Blog of Romania

How does a promising trip start? Not by waking up at 6 a.m. and still missing your train. But we nonetheless managed it.

‘We’ means a Romanian (i.e. me) and an American (i.e. Lerri [say it like Marie with an L; NOT Larry], freshly arrived from Ukraine), who had known each other for about 4 years but had only met face-to-face 4 days before. The Romanian should’ve known better than to assume that 7 a.m. traffic is much better than at 9 a.m., or she could’ve at least thought about the construction works on the way. She didn’t, so they both arrived at the train station in time to see the empty tracks where their train had been 5 minutes before. Change ticket, pay the difference, go back home and sleep until the next one.

As it turns out, it wasn’t such a bad thing after all. Switching from an Accelerat to an Intercity meant we got a table. So, we spent the next ~4 hours playing Spite & Malice (cool American card game). I won at first (beginner’s luck), then started losing; then the guy sitting in the chair across us (who I swear I knew from somewhere… maybe last year’s Artmania fest) joined in and proceeded to kick our ass repeatedly. Luckily we got to Sighisoara before being humiliated too much…

There, my lovely friend Silviu was waiting for us and he gave us (amazing) shelter, then took us to a place which had food (mmm. pasta.) Because it was dark, and sightseeing is difficult if you can’t actually see anything, we proceeded to a bar (then another, then another - they close way too early), where we and his friends got involved in intercultural drinking, jokes, sex tales, swearing, police stories and anything in between.

The next morning, tired and slightly hungover, we got into tourist mode and started a walk around the city. I had only seen it during the medieval festival (read: overcrowded), so it was very weird seeing empty places which last summer were teeming with people. But my conclusion after comparing the two: deserted city is muuch better for tourists than drunken rockers all over the place.

Sighisoara is beautiful. You go from the new town to the old citadel (still inhabited) on a long stairway (not exactly to heaven, but close) and end up in a square. On the right, the Clock Tower, almost no one in sight (cue memories of the throng of people waiting to go up during the festival). So, of course, we started climbing. What I didn’t know is that the tower also contains the museum of history, which had awesome stuff like a model of old Sighisoara, objects from each of the craftsmen’s guilds and - my favorites - a couple of old medical kits (amputation, gynecology, surgery) full of creepy metal things (I was very glad I’m living in the modern age). Climbing further up the narrow stairs, we got to the room of the clock, where you can see the mechanism in action and wonder just how the fuck does it work?

Even further up, you get to the top of the tower and you can enjoy a great view of the city and the cool markers showing the direction and distance to several important cities (and the poles). Towers rock and these German towns seem to have a lot of them.

We walked around some more afterwards, saw the Roman-Catholic church, a couple of new hostels and B&Bs, places undergoing some sort of demolishing/repair work and a lot of adorable little streets (plus a souvenir shop with a very nice saleswoman - last on the left as you’re going towards the staircase, it has some mannequins in front).

Next up, climbing the next set of stairs - this time, the covered staircase (which, as the name implies, is a staircase with a roof). A lady was playing folk music on the stairs, so we had a little entertainment while climbing and discovering exactly how out-of-shape we were. The first thing you see on the hill is a high-school. I’d have skipped many more classes if I had to climb for 5 minutes to get to school… these students should get a medal.

Next to the high-school there’s the Biserica din Deal (the Church on the Hill), which we didn’t visit because we’re not so crazy about churches. What we did see was the cemetery, which was very beautiful. Sad, of course, but very beautiful nonetheless.

After this short interlude with the dead, we stopped in a bar for everyone’s (non-alcoholic, this time) drink of choice, then hurried back to Silviu’s home for a great home-cooked meal from his mother and quick packing + leaving for the train station, as we weren’t planning on missing anymore trains.

Of course, the train was late this time, but about that in part two.

[Read part 2: Sibiu.]

Jen takes care of BlogofRomania and wants to travel as much as possible. Feel free to invite her to visit.
Post written for BlogofRomania.