Roamin’ in Romania

25 July, Saturday

Who knew you had a new time zone in Romania? Well, my phone did but Gene’s didn’t. Either which way, the site owner’s Roosters started crowing at 6am.

After a late start, we headed to Cluj-Napoca to hopefully see ‘the most haunted forest in the world’. Unfortunately, there was no sign of it yet, so maybe tomorrow.

So far Romania has taken out ‘The Most Habitual Posted Speed Sign Ignorers’ AND ‘The Most Habitual Overtakers’ regardless of pedestrian crossings, oncoming vehicles, lack of space between vehicles or actual speed of the vehicle being over taken, the challenge was accepted.

With lightning fast reflexes, I was able to turn into a spare parking space when Dee noticed Authentic Romanian Handicrafts. We were able to buy 2 Authentic Romanian Handmade Chinese fans, a wooden Authentic Romanian Handmade Lyre harp napkin holder and an Authentic Romanian Handmade peasant top. We did look at buying an Authentic Romanian Handmade Pamela Anderson towel but we have better taste than that (and Dee and Gene said no).

We stopped at the town of Huedin for lunch. As we entered the town, many of the large buildings were constructed in a fantastic style not seen yet in our travels. It was a mix of Russian and Chinese. At the time of me writing this, I wasn’t able to Google it up to find the back story but I’m sure it’s interesting.

https://www.google.ro/search?q=Huedin&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMI7byY8sD6xgIVSG8UCh3XvwG8&biw=800&bih=511

As we lost a towel during our travels (probably blown off the back ladder when 'we' *cough* Gene *cough* forgot to bring it in), we bought a nifty new one with a medusa head pattern. Now we’ll be fighting over who will use it.

So far in Romania we have seen:
 3 people using scythes,

4 horse drawn carts (one we had to circle around to get a decent picture but less we talk about that requirement the better), and

2 people who are potential werewolves. No vampires have yet been seen during the daylight hours.

The hunt for ‘The most likely camping site to film a horror movie’ continues. As Romania seems to have dearth of camping sites, I suggested that we stay at a motel/hotel if we can’t find a camping ground. We found a hotel that didn’t look condemned or used in a siege shooting but a wedding was occurring there and no rooms were available. We we’re directed to travel 4km down the road and there would be other hotels and B&Bs, so we did. On the way I found a camping ground! Another wedding was happening at the site’s restaurant and, by the general look, it looked OK.

After paying our money, the manager led us down the path to the camping grounds. My thoughts as we were led down this garden path were:

The bride looks great! The restaurant looks well set up.

Lots of trees. Lots of shade.

Where the undead like to shamble.

A Communist style bunker with ‘Showers and Toilets’ stenciled on the walls.

The showers are ‘Open air’.

The Playground of Lost Souls.

I can’t tell if the abandoned concrete framework is of a demolished building or one that was stopped mid construction.

He wants us to park in the sun when it’s 30+ degrees.

The shady spot is near the communal area where a vagrant may have made residence.

The other shady bit looks better and has a better escape route.

Dee is going to f*#king hate this.

The silence was deafening when I turn off the engine. I suggested we could not stay here and keep on looking but was told it was a stupid idea. I set up the beds for Dee to have her afternoon kip and I went to look at the shower block and see if the restaurant could feed us tonight.

The block wasn’t too bad (It even had pinky-purple toilet paper) and most of the showers even had shower heads. It’s hot day, so we probably don’t need hot water anyway. The restaurant wasn’t able to cater for us tonight and the manager really didn’t care where we could eat but he did point vaguely to the left. The camping site manager indicated that there were places to eat to the right on 3 ‘somethings’ away. I think he’s talking about streets but he could be about km, minutes, houses, hours or alternate universes as far as I know. So dinner tonight will be fun if I can get past the cars parked for the wedding.

We figured the ‘vagarant is an old gentlemen with a gammy knee who has some motor bike issues and is a bit down on his luck. We did invite him in for dinner we decided to cook but he declined. Although we did give him a hot meal of what we were going to eat for dinner.