I vant to suck your blood...

Hello. I come from Transylvania where I saw Dracula's Castle!!!! It was so cool! It is called the Bran Castle and is huge and scary looking (see photos) and amazing. There were secret passageways and all sorts of cool things inside. Lots of low ceilings and scary looking lamps. The bed was huge and black. But the best was the view from outside. Romania is so beautiful. Transylvania is a gorgeous area with mountains. With the fall colors the scenery was amazing. Estera's friend Nicoleta took me to see the castle and then she took me to this really cool fortress that sits way on top of a hill. It has a big sign on it like the Hollywood sign, so it was pretty exciting to climb all the way up there and pose by the sign. The fortress was really cool. The whole town used to live inside there. They even had a well that went all the way down through the hill and to some sort of water source below. They made two prisoners dig the well and promised to release them upon completion. 17 years later they finally finished! :-) The fortress had a beautiful view of the city. They stayed very protected in that fortress through several seige attempts. They even had some torture devices around, apparently for those they took prisoner. Kind of scary. It was really neat to see the fortress and the view from way up there. And it was a nice hike up there too. I'm getting used to a lot of hiking and climbing, so I'll have to find things to climb when I return home. After the fortress and Dracula's castle, Nicoleta and I went back to her house and joined her family for pizza Romanian style. My veggie pizza had carrots, peas, corn, and green beans on it. :-) And they like to put ketchup on their pizza here too, so I had to do that. Nicoleta told me that when she went to America her favorite pizza was the pizza at Sam's Club. :-) I love it! I had a great time with Nicoleta and her family. It was so nice of them to show me around. They tried to take me to a cave too, but it was closed (hence the sad face in my pics.) But we had a great time laughing after we drank our mushroom hot chocolate (don't ask) so we didn't mind. And a word to the wise for anyone traveling abroad: don't mention anything about the gas prices being high in America... I would suggest just saying, "They have increased, but I'm sure they're still nothing compared to what you pay for gas so I feel incredibly lucky and if I can assist in your gas payments in any way please let me know." Memorize that and you will be fine. :-)

All in all, I have found Romanians to be incredibly kind and generous and their country is beautiful! I have really enjoyed my stay here in every way, shape and form.

Campulung, Romania

So here I am! I am visiting some missionaries that my family has supported for almost ten years. Estera and Vio are an extremely nice Romanian couple who are doing the Lord's work in Campulung. I started donating some of my money each month to their mission work when I was 14 and now I am here meeting them! What a cool thing! Today I spent the day making crafts. :-) Estera teaches Bible lessons for children and she needed to make examples of some of the crafts she has the kids do, but she is extremely busy, so I volunteered to make the examples. I made four crafts today and also attempted to draw puzzle pieces on a picture so Estera can cut it apart for an object lesson. We'll see how well I did when she gets home.

A few months ago Estera and Vio got an email about some kids who needed help. They had been abused and were often abandoned for days by their father. So Estera and Vio volunteered to take the children. They have been jumping through hoops ever since to try to be able to take care of the boys. First they just had the younger son, Danny, who is 3. But they found out they could get arrested just for having him living with them without certain paperwork, so they had to put him back into the care (or lackthereof) of their dad. They tried to get permission to have Danny and when they finally got permission, they had to search for him and found he and his brother living with some gypsie ladies on the street. Danny's dad wants Vio and Estera to have him, but getting permission is really hard. "Welcome to Romania!" is how Estera explained it to me. Their rules are really silly. When they finally did get some sort of permission, Danny's dad asked them to take his other son, Andrew, as well. Andrew is 6 and has some mental problems, so it has been extremely hard for Estera and Vio to care for both boys. But of course they agreed because they are amazing Christian people with huge hearts. But they are still waiting for the papers to come to them which has been a burden. Usually children in Romania get the medicine they need for free, but Estera and Vio have had to pay for a lot of medicine for the boys because they don't have the papers. And of course they are making big bucks as missionaries so it's not a problem (yeah right!)

I am glad that I'm here right now because I am able to help them out as much as I can with the boys and crafts and other small things. I guess this is a shameless plug for them, but if anyone who is reading this is looking to support a worthy cause or if your church might be looking for some super cool missionaries to support, I know just the people. They obviously didn't ask me to do this. I don't even think they know I have a blog. But I am here and seeing first hand what awesome things they are doing for the children of Romania, two of which are in their home right now. So I just thought I'd mention it just in case. :-) Let me know if you want more info. Now I think I'll get back to my crafts. :-)

Night train to Romania

I had a wonderful time on the night train between Budapest and Bucharest. I was in a four person sleeping car but there turned out to be only two of us. My traveling companion for the night was an extremely sweet lady named Theodora. She is from Bucharest but has done a ton of traveling and speaks English very well. She filled me in on exactly what to do because this was my first night train experience. When she suggested that I go get my sheets I quickly followed her instructions and left our compartment. But I had no sooner started down the hall when I heard, "Marla! Marla! Come back!" I went to see what was the matter and Theodora explained that I must never leave my handbag anywhere! I had left it on the seat with the rest of my luggage thinking she would keep an eye on it for me, but she was adamant that I take it with me wherever I go, even to the toilet! :-) I appreciated this very important lesson. My handbag never left my side for the rest of the journey. I got to know Theodora a little and turns out she was an electrical engineer, just like my brother Justin! She has traveled all over the world and just got done spending two weeks with her friends in Budapest going to the baths every day! Now isn't that the life!

I went to bed pretty early, but was woken up twice at border control. First the Hungarians wanted to see our passports before we left the country for some reason. And then the Romanians wanted to see our passports when we entered the country. At least I got two more stamps in my passport! Yippee!

I slept pretty well. I tell ya, night trains are the way to go. You spend a couple hours chatting with your lovely train-mate, go to sleep, get two stamps in your passport, and when you wake up you're about there!

I had set my alarm the night before, but it turned out I didn't need to because I was woken up by Theodora. "Marla! Marla! You must get up! You must come down and see the mountains!" :-) I am very glad Theodora woke me up because the mountains were absolutely beautiful. One of them even had a wooden cross on the very top of it. Beautiful scenery.

The train was delayed so I missed my connecting train, but Theodora was with me the whole time. She helped me get off the train and took me to information to find out when the next train was and got me to the track and everything before she said good bye. I was definitely extremely lucky to have shared a compartment with her on the night train to Romania. :-)

I hopped on the train to Pitesti shortly after and sat by a really nice old man who kept trying to talk to me in Romanian. So we ate milky way minis together and laughed about how much luggage I had. And then about how we couldn't understand each other. At least I think that's what we were laughing about... He also helped me off the train and carried my bag for me. He made sure I didn't have to take another train or bus that he could help me find. And when he figured out I was waiting for a ride, he kissed my hand when I tried to shake his and waved good bye. Romania is full of super nice people as far as I can tell so far.

Budapest, Hungary

So Sarah and I went to Budapest and it was pretty amazing! We got there on Friday night and pretty much headed straight to Szechenyi Baths. Budapest is known for it's thermal hot springs so what better way to enjoy the city than by bathing in the warm water with a bunch of strangers! The baths were enormous! There were three outside pools and a ton of inside pools as well as a few saunas and I think some steam rooms. Inside there were pools of all different temperatures and sizes. It was so cool because the baths are in this old building that looks like a big palace or old government building of some kind. It seemed as though we were bathing in an elaborately decorated cathedral or something like that. There were columns with figures on them and the ceilings were cool looking. It was pretty sweet. We of course tried every single bath. We even tried a sauna that had colored lights in it. Every few minutes the light would change to a different color of the rainbow. I'm not sure what the lights had to do with anything, but it was enjoyable. Most of the baths were around 36 degrees celcius. But there was one 20 degree bath and one 40 degree bath. As soon as I climbed in the 20 degree bath I was out and into the 40 degree bath. Much better. There was a 38 degree bath outside that was the best. We stayed in there a majority of the time because the air was fresh, the night sky was pretty, and it was oh so warm in the bath with the chilly weather on our faces. We need to get some baths like that in the states.

The next morning we went shopping at this cool market that Sarah knew about. Then we headed up the touristy shopping street and ended in a square where we joined a free tour. Woohoo! Our guide was really cool! His name was Adam and he was born and raised in Hungary. His English was very good and he was extremely informative and into the tour. He was pretty hilarious in an cute awkward sort of way. He showed us a ton of stuff and we walked all over the Pest side and the Buda side of the city. I'm not just making that up, by the way. One side of the river is Buda and one side is Pest and they decided to join them together to make one big capitol city: Budapest. Apparently they tried Pestbuda for awhile, but it was a no go. Anyway, Buda is the hilly side and it was really beautiful and there is a cool fortress and castle that we climbed up to. It gives an awesome view of the Pest side, which is more city like but has the Parliament Building and a few other cool things. I learned way too much and saw too many things to type them all, but one thing I thought was really interesting were Adam's thoughts about communism. For some reason, I just expect everyone to have horrible stories and terrible things to say about communism, but Adam said some different things. He said things are harder for the Hungarian people now then they were then. He said that it was terrible that they didn't have any choices, but people lived better then. His example was: which is better, having only one choice for laundry soap in the store that you have to buy but being able to afford it, or having twenty different choices for laundry soap, but not being able to afford to buy any of them. An interesting perspective.

But, anyway, Budapest was lots of fun. I really enjoyed the city, the baths, and the tour. At 5:00 I bid Sarah good bye and hopped on the night train to Bucharest, Romania. Off to more adventures.

A wonderful time in Hungary.

My last two days in Hungary were wonderful. After I spoke to the 12th grade class, one of Sarah's students came up to me to see if I had tried some of the local Hungarian food. I hadn't had the things he was talking about, so after school, Tamas and Balint, two of Sarah's students, took us to get Langos and Palincsinta. It was delicious! And super fun to eat typical Hungarian food. Tamas and Balint were really fun. We walked around town, stopped at the tea house, walked to the river, and just chatted about life in Hungary and the U.S. They even helped me get stamps for some postcards and also reserve my seat on the train from Budapest to Bucharest. What nice young men!



Today Sarah and I are heading to Budapest to see some things there before I head to Romania tomorrow. I'm not sure when I'll be able to blog next, but I'll do my best!

Bratislava, Slovakia

The thing I love most about Europe is that you can take a day trip to another country. So that's exactly what I did. I hopped on the train at 7:45 am and headed to Slovakia! I had to change trains once to get there, but I'm pretty much amazing at the train system by now, so it wasn't a problem. I arrived in Bratislava, the capitol of Slovakia, at around 9:45 am. Pretty much the instant the train pulled into the station it started raining. But I have a cute little umbrella Henry bought for me that fits perfectly in the pocket of my purse, so I was all set. I stopped by the tourist info to get a map and a free guidebook and then the ATM to get 1000 korunas for the day and then I headed out with my map and my umbrella. Sarah's guidebook on Slovakia recommended this little book store/coffee shop called Next Apache. I found it on the map and it was on the way from the train station to the old town, so I stopped in for a break from the rain. It was the cutest place ever! Really cozy and eccentric. There were old couches and cute little tables and chairs and it had tons of books. And most of them were in English! I was tempted to buy a few, but I already have a bunch of books I'm carrying around with me, so I just got a coffee and planned out my day in Bratislava. By the time I was ready to go, the rain had pretty much stopped, so I headed into the city. I was passing under the St.Michael's Gate (a big archway under the tower of St. Michael's church that basically leads into the old town) when I saw a cute little lady selling jewelry. It was all hand made by her (I knew because she was making some as she was sitting there waiting for customers.) So I bought some really cute earrings. Then I walked around the town and saw all the cool things the guidebook told me to see. Bratislava has all these cool statues kind of hidden around town. There's a man in a manhole, a man leaning on one of the benches in the main square, a paparazzi guy taking photos around a corner, and a man with a top hat waving to people on the street. So I had a good time walking around town finding all the statues and taking pictures with them. I also enjoyed the main square and some of the other beautiful buildings in town. In the main square there's a random painting of a man dressed in black on the outside of the old town hall. There's also some measuring tools attached to the old town hall that people used to use to measure their goods before they bought them to make sure the merchants weren't cheating on the price. I thought that was kind of cool.

Bratislava also has a big castle right next to the old town. So I hiked up to it and walked all around it. The castle itself was closed for refurbishment right now, but I enjoyed the view of the town and the Danube river from way up at the castle and it was still a beautiful walk. I also saw the narrowest house in town. The frontal face measures only 130 cm.

I walked a few blocks out of town to see the "blue church" and I'm really glad I did because it was super cool! It was a beautiful blue color both inside and out and I loved it! I would totally go to church there! Sarah's guidebook mentioned a vegetarian restaurant outside of town, so I decided to hike out there for some good veggie food. But when I got out there I found that the restaurant no longer existed. So I ate at the restaurant that is there now and had some amazing stuffed mushrooms! So it all worked out. :-) Then I headed back into town and saw the Grassalkovish Palace. It is a huge palace where the President of the Slovak Republic works. There were two guards out front guarding the building and standing absolutely still. That would be a tough job. The palace had a really cool fountain out front with a globe-like thing in the middle of it. In the back of the palace were some beautiful gardens where I sat and read my book for awhile. Then I made my way back to the train station and headed back to Hungary. I definitely enjoyed my day in Slovakia. :-)

Pannenhalma, Hungary

On Tuesday Sarah and I decided to visit a really old abbey that is located just outside of Gyor in Pannenhalma. And boy was it an adventure! We set out for the bus station after school and tried to find the 1:43 bus to Pannenhalma. First we were at the wrong bus station. We couldn't really find Pannenhalma on any of the signs, so we asked someone who worked there where the bus was and they pointed to another bus station on the other side of the train tracks. So we hiked over the bridge to the other bus station. But there were a gazillion buses and we had no idea which was ours. We tried to ask some of the young people, hoping they would speak English. No luck. We asked a lady selling things at a little stand. No luck. We asked a few bus drivers. You guessed it. No luck! Everyone kept saying "elf." I know I'm not the tallest person in the world but Geez! We finally found the information window and managed to find out that we had just missed our bus and the next one didn't leave for another 50 minutes. So we hung out at the train station in Gyor and then hopped on bus number 11. I later found out that "elf" means 11 in German. If the bus had only been number 1-10 we would have been totally fine. But that's as far as my numerical knowledge of German stretches. So anyway, there we are on the bus on the way to Pannenhalma, and we weren't even sure if we were going to get there on time because the tours leave on the hour, the abbey closes at 4, and we were on the 2:46 bus. So we're riding along and we start to see the abbey up on the hill, but we weren't too sure where to get off. All the sudden it's the last stop and the bus driver is yelling something about heading back to Gyor. So we hop off and look up and the abbey is on the top of this huge hill which we are on the bottom of. But I wasn't about to give up at this point, so I just start hiking. Before we know it, we're hiking through people's backyards and driveways, hitting dead ends and having to try another way. As long as we were still going up I was convinced we were going to make it. Eventually we hit this little path. We booked it up the path and there it was! The abbey at Pannenhalma! We were wondering around trying to find the tourist office but no one that we asked spoke English. We were maybe getting a little flustered when I saw a group of people sitting around and just started with, "does anyone speak English?" Luckily one young man did and informed us that the ticket office was down the other side of the hill. This was not music to our ears since we had just hiked up the hill in record pace, but we were determined to see this abbey! So we hurried down the path and across a little bridge and found the ticket office. And much to our surprise and delight, we were able to get on a tour in ten minutes! In Hungarian... But no worries. They had pamphlets in English for us to use to follow along with the tour. We were pretty pumped that it all worked out.

The abbey was beautiful! It is high atop a hill, which we were well aware of, so it overlooks the city of Pannenhalma and has an amazing view. They abbey is actually over 1500 years old and still funtions! We even saw a couple of monks! The church was beautiful in the abbey, but the best part was the library! They have over 400,000 books! It's huge and beautiful and just makes me want to read! We even saw some really old documents written about the abbey. After the tour I bought some tea that is made by the monks by the herbs they grow in their garden right there at the abbey! How cool!

Sarah and I went wondering around the beautiful grounds and ended up at the front of the abbey just in time to see our bus pulling away. Yeah, we definitely missed it by about 20 seconds. We weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves, so we tried to ask a lady standing outside the abbey and she arranged for her friends to drive us down to the bus stop at the bottom of the hill where we could catch a bus back to Gyor. The Hungarian people are so helpful and nice! The lady who drove us even got out of the car to show us what time our bus would be arriving. And go figure, we had missed the last bus by about 2 minutes, so we had to wait about 45 til the next one. But that was fine. Sarah and I were just chatting away. And then a scary drunk Hungarian man stumbled over to the bus stop and tried to chat with us forever! He tried Hungarian, German, and even a little English before we finally just got up and walked around the area for awhile to lose him. I will say, though, that I am pretty impressed that a Hungarian drunk man could speak three languages. I'm pretty sure most drunk people in the states can't even manage their native English very well. Needless to say, Sarah and I were excited when the bus finally pulled up and we were safely on our way back to Gyor. It was a crazy day with yet another wild Hungarian adventure. :-)