Transylvania!!

Brasnov, Romania

Well, I finally made it to Dracula's castle. After fighting through the hoardes of tourists and crappy souvenir vendors and spending half hour in line for tickets my hostel friends and I got to the entrance.

It was a cool castle, don't get me wrong, but somehow it didn't exactly live up to the concept. "Dracula's castle"...you think of scary music and creepy skeletons and bats everywhere. Instead it was a quaint medieval castle (cool in its own right) where Vlad the Impaler (guy who Dracula was based off of) may or may not have spent some time.

We also went to another 13th century castle in Rasnov, Romania and to a palace in Sinia, Romania. (It was a long day.) The palace was my favorite - it was crazy to realize that it was finished less than one hundred years ago (1914.) I've seen several ostentatious palaces in Europe by now, and you start to realize how communism's promises were appealing to the populations. This palace in Romania was absolutely ridiculous. (It was also ridiculous that we had to pay ten dollars just to take pictures inside. Guess what - I don't have any inside pictures.) After centuries of seeing the royalty use the country's money in preposturous ways, the seeds of communism are sown. Too bad communism didn't work out either.

Tomorrow I will journey to my last stop (Bucharest, Romania.)