Day 17: It Takes a Team!

July 2, 2018

Brasov and Bucharest, Romania

"She wants to go home with us!"

We have gotten to the point in our trip where we think about what we are looking forward to at home.  Joshua said that he's looking forward to talking to other teenagers again (instead of just his elderly parents!), I'm looking forward to sitting around at home and working in my garden to tame the jungle (neither of which I've been able to do yet this summer),  and Randy is looking forward to being lazy and getting a start on the many jobs he has to do at home.  Though I've loved the tart flavored lemonades, I'm also looking forward to Diet Coke when we get home.  They only have Coke Zero here, and it's not the same!

But for now, we are winding up our trip with our final city.  We slept in and checked out of our rental in Brasov, then decided to walk around the old town a bit more.  We saw the old city walls and a tiny, malnourished kitten that we wanted to adopt!

The town square

Detail from the clock tower.  It think it is an icon for Romania or Transylvania.

The clock of the clock tower

The kitty!

No, we can't take it home with us.  It needs a family that lives
here to take care of it.

The same symbol as the clock tower

another of those tunnel leads to courtyard restaurants (that we don't eat at!)

Some important government building because it is flying the flags of Romania, the EU and NATO.

Town wall in the background

Town wall and the Draper's Bastion

Town wall

Town wall and the Carpenter's Tower

We've seen street cleaners using these twig brushes to get the dirt and litter from between cobblestones

town wall

An old playground near the town wall

whoops--hold on!

The town wall and the Arts Tower

The last section of the wall

A castle up on the hill

The White tower

Another building as we make our way back

A pedestrian wall

Some graffiti as you get to the edge of the Old Town

Cute planter

Looking dow the main street

House near the square

Detail from the house

One final look at the square

The Transylvania University-Brasnov Campus which was literally right in our back yard
and we didn't even know it! (I wondered why there were always people over there!)

 Then we returned to get our car and drive to Bucharest.  There were two cars six small children behind us in a tiny one-way space, so we had to back slowly out of the lot and into the street (busy, one way street).  It took all three of us--Randy driving and Joshua and I looking and giving directions) to get out of there.  Definite team effort.  Lots of slow traffic on the way.  Joshua slept, I napped and read, and Randy drove.

When we got close, we stopped for gas then drove to the airport to return our rental car.  We won't need it in Bucharest and would have had to deal with parking it, so we returned it.  We drove around the airport and stopped to ask several people before we finally found our rental car company return outside of the airport area (it'a a very small company).  It was definitely a joint effort!  If you remember from earlier, the car had a huge dent with paint streaks on the driver's side of the car.  We got there and they said that it was our fault.  Luckily, I had taken photos and pulled out my phone (which date/time stamps it and adds the location, thank goodness) and showed one of the men and pointed to Timisoara and the date.  He took the phone and showed the man behind the counter and pointed to Timisoara an the date.  They called there and we were not charged extra.  Then they drove us to the airport because we were taking the city bus into the city.   He dropped us off at the departures gate because we saw the city bus pull in there.  We checked everywhere for the desk or kiosk to buy bus tickets and couldn't find it, so we asked the airport information desk.  We were then directed to the arrivals building, then looked outside and finally found it!  Again--a joint effort!

The bus trip was long (over half an hour) and we spent almost all of it standing in a small space with our bags on the city bus.  Finally we arrived at the last stop--city center.  We got off and only had to walk about three blocks to our apartment.  We did a self check-in, then three some clothes in the wash and went out to find food--we were starving!  It was about 6:00 and we hadn't eaten since breakfast.  Our apartment is on party street (though we're in the back and can't hear any of it), so we stopped at the first restaurant we came to and sat down to order.  It was an Irish pub.   So Randy and Joshua ordered burgers, I ordered a traditional Romanian meal of sausages, potatoes, and pickles (from the "Traditional Romanian Meals" section of the menu). And a blueberry lemonade (Joshua and Randy had Strawberry). Then we walked around the Old City.  Everyone has different ways of exploring a new city.  I'm the turn randomly and wander aimlessly person who returns to the hotel when they get tired (using Google maps if necessary).  Randy is the type to look at a map and plan out a route, checking back in with the map as needed (using Google maps as needed).  Joshua fluctuates between the two.  So since we've wandered aimlessly for the past few days, we planned a route today with the many maps posted in the Old Town area.

The Romanian National Museum

We think this was the Ministry of Economics, but now it's a bank.

Goldsmith's Church

Very Good street performers

Walking Around

A comfy sidewalk cafe

TONS of graffiti near the edge of the Old Town.

Cool old building right on the edge

Looks like it must have been some sort of medical building

Probably a remnant of the Communist Era right on the edge of the Old Town

Interesting Door

This is inside!

Kind of a mall/indoor street

A cool Art Deco building we saw

Then of course, came the finding of a grocery store (typing "supermarket" into Google maps works fairly well if we forget to ask the host of our rental).  We found a fairly large one and bought enough breakfast stuff for two days this time.  Our last grocery trip!