Aimee Falls in Love -- Sibiu, Romania

Our original plan (trajectory) was to hitch from Bucharest to Sibiu, spend one night in Sibiu and then hitch to a small town not too far away from (but not too close to, either) Hunodoara.

I woke up Tuesday morning and not a single part of me wanted to hitch almost three hundred km.

If we spend the whole day hitching, by the time we actually get to Sibiu, we'll probably be too beat to enjoy it. Also, I'm feeling a wee bit antisocial and am not at all eager to force a smile on the roadside for hours and hours. 

Think I'll ask Tessa if we can take the train. 

Tessa is always game (except when she can't wrap her brain around the logic), so we took the train to Brasov, looked at pretty things for three hours, and then hopped on our connection to Sibiu.

Brasov. Stefan had insisted we visit Brasov, and as we both try to remain open enough to work local advice into our trajectory, we stopped by for the afternoon.

The city was first noted in 1235 AD (although the oldest settlements in the area are from 9500 BC) and was named "Corona" by the German colonists who moved there. These German colonists were called "Transylvanian Saxons," and I think they win the medal for being the coolest sounding colonists in the history of colonizing.

Or they won an incredibly beautiful place in the world.

During communism's brief rein, its regal name was changed to "Stalin City".

But that quickly became inconvenient, so the Hungarian word for white water -- "Brasov" -- was adopted.

Romanians are quite adept at adopting things.

During the time of the Transylvanian Saxons, Brasov rolled around in wealth and played a pivotal role in trade, as the town was located at the intersection of trade routes between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe.

Transylvanian Saxon win.

Our train left Bucharest at 8:30 and rumbled into Brasov at 11:10.

The air was chilly. Relatively smog-free and noise-free. It was wonderfully refreshing to be in quiet, smog-free mountains after two days in Bucharest and two days in Sofia. Capital cities are excellent spring boards for cultural explorations, but big cities still exhaust me.

This is Romania. The history is reflected on the glass windows of modern buildings. 

Such a green, clean, perfectly manicured place

Our first Romanian bear. Tessa hopes it is our only Romanian bear. 

Biserica Neagra -- an old Gothic church built by our Saxon friends. 

This is what we do to cappuccino foam when Giuseppe's not around to monitor our coffee drinking habits

We ate leftover picnic in one of Brasov's many parks and felt very satisfied with ourselves. And our surroundings.

We were less than enthusiastic about walking the 3.5 km back to the train station, so we hopped on a local bus heading in that direction. We tried to give the driver money, but he was hiding behind a glass screen and rather inaccessible. A nice Romanian woman bought our tickets for us and refused to let us pay her back.

I think I'm growing fond of Romanians. 

We arrived in Sibiu at 18:16 and after over six hours spent on a train creaking and groaning its way through Transylvania, I felt moderately social once again.

Our couchsurfing host was waiting at the train station to meet us -- we didn't even need to make a phone call (which is lucky, because the payphones managed to outsmart my kiwi -- which isn't an easy feat) and I was reluctant to ask to borrow someone's phone. It's always a tremendously awkward endeavor, showing a stranger a number on your phone and asking if you can use theirs to make the actual call.

My life has few problems. This is one of them. Awkward phone calls.

Ovidiu drove us to his studio apartment/office, made our bed and completely (manically) reorganized the space, and then let us settle in for an hour or so while he went to meet with a friend.

When he returned, he treated us to a walking tour of Sibiu.

I haven't fallen in love with a city so much since my two day romance with Prague in 2010.

It was voted a European Capital of Culture in 2007 and boasts three theatres, a philharmonic orchestra, parks I could picnic in forever, great museums and theatre festivals.

I might be in love. A little bit.

I am also in love with the house windows. They look like sneaky eyeballs. 

This house just looks old and tired. 

The old fortress. 

Our host invited us to stay another day.

"This is my favorite city so far," I told Tessa as we walked back to our studio apartment. "Can we stay another day?"

"Let's stay another day."