Okay, so once again 2 weeks have come and gone without an update sent by me. Get over it! =) That means I'm having a really great time and meeting a plethora of people. So, instead of wasting time at a computer I am making the most of my trip.

September 6th I left Salzburg and went to Vienna where it was rainy and miserable once again. I wandered around for a bit to get a general idea of the area and went back to the hostel. One of the guys in my room, Nick from Australia and I decided to grab some food and then spent the evening hanging out in the hostel's bar with some of his German friends. On the 7th I spent a lot of my day working on uploading pictures and making some phone calls. I was eagerly awaiting the evening because Laura (great friend from back home who was student teaching in Vienna) was coming to see me after she got off work. She showed up at my hostel with her friends Sami and Ike and we proceeded to pick up another friend, went to a pool hall for a couple games and then headed out to dinner. It actually became a big party for the summer camp Ike had been working at and was a little uncomfortable but the food was great and I was just happy to see Laura. Afterward we wandered downtown and had some ice cream for dessert (of course!) while seeing some of the main sights. Off to sleep.

On the 8th I went out with the 2 new guys in my room, Alex and Alex from California. We went by the palace and checked out a really awesome H&M store in the old town. The city wouldn't let them change the building so it still has it's wooden spiral staircases and crown moldings and chandeliers. Very cool. We haggled for a while with a classical music concert salesman dressed in traditional 18th century garb and "scored" 3 tickets to the symphony playing that night. I really did want to go to a concert considering that Vienna is practically the classical music capital of the world so I didn't mind paying 24Euro (though the tickets said they were 49Euro, making you think twice about ever paying actual printed prices). We continued on wandering about the city, crossing over the river and going out to the Great Ferris Wheel, the largest in the world. Around the ferris wheel was an amusement park and we opted for a really killer ride, basically a gigantic arm that has rotating carriages of 4 seats on each end that acts like a propeller and whips you really fast around. High intensity and I loved every minute of it! If it didn't cost 8Euro I would have been on it again and again, though Alex Slarve was having a few issues calming his nerves afterward. We made our way back to the hostel for a little rest and I dashed to H&M to buy a shirt that would be at least a little more appropriate for a symphony before they closed and after taking a few minutes to get ready we grabbed some food and got *slightly* lost on the way to the concert. In my defense, the map they gave up to follow was complete s*** but we made it with time to spare still. The concert was really good and I'm glad that we went.

The next day, the 9th, I left Vienna and went to Budapest, Hungary for 3 nights. It wasn't a typical hostel that I was staying in but actually an apartment inside an old building that had been sectioned off into a couple rooms. It was nice enough, but not a very social atmosphere. I had a bit of a blunder while checking in though. One US dollar equals something like 225 Hungarian Forints so I took 25,000 Forints out of the ATM, equaling $135ish for three nights there. Considering my budget is somewhere between $60 and $70 a day, that was pretty cheap. So I went straight from getting cash to the "hostel" and the guy had some issues making change for me so just took more money for my key deposit and then later had to give me 10% back because of my student discount. So finally after getting that all settled, I went to my room and was checking over my money to make sure it was right and I freaked out. I couldn't find my other 10,000 note which is a bit more than $50 so I asked him if I had dropped it, he thought i was accusing him of stealing, I said no, checked my bag again, and went back out to him because I still could not find it. Finally I just shoved my wad of bills in his hand and said this is all I have after the 25,000 I took out and he flipped through them.... and he pulled out the 10,000. It was there all along but I kept counting it as one. Damn funny money..... So rather embarrassed I trudged out into the city by myself, wandered through a huge shopping mall and up to Hero's Square, a pretty impressive area. After that I wandered back down another major thoroughfare that had a bunch of the foreign consulates and cute cafes. I tried to find a restaurant that my travel guide suggested but try as I may, could not find it where the map said it was, so I continued walking around and *gasp* finally just went into McDonald's and got some food. I'm terribly ashamed, but I hadn't eaten a thing the entire day and it was already 8PM and getting dark. It really was the most convenient thing because literally within walking 10 blocks I saw 3 of them! Upon arriving back at the hostel I met a couple from Scotland that were sharing my room and we all went out for a drink. I had read about the place they suggested and looked at the map again and we took off. When we came to the main road that intersected ours I went to turn left and they said no, it was right. I was positive my map showed it north of our street but went with them and sure enough, it was their direction. Now I know what you all are thinking; that I suck at reading maps. Well, no, I don't, because I went back to the hostel and checked the map again and it was wrong!! The couple (Alex and Roma) knew of the place I was trying to find to eat at earlier in the day and I showed them where my map said it was and they said it was actually 6 blocks east of where it said it should be. I think I should write Let's Go travels guides a dirty letter and get them to fix their maps.

The next morning I set off on my own again, and I went over the river, stopping halfway through to visit Margaret Island from Margaret Bridge. There I sat down on a park bench and watched the water fountain choreographed to over 10 different classical music songs and had my yogurt and bread roll for breakfast. After that I made my way down along the river and climbed up the windy road up to the castle. Up on this huge hill is like a completely different city, complete with the castle and church and houses, museums, etc. There I grabbed some postcards and sat down to enjoy the sun, writing them out and dropping them at the post office before visiting the Matthias Church. Nothing really interesting happened later in the evening other than getting some real food and going out for drinks again.

On the 11th, Alex, Roma, and I went to Statue Park about half an hour out of town. Statue Park is an open air exhibition of statues from the former Communist Regime. It would have been a really cool place other than nothing was labeled other than a very brief title and there was no explanation of any of them! Oh well, they're all pretty massive so I was still glad to have seen them, but it could have been so much better. After the ride back from the park I left Alex and Roma and went to Rudas Baths, the Turkish style thermal baths in Buda. It was really nice and I spent about 3 hours soaking in pools of various temperatures as well as in saunas. So relaxing.... After that I was determined to find the restaurant I had wanted to go to on the first night and sure enough, the street address was correct but the map was off by 6 blocks! The food was decent, but A LOT more expensive than the guide had said it would be. Oh well. I had really good mushroom goulash which was a lot more like stroganoff than what I call goulash, but I guess the Hungarians know what they're doing. =)

On the 12th I took my nice 7 hour train into Cluj Napoca, Romania. It was rather uneventful, just another long ride but I finished the book I was reading called Deep Survival and started reading Into the Woods. The hostel was pretty cool and I had a great time talking with the other people there - no Americans!!! Yay!!! That's all I did that night considering it was already 10:00 by the time I made it to the hostel.

On the 13th I spent practically the entire day at the Botanical Gardens - it was really great! I went spelunking on the paths through the woods and realized how much fun I had always had as a kid adventuring into the woods around out house and in the back of our addition. The flowers and vegetables and especially the greenhouses were really great as well. In the evening a bunch of us went out in search of a restaurant that was in our guide books but when we got there they wouldn't seat us! I'm not sure if they were going to be closing soon or if it was an outright refusal to serve us, but at any case there was no food for us there. So we walked up the street to another restaurant we had passed and sat down with menus, ordered a bottle of red wine and a bottle of white and continued perusing the menus. Finally we were ready to order and the waitress told us we couldn't order food, that she had just taken the last order and the kitchen was closed. Needless to say we were pretty angry that she even sat us in the first place considering two of the guys asked for the dinner menu before the rest of us came in to sit. Not to mention the wine was pretty terrible as well. *SIGH* I was absolutely famished by this point because once again I hadn't eaten a single thing all day because I was just so busy enjoying the gardens. On to find another place but it was already 9 by then and other places were closing as well. After much more searching and asking a few people on the street if they could recommend a place, we ended up in a hotel restaurant that had some live violin and piano music and was actually decently priced and good food. Soooo hungry..... Afterward we went to a bar and socialized more though I didn't drink and had to step out every now and then because the cigarette smoke was so thick in there. We all joked about having a "UN" meeting because Tom and Jonaton were from Israel, me from the states, Colin from England, Nicolas from France, and Catherine from Germany. We were chatting about pretty much everything from religion to politics and everything in between.

On the 14th I left Cluj and took another 5 hour train to Brasov. After an hour or so on the train, some guy selling trinkets tried to come in the cabin and broke the door in doing so. That sparked a conversation with the girl sitting across from me and we started chatting and ended up talking for the entire next 4 hours. She invited me to go meet her boyfriend she was going to see and another one of their friends so of course I accepted. I still had to get my bag to my hostel so after having some coffee and chatting I left them but promised to meet back up with them at 9 at the Black Church downtown. I checked in and hopped on the internet for 15 minutes to check mail and then relaxed for a little while, talking with more backpackers. We had a group of 12 that went out for dinner but after hanging out at the restaurant for over half an hour and still no waiter taking orders I realized I wouldn't be able to eat with them and said my goodbyes to meet up with Amca, Bogdan, and Tudor. Once again, all I had eaten all day was a cheese sandwich. You just get busy and forget to eat and by the time you can actually get food you're no longer hungry. The 4 of us walked up a large hill and got to see a great view of the city by night. Then we wandered downtown and hung out in a bar though us girls just had some tea.

The next day I met back up with Amca and Bogdan and went to a nearby town called Sinaia to Castle Peles. It was a really great castle with amazing woodwork. I wish I could have taken pictures but really did not want to pay the 15 Euro fee to have the privilege. So, outside is all you guys get to see =) After that we went back to Brasov to meet up with Tudor and then went to Bran for the night. We went to Tudor's girlfriend's mom's house for a barbecue and traditional Romanian meal that was huge and excellent. Her mom was sooo cute but didn't speak a word of English and at the end of the evening she just chattered away in Romanian to Amca and then grabbed me and kissed me on both cheeks and kept smiling and sighing. Amca told me later that she had said "she's such a sweet girl but i don't know what to say to her so I'll just kiss her". Too cute!!! We all walked back down the road to the empty hostel Tudor's mom owns (but is closed for the fall/winter). Amca and Bogdan went to sleep while I made Tudor take me up to Bran's Castle at midnight which is also known as Dracula's Castle. It was pretty cool but at the same time completely gated off so I couldn't get close or anything. It was a great night to be walking though and the 25 minutes there and back flew.

On the 16th we woke up later than we wanted but still made it to visit the castle before having to get back to Brasov to make our trains, though it was very hurried. Tudor was a sweetheart and let me burn my pictures down to a DVD on his computer before making a mad dash to the train station, only to find out that my train never showed up and it was another hour before the next one. Another 2 1/2 hours later and I made it to Bucharest. On the train there was a lot of confusion about seats because jerks without reservations wouldn't move out of other people's seats, but again it sparks conversation and i talked with a girl from israel and two romanian girls, exchanged emails and decided to meet up the next day. They then insisted I take a cab from the train station since I was getting in pretty late and of course, the cabbie got lost on the way and when finally getting there, I didn't have enough LEI to pay him, had to run into the hostel and bum 5 off someone else there. I don't care, I just wanted to get my bag and be done with it. The rest of the night I just hung around the hostel with everyone else and watched Die Hard 2 at 1:30 in the morning with Byron, the guy that lent me the 5 LEI earlier in the night.

On the 17th I met up with Moran, the girl from Israel and Dana and her sister Cathy from Bucharest at the train station at noon. From there we grabbed the metro north and walked to a really cool romanian cultural open air museum. It had representations of all the villages of the different areas of Romania that we got to walk around and enjoy. The best part though was the park had a lot of cats they took care of there so of course I had to play with them. I miss my babies back home and really wanted to take one of the kittens with me back to the hostel, but I was good and put her down. <On a side note, I received an email from my sister Kristi late that night announcing that my cat Bagger Vance had gotten stuck under the garage door as dad was leaving for work and died :'o( >. After leaving the villages we walked by Ghandi street and up to their Arc du Triumph and I waved hi to the homies at the American embassy. Then we headed out to the student center to eat at Dana's favorite place, took the metro back to the train station to drop Moran off and I went up a few more stops to the billiard bar Dana works at before going back to the hostel. When I got to the hostel I didn't want to do anything except calm down and relax because of the following reason: I was harassed by so many different guys and was so disgusted by the time I got back to the hostel. I wouldn't have even cared if it would have been the normal whistles/cat calls/ shouts/ whatever noises guys of each country feel are okay to make. This was different - it was physical and I was so angry I was nauseous. To make a very long day short, while crossing a street this kid (18??) full body slammed into me as i was talking to the girl next to me and said "ooooh excuuuuuuuuse meeee" while grabbing me and walked off laughing with the other guys he was with. Another guy threw a shoulder into one of the girls i was with (she's even Romanian!!!). A 65 year old dude deliberately stuck out his foot to trip my friend, another guy came at me with his hand out like he was going to grab my chest and then laughed literally IN my face, another 18ish guy got ready to grab me but after staring him down as he approached he instead threw his chest out at me, and finally two more guys made rude sounds in our faces as they passed by....... i was one unhappy camper by the end of the day. :'o( Grrr......

So needless to say, I didn't exactly feel like going out and about by myself the next day and I had actually stayed up playing cards with other people at the hostel until after 3AM and used the free internet until 5AM to get pictures uploaded, etc. So I slept in, grabbed some free breakfast, went back to sleep for a little while longer, and then just hung around for a bit. I did leave and made a couple phone calls and went to the grocery store to pick up some food for the evening. I actually ended up making dinner with 3 other people from the hostel and it turned out pretty good. More card playing that night and everyone started playing with my camera. I think I just convinced 2 of the Romanian's to order one just like mine online or have their friends bring one back from the states since it is soooo much cheaper than buying it there.

On the 19th I left Bucharest and flew to Athens, Greece with Aegean airlines. I definitely recommend them if you will be flying to/from Greece because the flight was great which isn't often. After getting into the hostel I went out with Dior, an Aussie girl in the room next to me up to the Acropolis (Parthenon and a couple of the museums). Then I hung out on the roof of the hostel at their bar and watched the sunset on the Parthenon - great view! I got most of this update written last night but the computers closed at midnight so here I am finishing it!