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Sibiu, Romania — October 2006
From Vienna, we took an overnight train to the town of Alba Lulia, Romania, and then took an early morning bus to Sibiu, one of the big towns we visited last year on our first Romania trip. The whole town was undergoing heavy renovation last year, and it still is now, as they prepare to become a European Capital of Culture in 2007, which is something I'd never heard of until I was wandering around Sibiu and wondering why the hell every goddamn steet is so torn up and there's so much noise and dust from construction all over the place, and then I saw a sign about it. Oh. Neat! Good for them. Romania is wonderful and not at all wealthy and I'm happy to see any sign of them bringing in more tourism money to boost their economy.
This was in our bedroom in the hostel. I'm not sure but thaaaaat... might be a carving of Vlad the Impaler with vampire fangs and a real human femur hanging from his mouth on what looks like an elastic band for a ponytail. Next to a spitoon or something. Charming folk art these people have. I can't believe I slept in the same room as that thing for two nights.
Amurgul—Servicii Funerare! I suppose this is the van in which they haul your dead ass away after all your blood has been drained by an evil wooden carving. I wandered by the front of this vehicle and noticed what appeared to be a cadaver in a white body bag propped up in the passenger seat, but it turned out to just be a big fluffy comforter or something (you can just barely see it from this angle).
Google as I might, I could not find any information about who this guy was. However...
...It would appear he's got a worrisome case of the stigmata. Creep-y.
MOTORS! Awesome-tastic grafitti! Note the eerie crucifix-patterned holes in the shutters. I love everything about Romania.
Say, this statue of Ghoerghe Lazar wasn't there last time we were in town! I'd never heard of Ghoerghe Lazar before. I mostly still haven't.
In the main town square here, a young Romanian dude handed me a flyer in English promoting the Raelians, I swear ta god. It's still tucked into my passport sleeve.
Church near our hostel. This will probably be gone when the Raelians finish taking over.
Jesus prays for a way out from behind the metal screen. "Father, I know we've been in some tight ones together, but this time it's serious..."
Cool walkway around the corner from the hostel. This is a lot of my favorite stuff about Romanian towns right here: the winding, narrow streets; twisted buildings, no right angles anywhere, unexpected stairways, rich colors and strange patterns, etc.
Here's the hostel (and more renovation going on). It's nice and comfortable and has only been open for about a year. The ladies who were working there during our stay were very friendly and helpful, and even made phonecalls for us in Romanian when we thought we wanted to rent a car to get to Dracula's castle... That is, before someone told us Romania has the highest number of car accident-related fatalities per year of any country (which is darn-near preposterous, but still) and we realized we'd never even driven in Europe before. We decided to stick to buses after that.
Courtyard behind the hostel. I believe that may be a sign for a (not currently open) pharmacy museum, which would be downright silly considering the sheer crazy volume of pharmacy museums I've seen around Eastern Europe. I actually visited one in another Romanian town, Cluj-Napoca, and the pictures from that are coming up later.
So, we'd already seen most of the stuff in Sibiu last year, and we were mainly including it in this trip as a launchpad for our visit to Dracula's castle, coming up soon. But first, we had to get from Sibiu to the town of Curtea de Arges...
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