El and I are fascinated by Eastern Europe; always been curious about the people, culture, food and sights. At the end of our tour in Spain, we would actually like to take a month and backpack through Eastern Europe, seeing the sights, sipping the wodka and re-enacting scenes like this. While Bratislava may not be at the top of our Eastern European Adventure list, cities in Poland, Russia, Albania and Croatia are most definitely on the horizon for the Brouses.
My love for Skyscanner knows no bounds, and I almost got down on one Knee and offered it a proposal of marriage when it showed roundtrip tickets to Bucharest, Romania for $180/person for Memorial Day weekend. Our three-day weekends in Europe are starting to become less frequent and more precious, so we realize that we have to make the most of our remaining time here. Who knows where the Air Force will send us next? I personify the Air Force as this all-powerful wizard who waves a magic wand and zaps us to different locations and is angered easily, so we’ve gotta live our lives like our next base will suck.
We ended up booking three separate one-way flights, Ryan Air from Malaga to Barcelona, W!(exclamation point intended)zz Air from Barcelona to Bucharest, and then Blue Air from Bucharest to Malaga. Ryan Air, we know and trust; they may nickel and dime you for everything, but you know you’ll get there safely and on time. W!zz Air and Blue Air were unfamiliar to us, and all I kept picturing were people cheersing their bottles of vodka before loosening bolts on the plane wings and saying “F**k you Brouse!” in Russian. It became the running joke that we’d have to kick-start the plane before running and getting pulled into it with the crates of chickens and oxen. W!zz Air! Now with bus straps instead of seats! The sound of Varner's ATO joke catchphrase, “Save Yo-selves!!!!” rang through my ears leading up to our trip.
We made it to Malaga airport without incident and used our reliable “Chips Away” (or Chips Ahoy, as so many people call it) to park our car for 5 euros a day. I called and made the reservation, and the British guy on the other end of the line jabbered something in UK English. All I made out was “call by the cable cars”, but instead of asking him to repeat himself (again) I just said, “Okay!” I called when we were by the departures gate, told the guy we were five minutes away, and sheepishly said, “Oh” when he told me, “Well, we need a little more time than that. That’s why I said to call when you were 20 minutes away.” Cable cars, 20 minutes. Potato, Potahto. Fortunately, it didn’t take that long for them to reach us, and we made it to Barcelona El Prat (the main airport) without a hitch.
We had a few hours to kill in Barcelona, so El and I made the executive decision to take the group to Cerveceria Catalana, our favorite restaurant in Spain and mentioned in my post on Barcelona. When we exited into the Arrivals area, there were torn up newspaper and magazine pages EVERYWHERE. You couldn’t walk without stepping on newspaper, and this was a HUGE area. Protestors had evidently come to the airport, rightfully disgruntled about the economy, and just threw shit on the floor. I am alllll about the right to gather peacefully, protest and have your voice be heard, but I draw the line at vandalism and littering. They may have created work for people to clean up the mess, but stunts like that are childish. I prefer an old-fashioned bra-burning myself.
We ended up having to get out of our first cab because it “broke” (yeah, we saw him speed away when he thought he was out of sight) and having to hail a second cab to get to the restaurant. The food was worth the inconvenience though and was just as delicious as we had remembered. The fried artichoke was unfortunately not in season, but we still took down some calamari, plates of mushrooms that just kept coming out of the kitchen, chicken and bacon croquettas, bacon and Roquefort montaditos, flash-fried peppers, the sourdough bread with tomato pulp on it that we loved so much, and a lomo (pork) and peppers montadito. Emily had a pasta salad that was so good she ordered another, and Stu had ham that might have been kissed by the gods. I washed mine down with a glass of white vino and El had a Chimay. Another great thing about this place is that they have an excellent beer selection, and have bottles of Franziskaner and other German and Belgian options. Beautiful.
We hailed a few cabs back to the airport, and our driver kept yammering on to Elliot in Spanish and chuckling to himself. It didn’t matter to him that Elliot could only respond with “Uh si” or laugh politely; he was GOING to chat with Elliot, whether he liked it or not. He also looked like ‘The Greek’ from the second season of the Wire, which made the situation way more entertaining. Every time he’d go over a speed bump, he’d yell “Barca!”, laugh again, and then turn the music up. This guy may have been the jolliest/possibly insane cab driver ever.
After walking the length of the damn terminal about four times, we finally were at the gate to board our W!zz Air flight. After asking three separate people if we needed to get our passport checked or a visa stamp like we do for Ryan Air, and hearing “no” from three separate people, we were nervous that we were going to get alllll the way to our gate and not be allowed on. Fortunately, the airline worker was more worried about nailing our friends for their ginormous “carry-ons” than she was about our passports. They somehow managed to squeeze their Mt. Everest sherpa backpacks into the carry-on allowance bin, and laughed their way to the plane.
We had to take a shuttle bus to get to our hot pink and purple airplane, and stand in the unconditioned sardine can in the blazing sun until they gave us the all-clear to board the plane. “Wizz” started to live up to its (in our imaginations) reputation by hot-boxing us in a bus and then leaving a two-foot gap of space between the stairs and the airplane. I don’t know how they planned on getting the oxen on board with that much space missing....
I don’t think any of the guys cared if we were going down in a blaze of glory or not, because the flight attendants all ended up being HOT. Like Eastern European hot, which I learned is a thing. Any attempts at macking on the flight attendants were seriously foiled by the obnoxious fumes released from the collective gentlemen in our group. The flight itself was really pleasant, and folks had some drinks, and I purchased a lovely Wizz Air magnet and key ring set (so awesome), but there is NO saving a flight when you are sandwiched between The Klumps. After 3 toxic hours, we finally landed in a dreary, rainy Bucharest.
First things first, we needed a cab. Will (already at the hotel with his friend, Stacey) had texted us that the hotel said 50-60 lei (Romanian currency, also known as Ron) was an appropriate price to pay a cab from the airport. I guess you have to bargain with the cab drivers; if you’re not careful, they’ll seriously screw you over. All the cabs outside the Arrivals gate wouldn’t go lower than 120 lei, so we had to walk through a urine-soaked stairwell (Ahhh, Eastern Europe!) and across the street where the sketchy cabs were waiting. If it hadn’t been 1am, and if I hadn’t just breathed sewer gas for the past 3 hours, I might be more concerned about taking a non-airport cab. As it was, no one was in the mood to argue. We tried to haggle a cab from 100 down to 50, but the cab driver finally just said, “Just do the meter, I’ll show you.” Thinking to myself, “Well, we’re going to get screwed”, we piled into his cab for our real-life rendition of Crazy Taxi. Despite the roads being slick, homeboy was FLYING down the two-lane highway, weaving in and out of lanes and spewing racial epithets when almost hitting another car. Our rosary-praying and seat-gripping were given a brief respite when we took the roundabout around Bucharest’s Arc du Triumphe. Magnificent on its own in the middle of the square, we would learn more about Romania’s contribution to WWI on our excursion the next day. We somehow made it to Christina Hotel, the 24-room boutique hotel where we were staying, in one piece and I thanked Dracula that our trip didn’t end before it began.
My phone still hadn’t changed over from Spanish to Romanian time (we lost an hour), so I set my alarm for 6:00, which would have been 7:00 Romanian time. Our excursion was leaving at 8:30, and I wanted to shower and have breakfast before heading out. I collapsed into the softest European hotel bed I’ve ever felt and sacked out for too short of sleep.
I woke up feeling extremely groggy and like I had gotten no sleep at all. I went through the motions of showering and putting on my makeup when Elliot wakes up and asks, “Why are you up so early?” I said, “It’s 7:30, and we need to go to breakfast soon.” He said that it was only 6:30, and I had gotten up after only 4 hours of sleep. My phone decided to be a wise-ass and change over in the middle of the night, making my 6:00am wake-up call.... actually at 6:00am. I got back in bed and tried to sack out for another hour, but sleeping with wet hair is extremely uncomfortable and I didn’t get a wink. I’d make a joke about feeling like a zombie going down to breakfast, but I feel like it may be too soon after current events.
Breakfast was delicious, and they had made-to-order cappuccinos, freshly squeezed OJ and even a bottle of champagne for making mimosas. The manager went around taking drink orders, and we all got our money’s worth of breakfast. I say money’s worth like the hotel was uber pricey; it was 65 euros/night. We also met up with Will and his friend Stacey, who is also in the AF and stationed in Germany. I promised her that I always looked this vibrant and awake in the morning.
We met Jan, our tour guide to Transylvania, outside the hotel and we all piled into the 16 passenger red van that was to be our home for the next few hours. We stopped at a gas station to grab some essentials for the day (water, snacks, beers), and El got this snack pack that would be MONEY later that afternoon. While on our way to Transylvania, Jan taught us a few essential Romanian words (once again, I’m too lazy to check proper spellings. Here’s my phonetic version): Buna = hello Narok = cheers Buna ziwa = good afternoon Mutzamesk = Thank you (Merci also works) Da = Yes and Nu = No. Jan explained that 70% of Romanian words come from Latin (woo-hoo!), and that about that percentage of the country speaks English (double woo-hoo!). Romanian is obviously a romance language, despite its proximity to Slavic countries. It is basically a mix of Latin and Italian, but with two additional letters: an‘s’ with a curly tail that makes a “shh” sound and some fancy ‘t’ (I started daydreaming about Vampires at this point and tuned out).
As we drove along the four-lane road leading out of Bucharest, I started taking notice of the sights around us. We passed by a guy with a table of nothing but garden gnomes, lots of lush, green trees, people walking along the side, and lots, I mean lots, of old ladies in babushkas. It was like someone had taken the image of Romania from my brain and put it before my eyes. Glorioski. We had also heard that on the side of the road there were these carts pulled by donkies and hot women. Despite us really not being sure what to make of that, needless to say we were on the lookout for hot donkey cart girls for the rest of our trip.
We all jammed out to the music over the radio, and Jan even plugged in a microphone for karaoke at one point. Unfortunately (fortunately?) the mic didn’t work with the radio on, so we were all understandably disappointed to miss out on America’s next top Idol.
We made our first stop at a cemetery filled with white crosses, a Romanian flag flanked by two cannons, and a plaque in the middle. We learned from Jan that the Romanians are very proud of their contributions to both World Wars. He explained how Romanian civilians made “the ultimate sacrifice” by crawling under the German tanks and manually detonating their bombs. Although small, it was a very beautiful memorial to see.
Our next stop was the nearby Sinaia Monastery and Museum. The monastery is run by Orthodox monks and consists of four parts: the “new” church, built in the 1800’s, the old church built in 1690, the museum of relics, wooden paintings and gold-gilded crosses and other artifacts, and the still-active monastery. Everything was splendidly decorated, with the stone walls and ceilings covered with hand-paintings of saints, Christ and scenes from the Bible. Each church had a domed tower, whose top was decorated with an image of Christ. Stu pointed out that all the pictures of Jesus showed him with his ring finger and thumb touching, almost like an ‘OK’ symbol. (If there are any wannabe theologians out there who know the answer to why he’s depicted that way, I’d appreciate the insight! I bought two tall, thin candles to light. There were four iron chambers outside that were filled with burning candles and wax. I lit and placed one of mine in the chamber for those who had died, and the other elsewhere for health and happiness.
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| The "New" Church |
After leaving the monastery, we were approached by gypsies to buy flowers. Not to make generalizations about a group of people, especially since I don’t put much stock in stereotypes, but we had been warned by people who have visited Romania that Romanian gypsies (not sure which sub-group) are no joke and very persistent in begging or pestering you to make a “sale”. Gypsies obviously aren’t exclusive to Romania, or to anyplace really as they are still a traveling culture, but there are a large number of gypsies in this Romania and its border countries. Since I just watched Borat a few days earlier, my biggest concern was getting gypsy tears to protect us against “the Aids”. Elliot was probably ready to clobber me, as I kept pulling on his sleeve and saying, “Gypsy, give me your tears!” in a terrible Borat accent.
After the monastery, we made our way to Peles (pronounced Pe-lesh) Castle. Before going in, Jan took out a map and explained the provinces and general history of Romania. He was incredibly knowledgeable of the various conquests and territories throughout his country’s history, and his English was fantastic. His history of Romania was only interrupted by the smell of the dog shit that Jeff stepped in as it wafted into our noses.
Peles Castle is this gorgeous Bavarian-influenced castle set amidst hills of lush green trees. It had been built in the late 19th century by the King of Romania, King Carol I. Actually born in Germany, Carol I was active in the Russo-Turk War and is still a monarch favorite amongst modern Romanians. The Bavarian touches of the Castle and its surrounding gardens make sense, considering his birthplace. After Carol’s death, the castle (and crown) was passed to his youngest brother, Ferdinand. It’s now owned by their descendent William, who is in his 90’s. Jan told us that there’s a problem with the upcoming succession as William has 5 daughters and no sons. Hmm must not be as progressive a country as I thought….
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| Me and my "prince".....barf |
We bought tickets to enter Peles and took note of the statues and exterior wall paintings that decorated the courtyard. There was a painting of a guy with a wine jug peeking out from behind a column that we named “Will”. We entered a side door of the castle into a room whose walls were filled with pikes, battle axes, swords and shields and put on slippers to protect the carpet from Jeff’s shit-stained shoes. We were led throughout the first floor of the castle by a Romanian guide who annunciated her English words better than English-speaking people do. We walked by an elaborately decorated dining room, an armory room which contained a royal crown, full set of horse and knight armor and Latin-inscribed ceiling tiles, a Moorish room modeled after the Alhambra, a Turkish smoking room, a meeting room with lounge and a library with a SECRET entrance (I thought this was Dracula’s turf!). The guide made sure to point out that when the castle was built in the 1890’s it came equipped with a central heating and cooling system, as well as a central VACUUMING system. I could use one of those in my house now. The hallways were decorated with golden statues of Greek gods and busts of Roman emperors, and the floors covered with lush carpets that the slippers kept clean. We didn’t even know that we were going to be stopping at this castle, but we were so glad we did as everything was quite a sight to see. We weren’t able to take our own pictures, but we bought a CD of them from a guy Jan knew. Here’s the link to the pics that I uploaded:
By the time we left the castle, it was about 2:45 and we still hadn’t eaten lunch. Jan said that we should wait to eat until we were closer to Bran Castle, our next stop. It was about a 40 minute drive, but we were okay with waiting if the food was worth it. Plus, El bought this awesome snack pack that we all tore into, so we weren’t going to be going hungry anytime soon. We got to a large resort area with log cabin restaurants. We climbed up what felt like a few THOUSAND stairs to the top of a hill, where a restaurant called Villa Bran and some spectacular views were waiting for us.
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| Somebody get me a wooden stake |
By the time we finished “lunch”, it was 5:00. Bran Castle closed at 6, so we drove a little bit and walked through tourist shops to get there. Our guide gave us each a clove of garlic to protect us before we got our blood sucked. It didn’t matter, because I had a secret weapon. Aaaaaand this:
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| Don't mess with this Brouse bitch |
We weren’t quite done with stairs and/or hills yet, so we had to walk up a long stone ramp to get to the castle. You pass by this huge stone Celtic cross that looks like it should belong in Ireland. We, however, were more concerned with passing the HUGE group of schoolchildren who were walking in front of us. I will NOT tour Dracula’s Castle with a huge bunch of 6 year olds, thank you very much. 3 snaps in a Z-formation.
The stone exterior of Bran Castle really is kind of spooky; all stone and depressing, lying in stark contrast with the vibrant colors and statues that adorned the exterior of Peles Castle. I suppose that’s why out of the two, Bran became linked with Dracula. Bran Castle was also built in the 13th century, 500 years before Peles’s cornerstone was laid, so it’s got the old factor working for it as well.
With Jan accompanying us through the castle, and all the floor-length placards on the castle walls, we were able to get a pretty thorough understanding of the history behind Bran Castle and it association with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Without getting tooooo into the historical details, here’s what we got:
Bran Castle was built in the 1300’s as a fortification against the Turks. Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracul (Dracul = Devil in Romanian) never actually lived in the castle. Bram Stoker (who had never actually visited Transylvania) basically created the association between “The Devil” and Bran Castle in his story. Historically, when Vlad was a young boy, he actually grew up and fought as part of the Turkish army. The Turks were always trying to invade Transylvania (known by a different name back then), so this was an ongoing struggle for quite some time. When Vlad was a young man, he defected against the Turkish army to fight for the Transylvanians. He took over as ruler of something (told you there weren’t going to be a lot of historical details) and became a member of the “Dracuesti”. The Dracuesti was the Order of the Dragon and were the royal bodyguards but apparently were really bloodthirsty, thus earning their members the nickname “Dracul”. Vlad further earned the nickname after his father had been killed. One night, he invited the aristocracy over for a banquet. After everyone had eaten, he gave the signal to his army who then slaughtered everyone in the room. He earned the nickname “The Impaler” due to his treatment of Turkish messengers. He impaled 20,000 Turkish messengers, on two separate occasions, on long wooden spikes, careful not to hit any vital organs. The impaled Turks acted as a fence around his residence and died a slow, gruesome death. The phrase “Don’t kill the messenger” comes from Vlad’s habit of impaling the Turkish messengers before they even delivered their message. Vlad’s mysterious death and the unknown whereabouts of his corpse have fueled the Dracula legend. Factor in all the stories about Vlad, and the general spookiness of Bran Castle, and you have the makings of one damn good story. All that’s missing is Keanu Reeves to star in it.
The interior of the castle was actually a lot more modern than I expected, and that’s due to Queen Marie’s renovations and interior decorating in the 1920’s. The place now has all sorts of artwork and turn of the 20th century furniture. There are also pictures of Romanian gypsy women in the 1920’s on the walls, and it basically cemented the fact that I base my personal style off them.
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| Picture of me circa 1920 |
You still get a sense of the old creepiness of the castle when you walk up these stone stairwells or sneak a peek at the infamous Dracula bell tower.
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| "Teeny tiny bat, teeny tiny bat" |
After Emily tried to climb into the castle’s well, and almost getting scolded by security as a result, we left the castle right as the closing gong was ringing. Now that I think about it, everyone should have a gong. I would bug the hell out of Elliot if I had one, but I can see great potential in this. “Take out the garbage!” GONG!!
We wandered through a few outdoor tourist shops that people had set up, bought our standard magnet souvenirs, and got back into our bus to head to the medieval town of Brasov, also the 2007 Cultural Center of Europe. The impromptu sing along to “Beat It” made the 20 minute drive go by faster, and we were there before we knew it. Jeff had fallen asleep on the way there and wasn’t budging when we stopped, so we locked him into the van and started walking around.
Jan took us down a few side streets to the Black Church, a Lutheran Church (unusual in a country that is 87% Orthodox) that started being built in 1366 and took a century to complete. It never fails to blow my mind when I realize how old some of these buildings are. The Church honestly didn’t look any older than 200 years, so someone deserves a high-five for keeping it in such good shape. We grabbed some ice cream in the plaza and walked back to our van to begin the 3 hour ride back to Bucharest.
After a few bathroom stops, we made it back to our hotel around 10:45pm. We paid and thanked Jan for our 14-hour excursion (sheesh, that’s long), got ready in our rooms, and met back in the Lobby by 11:30.
We took a few cabs to Caru cu Bere, or ‘Cookoo Beer’ as Elliot pronounced to our cab driver, and made our way to the Old Town. I had read, and we had heard from the girls at the Front Desk, that all the great bars and restaurants were in the Old City. Caru cu Bere is the oldest beer hall in Romania and has a SUPER German feel to it. Despite the great atmosphere and excitement that comes with beer halls, after a 14 hour excursion, and only 4 hours of sleep, I was practically falling asleep at the table. We didn’t end up getting our food (schnitzel and sauerkraut for me) until 1:30am. None of us had ever had a full dinner meal that late; late-night munchies maybe, but not a sit-down dinner at a restaurant. Haha Even the Spanish don’t do that! I’m actually surprised that the kitchen was even open, considering the whole place shut down about an hour later. The food was still damn good despite being served so late, so I wasn’t complaining.
Romania is a city that is just full of sex. Not because we were in Romania, and that’s what they do in True Blood, but because it’s an industry here. Prostitution is illegal, but that doesn’t stop the operations of erotic massage parlors, seedy strip clubs or brothels. Our hotel, and basically every cab we took, had advertisements for massages or “meeting girls”. Even when Elliot asked the girls at the front desk of our hotel which bars to go to, they told him and said, “There will be lots of girls for you” (“Like hell there will be!”-shouts Courtney from the other room). It’s sad to think that most, if not almost all, of these girls are trafficked; whenever prostitution’s illegal yet so rampant, you can bet that those girls aren’t there because it’s their life goal to turn tricks. Still, you can avoid participating, but you can’t avoid seeing it.
We first went into a place called “Vintage Pub” that was PACKED with people dancing and smoking. The air was so thick with smoke that it was impossible to leave the bar smelling clean. We grabbed *A* drink, but it was so hard to move around that we left. While El and I were looking for other bars to check out, people wandered into this ice cream shop that was playing loud club music. We find out where they were, and Emily is popping it and booty-dancing with the ice cream girl in the doorway of the shop. It was a damn awesome sight. El and I grabbed a drink at a crappy Irish pub before calling it a night at 3:30, but that didn’t stop others from ice-cream booty shakin' until 7:30am.
We snoozed in a little longer the next morning and had breakfast before doing some sightseeing. El, me, Stu, Em, Will and Stacey first walked to the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, which was nearby. For some reason, this was the Museum that I was REALLY looking forward to; must be my fascination with gypsies or something. I was expecting some sort of rinky-dink po-dunk museum, but it was freaking MASSIVE. I had to go inside and actually ask the girl at the desk if we were in the right place. If you didn’t know, you’d swear you were at a Smithsonian. The exhibits themselves were pretty cool to see, and they had recreated a peasant classroom (my favorite part because they had posters of farm animals and tools on the wall), a house within a house, a kitchen, as well as having displays on clothing, tools, food and religious traditions and customs. I learned that the Romanian men would whittle the staffs for a spinning wheel for their sweethearts, and they became more detailed as the years went by. Eventually they were made only by craftsmen, but I thought that was an interesting and cute part of Romanian culture.
We snoozed in a little longer the next morning and had breakfast before doing some sightseeing. El, me, Stu, Em, Will and Stacey first walked to the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, which was nearby. For some reason, this was the Museum that I was REALLY looking forward to; must be my fascination with gypsies or something. I was expecting some sort of rinky-dink po-dunk museum, but it was freaking MASSIVE. I had to go inside and actually ask the girl at the desk if we were in the right place. If you didn’t know, you’d swear you were at a Smithsonian. The exhibits themselves were pretty cool to see, and they had recreated a peasant classroom (my favorite part because they had posters of farm animals and tools on the wall), a house within a house, a kitchen, as well as having displays on clothing, tools, food and religious traditions and customs. I learned that the Romanian men would whittle the staffs for a spinning wheel for their sweethearts, and they became more detailed as the years went by. Eventually they were made only by craftsmen, but I thought that was an interesting and cute part of Romanian culture.
After we saw enough babushkas to last us a lifetime, we walked through a big city park on the way to the Arc du Triumphe, erected right after WWI. I’ve never been to Paris, but I would imagine that it would be as massive and imposing as the Romanian’s Arc. After a few pictures, we started off in search of a place to eat lunch. Not wanting to eat at 5:00 and have dinner at 1:30am again, we ended up taking the subway to the Palace of Parliament area. Unlike everywhere else we’ve visited, Bucharest is seriously lacking in cafes and restaurants in public areas. I don’t know if they’re just off on side streets, but you have to seriously seek out a place to eat if you’re hungry. Fortunately for us, there was an Italian restaurant right by Palace of Parliament called Horoscop. We all toasted to being in Eastern Europe with a bottle of Prosecco, and I was way more excited than I needed to be when I saw that buccatini amatriciana was on the menu. I ordered that and a cappuccino to stay awake, and there was this hot foccacia bread that was given at the start of the meal. Everything was really good, but nothing beats my mom’s buccatini amatriciana.
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| Americans know big buildings |
Speaking of Jeff, he and the rest of the jokers were back at Vintage Pub (which was now a boutique on the inside) having a drink outside. The Old Princely Court (Vlad the Impaler’s residence in Bucharest) had closed about 5 minutes before we arrived, so we went to meet them at the Vintage pub. I had a mint coffee with Bailey’s, and everyone else had some beers. Jeff ordered a vodka shot, which then prompted Elliot to say, “Two”. The flood gates were then opened, and “Three”, “Four”, “Five” and “Six” soon echoed after. As the waitress is about to walk away, all of a sudden we hear “7 vodka shots! Ah! Ah! Ah! Best. Comic. Delivery. EVER.
We went back to the hotel to rest up for dinner and met in the lobby around 8. The front desk made reservations for us at a tucked away placed called Sarpelle Roz. When we pulled up to the restaurant, our eyes immediately went to the hot pink neon sign boasting the restaurant name and the cartoon snake sign next to it. O-kay? If you don’t believe me, well here’s ya go: http://sarpeleroz.ro/ When we walked inside, there was live band playing with xylophone, bass, fiddle and accordion players breaking out lively songs with a huge stuffed snake on the floor with them. The walls were covered with pictures of patrons, wax-covered jugs and candles and other vintage looking artifacts. Everything had a gypsy-like feel to it, and the ambiance was out of this world.
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| Gypsy, give me your tears! |
The menus were copies of newspapers and magazines from the 1930’s with the menus inserted inside. Fortunately for us, the food was listed in both Romanian and English, so it was pretty easy to figure out what we wanted. The waiters were all dressed in white shirts and bow ties, and there seemed to be a team of them serving us. Since it was a Sunday night, there were only a few other couples in the restaurant, so we got to enjoy all the service. I had been told that Romanian wine is delicious, so Jeff and I split some red. The rumors were most definitely true, and the wine was damn delicious. It was the perfect thing to wash down my “Shepherd’s Salad” of lettuce, tomato, olives, cucumber, feta, ham and egg with a dressing of lemon juice with dill. I was skeptical, but the dressing and the salad ingredients just blended so well and tasted oh so good. Elliot ordered this really good chicken with fried potatoes, while I had cabbage leaves stuffed with minced meat, rice, and “sperbs” as I called them (spices and herbs). I tried some at lunch the day before, and it instantly became my favorite Romanian dish. It’s nothing special to look at, but it was the bomb.com. The bread was something to be desired, as it was really dense. We asked for butter, but it was pretty gross. Normally bread and butter is my favorite part of the meal, but it was just disappointing at Ol’ Snake Eyes. The night was dominated by the wine, laughs and great conversation. The music was also a great touch, and Stacey and I came up with all sorts of scenarios to accompany them. See if you can figure out the style of music:
-Me riding a bike really fast while being chased by an old Romanian man in a truck
-Gypsies dancing at a wedding
-Kids running down the street and hitting the school bus with pinwheels and holding balloons
-Kids running down the street and hitting the school bus with pinwheels and holding balloons
All good things must come to an expensive bill; so Elliot and company went to get cash, Stu got himself inducted into my “Posing with bizarre crap” album, which should be the pinnacle of one’s life. People braver than me took shots of vodka in these vials, which probably eased the pain of racking up a bill this high just a bit.
We decided to head back to Caru cu Bere for a few more rounds before they closed. Liters of beer were passed around, but the real eye-popper of the night came when Em ordered a brownie sundae. She asked this kid for extra ice cream, and we all did double, then triple takes when he brought it because he looked JUST. LIKE. VARNER. Like how Varner would look as a teenager. I couldn’t stop laughing for a solid five minutes, as we all joked that the busboy was Varner’s TDY mistake baby. He’s never been in Romania, but there’s gotta be common DNA there. The resemblance was spooky and hilarious all at the same time. Every time I’d spot him I’d erupt into another five minutes of laughter. We tried to coax him into taking a picture; I think he was creeped out by the random Americans who asked him to “come take a picture”, because he just quickly walked out the door.
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| True love |
Stu walked out with one of the liter beer steins and some gypsy woman outside the restaurant starts hollering for the management to bust him. I guess they get pissed if you don’t give them money when they beg, so they’ll do their best to bring you down. People were right: Romanian gypsies are NO joke.
Despite it being a calmer night than last, we went into Old Town and went into a nearby bar. The music was fun, the drinks were good, and there was a girl dancing on the bar counter with American flag shoes. We didn’t stay there too long before we decided it was time to head home. After breakfast the next morning and a nagging hangover for most, we made it back to Malaga in one piece. Blue Air may have turned out to be the sketchier of the airlines, but at least it was a direct flight from Bucharest to Malaga.
We made it safely back home with a head full of memories and no bite marks in our neck. Although I have to admit, I wouldn't have minded taking home at least ONE vampire to keep around....
We made it safely back home with a head full of memories and no bite marks in our neck. Although I have to admit, I wouldn't have minded taking home at least ONE vampire to keep around....
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