My Bloody Romania: Sibiu, slippery when wet

by Leif Pettersen on

Dateline: Sibiu, Romania

Sun, warmth and temperature perfection; that pretty much sums up the first 48 hours of my Vladling road trip in Transylvania. At exactly 48 hours, one minute and 15 seconds, Romania suffered a freak, only-when-it’s-me, inclement weather zap. The temperature dropped 20 degrees Fahrenheit, fog rolled in and it rained like hell. Parts of eastern Romania were under water in a matter of hours. Nothing dreadful like that happened in Sibiu, but it was still a cruel turn of events after all that driving.

Our driving day between Târgu Mure?? and Sibiu could have gone smoother. Romania’s lethargic commitment to signage, accurate or otherwise, turned a two hour drive into four, including a maddening, looping tour of Sibiu’s commercial district while trying to outwit signs and deviously placed one way streets that circled the historic center, but never actually led to where they promised.

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The Little Vampire and I frittered away the vast majority of the 30 minutes of sunshine that Sibiu enjoyed on our only full day in town lingering over coffee and following around a German couple carry my LP guide to Romania and Moldova – the first sighting of the book in a non-controlled setting. After that brief encounter with comfort and dryness, we exclusively saw the city from the insides of cafes and restaurants, darting and shivering from patio umbrellas to covered building entrances and generally wishing our little hearts out for it to stop pouring just long enough for us to run back to the car (it never did).

Nevertheless, Sibiu was nice to look at – all polished and redecorated for their spotlight year as a European Capital of Culture. Had we the proper cold and moisture resistant clothing, the city certainly looked primed for a good stroll. A police presence stronger than I’ve ever seen in Romania was out, manning virtually every street corner and wandering the plazas in twos, waiting for someone to make their collective days. And when no one did, they actually made themselves useful, directing traffic and even helping drivers find parking spots. Seeing as how my history with Romanian police mainly consists of them staring a hole into me as I drive through town, scanning my driving/car for any excuse to pull me over and shake me down for a bribe, seeing all this goodwill was a little creepy quite frankly.

When it’s not hypothermia weather, Sibiu deserves two full days to take in its worthwhile sites and architecture, including the abundance of the city’s atmospheric ‘eyelid’ windows. The trifecta of plazas – Piaţa Mare (Large Plaza), Piaţa Mica (Small Plaza) and Piaţa Huet (The What Now? Plaza) – are newly cobblestoned and enriched with artistic flairs like modern art and creative landscaping. The southeast remnants of the lovely 16th century city wall are a time travel trip, if you can ignore the Dacias and Peugeots parked alongside it. A number of sights, including the Brukenthal Museum, “the oldest and (likely) finest art gallery in Romania”, the City History Museum and the Franz Binder Museum of World Ethnology are all excellent. We gave it a miss due to the weather and since I’ve already seen several just like it, but the Museum of Traditional Folk Civilization, 5km south of town, has a staggering 120 traditional dwellings, mills and churches painstakingly trucked in from around the country. And though I was barred entrance by God’s Securitate, it’s probably safe to assume that the tourism office is first-rate.

Oh right, possibly the main reason everyone was on their best behavior was that Sibiu had been overrun by a Caucus of Organized, Devout Non-Atheists. The Non-Atheists verily locked out the remainder of Sibiu’s tourists for the week, commandeering the tourism bureau, filling every bed in town (we were forced to book beds in a village 15 kilometers away), monopolizing all worthwhile sights and even somewhat rudely turning us Non-Non-Atheists out of the warm and dry Evangelical Church, without so much as a glimpse of the ornamentation or the 1772 organ with 6002 pipes, into the freezing pouring rain, while they slaughtered goats or whatever it was they were doing that required total privacy and air-tight security.

Lastly, a small health problem was finally addressed in Sibiu. After dining in Restaurant Leo in Târgu Mureş (LP-listed, by the way) two days previous, I’d started on an involuntary strict regimen of racing to the toilet every 90 minutes to do unspeakable things that rhyme with “doop my ducking drains out”. When it became clear that this was the kind of food poisoning that doesn’t just eventually work itself through the system, I made a stop at a pharmacy to buy an antidote (‘Furazolidon’ for those of you who find yourself in a similar situation on your next trip to Romania). And, for the record, when the pharmacist asks you how many you want, she literally means how many pills. If you say “five”, she busts open a package, whips out a scissors and cuts up the tabs. Try that at Wallgreens! I was instructed to take two pills right away, which turned my pee a delightful color of reddish-orange. ‘Delightful’, that is, if it were being served in a heaping glass of ice next to a pool on Mallorca. Rather alarming when it comes out of your doodle. Ultimately, the pills did the trick and I was never forced to take an emergency poop by the side of the road, which I’ve never had to do in 37 years and hope to avoid for another 37.

Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-authored the current edition of Lonely Planet’s Romania and Moldova. Visit his personal blog, Killing Batteries, for expanded coverage on his gastrointestinal peculiarities and further groanings on why, oh why, is it so f*cking difficult for Romanians to put up a sign? Just one bloody sign, for Christ’s sake? I’m not asking for the world here, just an effing sign pointing to the center of town! I mean do these asshats want tourists to visit their damn town or what? Mother of God…

My Bloody Romania: ‘Vladling’ in Transylvania

by Leif Pettersen on

Dateline: Târgu Mure??, Romania

The first incarnation of my online blogging presence was called Every Notable Patch of Grass in Romania. The title was apt, as I had already lived and traveled in Romania for nearly a year and was about to embark on my Lonely Planet research trip to canvas the more obscure tourist sites in the country normally frequented by truckers, drunken businessmen and truant teenagers. I had to change my blog’s title to Killing Batteries when I moved out of Romania last year (it was either that or “The No Effing Way I’m Spending Another Winter Here Chronicles”). Despite my former blog’s authoritative title, I didn’t exactly see every notable patch of grass due to inclement weather, the time-space continuum and acute Vengeful God-itis, a terrible affliction that I contracted in my late teens after I was tricked into juggling at a pro-life rally for Christian teenaged girls (the dick jokes did not go over well) and have suffered from almost continuously ever since.

Since I very nearly hold the dubious honor of Best Traveled Romania Tourist Ever, I decided to pad my numbers a bit and knock off a few more destinations this week, most notably Sibiu, a 2007 European Capital of Culture.

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Let’s just get this out of the way: I hate driving. It’s not that I’m a bad driver – indeed I can parallel park a car at an Olympic level – it’s just never been fun for me. This may have something to do with the fact that I’ve never driven anything fancier than a Honda Civic hatchback, but that’s the situation nonetheless. Furthermore, I’m filled with manifest dread at the mere thought of driving in Romania. As a whole, these drivers are bat$hit crazy. It’s a nationwide phenomenon and common knowledge among the natives (stories appear on the BBC once a month or so about some idiotic, totally avoidable multi-fatality accident like this one), but they don’t care.

I’ve already written at great length about the reality of driving in Romania and although that rant is still largely true, I have to grudgingly admit that the situation has noticeably improved. Rumors of cops cracking down on jackass driving started a year ago and I figured it was just talk to appease EU officials agonizing over last minute membership details that would fall on deaf ears anyway. But sure enough, the number of people driving like they’re 30 seconds from giving birth has dropped and conspicuous drunk driving along with it. Though $hitfaced staggering around town still seems to be all the rage, as we saw in a village less than 30 minutes after departing on our trip. Some guy decided to step out, stinking drunk on a Monday morning, shirtless and in the rain, weaving down the middle of a busy national road. Sadly, I was too slow with the camera to capture this classic Romania countryside moment.

Despite improved conditions, over the course of the seven day road-trip I was involved in three near-fender benders, saw one non-fatal van roll-over, observed a mere two people making prudent use of their rearview mirrors (both tourists from Germany) and only feared for my life once when I honked at a lunatic who nearly caused a five car pile-up, who screamed incoherently at me and tried to spit on my car as he drove off. These people honk at each other 25 times before breakfast, but honk at someone to express displeasure about their dangerously incompetent driving and you better be ready to trade blows, brother.

I was joined on this road adventure by my Co-Pilot, Photographer and Translator When It Gets Too Hard For Me Or I’m Feeling Lazy: ‘The Little Vampire’ (not her real name – she won’t tell me what it is because “you’re a pervert.”).

Since the distance from Iaşi to Sibiu is prohibitively long, even for people who love hours behind the wheel dodging livestock, horse carts, suicidal drivers and escaped winos, I chose to break up the drive and stop for a night in Târgu Mureş. Spine-tingling it ain’t, but Târgu Mureş is nevertheless a perfectly nice place to hang out for a day. Their elongated, agreeably manicured Piaţa Trandafirilor (‘Rose Plaza’, which is indeed rosey) starts slow with a ho-hum concrete cathedral (1934) at one end, then builds with a series of Habsburg-esque buildings lining both sides of the piaţa and ends strong with the side-by-side color-coded Palace of Culture and County Council Building.

The city has an even mix of ethnic Hungarians and Romanians which has historically been a sore spot. Ceauşescu, a legendary loather of Hungarians, actually closed the city to Hungarians while he was in power. Even as late as 1990, the post-Communist government, little improved on Ceauşescu’s halfwit approach to domestic policy, brought in ethnic Romanian peasants from the countryside armed with their farming tools to (successfully) engineer a bloody race riot, which was then officially blamed on local Roma (gypsies). Among other things, local Hungarian poet was attacked by a mob that tried to gouge out his eyes. Good times.

Apart from the city’s modest museums and aesthetic beauty, Târgu Mureş started blipping on backpacker radars (and the current LP) in 2006 when it became the first city in Romania serviced by a budget airline: Wizz Air. In the ensuing year, budget airlines have exploded here (I’ve posted a complete breakdown here), with flights zapping in from all over Europe on Blue Air, MyAir (Motto: “Schedule? What schedule?”), and German Wings, with flights starting soon on EasyJet (beginning October 29th) and Ryan Air (date yet to be released).

As a footnote, Romania recently threatened to ban Wizz Air from its airspace for chronic tardiness, ineptitude and horrid customer service. Hmmm, those traits sound familiar. Oh, and I see Delta Airlines flies into Bucharest! How embarrassing would it be for Delta to be banned by Romania? Ooo. I think I just had a tiny orgasm.

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To break up the drive even further (and because we didn’t really have a choice), we made a quick stop at Bicaz Gorge, a short, but dramatically plunging crevasse that climaxes at the “Neck of Hell” where the accident-waiting-to-happen gorge wall hangs over a busy road. Though I’ve spared you the photos, the road both before and after the bottom of the ravine has 20-some souvenir stands selling identical crap for identical prices. Who says small business competition is dead?

Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-authored the current edition of Lonely Planet’s Romania and Moldova. Visit his personal blog, Killing Batteries, for further ponderings on why God hates him and where one can pick up a Dracula ashtray for cheap.

My Bloody Romania: Ia

by Leif Pettersen on

Dateline: Ia??i, Romania

Further to my short list of conspicuous changes that have taken hold in Ia??i in the past 12 months, equally some things haven’t changed at all. Things that you’d kinda wished they’d prioritized. Like the city works.

I’m staying in a private apartment that hasn’t had hot water in over a week. Unless you go to the store and buy a dodgy mini-boiler that sucks down so much electricity that it makes the power point smoke, hot water in Romania is provided by the city and since the city suddenly has all these EU funds, they’ve made themselves busy replacing all the perfectly good municipal water pipes with new pipes that make the water taste metallic and hurt your kidneys. And they’re in no particular rushed to complete the conversion.

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The haste to beatify the city, sadly, hasn’t included one of the coolest edifices in town: The Church of the Three Hierarchs. Its unique exterior is embroidered in a wealth of intricate patterns in stone, but this beauty has been languishing under scaffolding since before I first visited here and doesn’t appear to be much closer to being unveiled than when I took this picture in 2004. Indeed, there’s actually more scaffolding on it now and parts of it are wallpapered in plastic sheeting. For my money, they could have put off replacing the hot water pipes forever in lieu of fixing this wonderful piece of history.

Also, the Flintstones-era German trams that were handed down to Poland, that were handed down to eastern Slovakia, that were handed down to Romania, are still groaning along, tinkling chandeliers in every house they pass, filthy and sounding as if they’re one bolt failure away from collapsing into a thousand pieces then spontaneously bursting in flames, a la the Simpsons. Bucharest has futuristic trams, why not Iaşi?

The train station is still a crumbing eyesore. The platforms look as if they were shelled in 1941 and no one has gotten around to filling the holes, or even sweeping away the debris. Travelers who didn’t have specific business in Iaşi might be tempted to simply stay on the train and go anywhere else if they followed gut instinct upon seeing this sorry station.

On a positive note, three blocks of the city center’s main artery, Stefan cel Mare Boulevard, is still closed down each weekend to motor vehicles, so Iaşi’s families, unattended children and young couples in love can idly stroll back and forth (or race along on precarious rollerblades), much like the Italian passeggiata, without fear of being run down by maniacal, suicidal Romanian drivers. This may be one of Iaşi’s most pleasurable (free) pastimes.

Also, those wanting to do some quality souvenir shopping for the ladies in their lives, Romanian amber (yellow, brownish-orange and green) set in Turkish silver continues to be sold at shockingly low prices. In fact, going by my dim memory, prices may have even dropped in the past year. As always, the pieces have a very non-manufactured, unique and genuine look, as if some countryside matriarch was fashioning the pieces out in the shed during her downtime between milking the cows and hauling water from the community well.

Well, that’s enough reminiscing for now, I’ve gotta pack. Tomorrow I depart on a seven day road trip through Transylvania, visiting towns like Targu Mures and Sibiu (a 2007 European Capital of Culture), driving the Transfagarasan Road, seeing Poienari Castle (the real Dracula’s castle) and climbing the Bucegi Mountains. A somewhat dubious rental car has been acquired (22 euros per day) and a stash of Valium will be secreted in one of my cargo shorts pockets to deal with the non-stop, white knuckle, sphincter-collapsing danger that is driving in the Romanian countryside.

Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-authored the current edition of Lonely Planet’s Romania and Moldova. Visit his personal blog, Killing Batteries, for further musings on why he should be a city planner and how his lady friends hate being referred to as ‘ladies’.

My Bloody Romania: Ia

by Leif Pettersen on

Dateline: Ia??i, Romania

Having finally found the strength to leave the house for a good wander around the city center, I slipped into a phone booth and switched into my alter ego, Travel Writer Man.

Travel Writer Man has a lot of crap that he likes to haul around: Palm Pilot, digital camera, pens, map, guidebook, sunglasses, business cards, cell phone, three kinds of currency, key-chain light, extra socks, crash helmet, death ray, almost-death ray, breath mints and lotion.

In cold weather, outfitting himself with this array of paraphernalia was never a problem having acquired a jacket with seven pockets that weighs almost 20 pounds when fully loaded. However, in warm weather, Travel Writer Man has always struggled with how to carry all of his critical apparatuses without resorting to a Man Bag, until recently when he discovered the exquisite beauty and priceless utilitarianism of cargo shorts.

Travel Writer Man used to openly mock people wearing these hilarious things outside of jungle safari, but Travel Writer Man changed his tune last April while he was writing the definitive works on large parts of Tuscany for an obscure guidebook series that rhymes with ‘Homely Janet’. Having acquired a pair of cargo shorts for lack of any other option during an emergency fit of speed shopping, he was amazed at how versatile and accommodating of spare death-ray clips these garments were. He is now a convert, having recently bought a new pair with nine pockets of varying size, including special receptacles for a cell phone and flash bombs and nine, yes nine, pen/pencil loops that can double as a bandolier for groupie-dispersing nerve gas slugs. But I digress back into the first person, before this becomes unfunny…

I paid rent in Iaşi (pronounced ‘yash’) for a cumulative 16 months between 2004-06, making it, longevity-wise, my second home. I have a love/hate relationship with this town that I could drone on about for 10,000 words, but since a post like that would put Gadling’s payroll into overdraft, I’ll keep this topical.

Iaşi has had an industrious year, with several changes/improvements standing out. Most heartening, an honest-to-Buddha tourism office has been opened just off Piaţa Unirii, being manned in part by a woman not opposed to wearing Elvira Mistress of the Night cast-off blouses and giving away wondrous 64-color city maps that money couldn’t buy 12 months ago. People, this should be your first stop in Iaşi, both for the brochures and the view. Loved it.

On that note, Piaţa Unirii (‘Union Plaza’) which has been in various stages of ruin and slo-mo refurbishment since 2004 is finally cleaned up and not even that unsightly, considering that butt-ugly piece of leftover 70’s tastelessness, Hotel Unirea, is sitting behind it at center stage. For a better view, move to the east side of the square, so your backdrop is taken up by the neoclassic Hotel Traian, designed by Gustave Eiffel in 1882 who, legend has it, was inspired to build his tower in Paris a few years later by the long legs and short skirts of Iaşi’s women (see historically accurate 19th century photo, right).

Some cleaver entrepreneur was standing ready at the Romanian border on January 1st 2007. While a legion of Romanians seeking work in Western Europe surged forward at the stroke of midnight, this guy towed about 10 pizza slice wagons across the country and parked them all over Iaşi (and I assume the rest of Romania). The pizza sucks, but at least now one has the choice of grabbing a sucky pizza over a sucky sandwich or a sucky hotdog while on the go.

The streets are in much better condition. Historically, Romania had some of the worst roads in Europe. During the eight months that I was a demoralized owner of a 1990 Dacia 1310, I averaged one flat tire per week. Inevitably on a Sunday. On my way to get anti-hangover coffee. I rarely handled it gracefully. Now streets are smooth and, more importantly, not disintegrating two weeks after being ‘fixed’ by a team of road workers consisting of the foreman’s out of work nephews and sons in-law. On a related note, despite the silky smooth streets, pizza delivery drivers still can’t seem to break the 90 minute mark (or the luke-warm serving temperature). Maybe in 2008.

Restaurants are opening at a dizzying pace, a trend that started at the beginning of 2006, with a focus on mid-range prices (previously non-existent), making the Iaşi eating section of the LP guide partially obsolete.

Also, many of you will be dying to know, beer prices have been affected, or rather not affected in the post-EU membership way that we’d hoped. A 0.5 liter glass of the local Romanian brew, which doesn’t suck by a long shot, can still be acquired in a stylish bar for a mere US$2. However, the fancy imports that used to cost US$5 for a .25 liter bottle, well they still cost US$5. Having EU import tariffs disappear has had zero effect, unless you count the new clutch of luxury homes being snatched up by Romania’s Heineken jackhole distributor.

Some photos from around Iasi to further intrigue you…

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Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-authored the current edition of Lonely Planet’s Romania and Moldova. Visit his personal blog, Killing Batteries, for further musings on beer, sucky food and his limited wardrobe.

My Bloody Romania: Hero gloriously returns to zero fanfare

by Leif Pettersen on

Dateline: Cruising altitude, en route from Minneapolis to JFK

I hold in my hands a just-out-of-the-box, mint condition copy of Lonely Planet’s Romania and Moldova. This is significant for two reasons: One, I plan to do a fair bit of travel in Romania’s Moldavia and Transylvania regions over the course of the next month. Two, it just so happens that I wrote/updated half this staggering work of brilliance and I’m more than a little pleased to finally be flipping through the final product.

Is there anything as sweet as traveling in a country carrying a guidebook that has your name printed in blue 16 point font on page one? No really, I’m asking. I have no idea. This is my first time. Will celebrity spotters identify me? Will the paparazzi chase me down the street? Will girls shriek with primal lust and tear at my clothes when I rush from my hostel into my waiting Dacia 1310?

Hmmm, perhaps a test run here on the plane. I’ll prop the book open on the tray table exposing my bio page, fetching black and white picture and all, angle it so my neighbor can see it and wait for the slobbering reverence to ensue.

She doesn’t see it. I’ll tap the book on the table.

Nothing. I’ll rhythmically tap-point at my picture.

Emphatically circle it with my finger.

“Cough-look-at-this-COUGH!”

Man, she is really out of it. Is that rum I smell? OK , switching to other neighbor.

Drat. She’s asleep already. How is that possible? We’ve been in the air 12 effing minutes. I hate those people.

Well, until Romania then, where I’ll probably be less worshiped for my fame and literary genius and more chastised and mercilessly critiqued about content balance, misplaced map icons and how the bus from Brasov to Sighisoara actually costs 45 cents more than it says in the book and how could I have screwed up so badly?

Everyone’s a critic, especially me. I lived in Romania for a cumulative 16 months between 2004-06 (in the northeast city of Iasi, the country’s second largest city, 20 kilometers from the Moldovan border) and I complained like I was getting paid US$0.08 a word. Meaning I was compelled to complain at great length or not make rent. The startlingly narrow choice of cuisine, the kamikaze drivers, the alarming state of corruption and bureaucracy perpetrated by those who are in charge of processing used car title changes, the complete lack of desire by the entire population to satisfy the bare minimum of their assigned job duties without some kind of extra incentive and the demoralizing number of achingly beautiful women who were, for lack of any other option, dating horribly unattractive, style-starved, drunken, lecherous men while much more attractive American, travel writing, David Beckham look-alikes with asses that have to been seen to be believed were roundly ignored.

Apart from a 10 day visit over the previous New Years that saw Romania narrowly gain European Union membership, an interval that was spent largely drunk and prone (I was exceedingly happy on their behalf), I have not spent significant time in Romania for over a year. I’m told that EU membership has sparked some fast and occasionally mirthfully executed changes in that time and I can’t wait to criticize/mock it to a quivering pulp. Oh there’ll probably be moments of amazement and veneration too, but that’s hardly funny is it?

But before any of that can happen, there’s the small matter of getting to Iasi, which has never been easy, and has been enlivened on this occasion by the fact that my Minneapolis/JFK flight on Northwest Airlines has been delayed repeatedly and we are currently due to touch down exactly seven minutes before my connecting flight to Madrid departs. Will I get to Iasi or will I blog about John F. Kennedy Airport for the next four weeks? The mind swirls.

POSTSCRIPT: My plane to Madrid departed while my plane from Minneapolis circled JFK for reasons that were never shared.

Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-authored the current edition of Lonely Planet’s Romania and Moldova. Visit his personal blog, Killing Batteries, for further musings about Romanian food, Italian internet and the exquisite contours of his booty.