than done. However, I arrive in Cluj on time and relatively unscathed. Lucia, my CS host, patiently guides me  over the phone from station to bus to bus stop to apartment, and before I know it I’m in her living room, drinking coffee (my first of the day! how did I survive this long?) and chatting about couchsurfing, international politics, and fr...

I got off the train in Timișoara and barely had time to check for free wi-fi before my CS host, Bogdan, approached me: "Sophie! Welcome to Timișoara! Are you hungry?" Less than a minute later, we were in the car, headed to the city center. On the border of Serbia/Romania I've always had a fair amount of pre-travel anxiety- I have many memories of sitting on the light rail, heading towards the airport thinking, "I just want to be at the gate." In Europe, it's making sure you get to the train or the bus station on time or being able to contact your blablacar driver to know the meeting point. Traveling in Europe, however, also elicits a new form of anxiety that begins to bubble up immediately after I hop out of the car/bus/train. "Where am I going?" "How do I get there?" "Where's the bathroom?" "Is there Wi-Fi so I can check the map?" "Where does the bus pick up?" This arrival anxiety is somet...

Hey friends, in order to catch up on my travels, here's another post about my time in Croatia and Serbia before hitting up Romania. Strukli in Zagreb To get to Zagreb, I used Prevoz, a rideshare service similar to Blablacar. The drive through Slovenia to Croatia was beautiful, and it confirmed that I definitely need to come back and spend more time exploring outside of the city. I arrived in Zagreb late afternoon and was welcomed by my CS host Matea, who, with her 12 year old daughter Kaya and 13 year old son Jackson (and dog Choksa!), lives in an apartment close to the city center. Matea is Croatian and married an American after attending college in the U.S. Both Kaya and Jackson were born there, but they moved to Croatia after their father passed away. Their story is a very powerful one, and the family is incredibly tight-knit. I was very glad to get to know them. Matea loves to cook and especially bake, but she wasn’t feeling well when I was visiting, so it’s alre...