Transylvania, day 3: My boots were not actually made for walking

I woke up way before everybody because I've been getting used to getting up around 7:30.  So I showered and got ready to go, since we planned to check out at 10.  Once everyone was ready to go, we checked out, stored our luggage in the hostel, and set off to go up the mountain to the Hollywood-stlye Brasov sign.


First, though, we bought soft pretzels for breakfast.  We haven't found any in Hungary so it was exciting.  I was unfortunately crippled by my feet at this point and felt really pathetic for holding the group back with my sad attempts at walking.   Seriously, who gets blisters on the bottom of their toes?!

We walked up the base of the mountain to the cable car station and bought our tickets.  I didn't really like going up because there were a lot of people in there with us, but we survived the ride.   We then walked around until we found the sign.  There was snow on the ground and the trail was slippery, and Laura slipped at one point in a precarious spot.  Finally we made it to the top, and it was gorgeous.  We could see the whole town, and there was also a random cave with a tomb in it.  We took lots of pictures before heading back to the cable car to leave.

Lunch was at Pizza Roma, which we think is owned by the same people as Pizza Pasta Venezia because they even had the same plates.  It wasn't as good as Pizza Pasta Venezia, but it was still better than Hungarian pizza, and it was enjoyable.  American TV shows were playing, and I saw more of "I didn't know I was pregnant" than I've ever wanted to.  It was actually nauseating.

We had so much time to kill before our train departed so we went back to La Republique, where we went the first night, to get tea and hot chocolate because it was so cold outside.

Still having lots of time, we decided we needed a mission so we set out to find me a new purse to replace the one I broke in Paris.  I finally bought one at Terranova.

Even that didn't take up much time, though, so we went to McDonald's.  I hate going to Mickey D's in foreign countries because it makes me feel like a stereotype, but it was so warm in there...

Finally we got back to the hostel after enough time had passed to figure out how to get to the train station without walking there, because I was not in a good place to handle the 30 minute walk.  We got bus information first, but then learned that a taxi would be 8-10 lei, which is about $3.  The woman at the hostel offered to call a taxi for us, so before she did that, we set off in search of snack food for on the train.  European snack food sucks.  It's all potato chips, chocolate, and alcohol.  It's awful.  We were all running out of lei at that point, too, so we pooled our money to buy stuff.

We got to the train station really early, sat there waiting for it to come, finally got on, and then we were off!  This train, in my opinion, was not nearly as nice as the other, but it was fine.  We had fun talking and hanging out, as our original plan was to stay up all night.  Around midnight, though, I felt really sick from not eating real food for dinner, and we ran out of water and got really thirsty, so it became less fun, and I went to sleep in hopes that I'd feel better.  Border control came about 15 minutes after everyone fell asleep.  We arrived in Budapest at Keleti station at 5:25 AM, went to McDonald's for breakfast but it was closed, went to an ABC for water, and then went our separate ways to get home.  Caitlin and I rode the bus home together because our apartments are only a block away from each other.

I got back and felt so sick, I could barely walk and couldn't even force myself to eat rice. I wrote Dani a note explaining not to worry if she didn't see me because I was asleep and asked her to grab some groceries for me if she had time, and then hobbled to my bed for some much-needed rest.

I'm feeling so much better now and Dani is awesome because she got food for me so I wouldn't have to limp to Kaiser's.  My class for the day was cancelled, which worked out well because our heat is broken and I can't shower and don't want to go out in public.