That's it, I'm moving to Brasov.
The area around the Brasov train station is so grim that I considered just hopping on the next train out of there.
The station is two miles from the center of town and the area in between is totally depressing. Even once I made it into town I was pretty traumatized.
But you know what? Brasov is fantastic! I feel like I'm closer to home than I've been in months. My new all-time favorite place in the world is a place called the Hockey Pub. Apparently the owners are NHL fanatics so there is memorabilia all over the place. But that's not why it's my favorite place - the staff is a riot. It's very upscale. The people who work there wear white shirts, black vests and bow ties. When I first got there, one of them, a young woman named Joanna asked me my name, where I'm from, and why I came to Brasov. I told her that at first I wanted to go hiking in the mountains surrounding the town but recently read that there are a lot of bears in those hills. She told me not to worry, I would definately not encounter any bears - but if I did, drop my backpack if I had one, or random pieces of clothes if not. That would distract the bear while I found my escape route. The escape route should ALWAYS be downhill. Bears have a tough time running downhill. It seemed like a lot of advise to give someone who was definately not going to encounter a bear.
So anyway, the place was empty so we watched the Angelina Jolie movie 'Salt'. I'm surprised I hadn't seen it before. It was entertaining. So over 2.5 hours I had a nice salad, chicken fingers, three glasses of wine and two beers. The bill was 67 "Lei" which is about $17. I told the I'd see them tomorrow, as long as I don't get eaten by a bear!
