Hi Everyone!!!

I just want to take a quick sec and apologize for my negativity on the last blog. I saw just how much we had been ripped off and I was a little bit of a downer at that moment. However, all has turned around 100% since our run-in with Lying Albert and Thief.

We met with the Gray's at the Jazz Club, Green Hours, at about 8:15pm. At 8;30pm, an Irish band came on. They had Irish Step Dancers and everything so it was a nice evening. We were introduced to some friends of theirs and all were extremely nice people. Both Mrs. Gray and their friend, Diane, offered rooms at their homes for us to stay if we changed our minds. Everyone seemed really excited to hear about what we had been doing, where we had been and enjoyed looking at the various pictures we have taken along the way.

We got up and had breakfast at our hotel before taking off to the train station where we caught out train to Brasov. The directions were very specific, so we decided to drop by the hostel we would stay at in Brasov and see if they would mind us leaving out bags overnight. We debated camping several days but considering we only have a sheet a piece and no pillows we thought we might get a little uncomfortable after a while. It turns out that was a fantastic idea because the weather is a bit different out in the Romanian Mountains surrounding Bran (I apologize. The name of the mountains escapes me at the moment).

So we headed out on a dilapidated bus to Bran. It is a quaint little town with a few motels and restaurants but not nearly as run down, massive and ugly as Bucharest. The bus dropped us off directly in front of the campsite and as we walked up with our bag for the night, the guy running the place looked a little worried. When we told him that we had booked to stay a night he said that we had to be mistaken. When he realized that we not only, were NOT mistaken and that we were camping, not expecting a hotel room, he looked like he might go into cardiac arrest. We sort of laughed and said that we were just expecting a tent and we would be fine. We were standing in shorts and being rained on as we said this. In addition, he told us that it gets cool at night so we might want to reconsider as we might freeze. Being as Jocelyn and I have gone camping in the past and woken up with it snowing outside or with a river going through the center of the tent, we weren't swayed.

So we went across the street to one of the only restaurants (which was also a hotel) and got some food. It was one of three times we didn't eat a sandwich or pasta so far on this trip. The downpour really started coming but we had agreed as long as there was not thunder and lightning by the time we had gotten to the campsite, we would stick through it.

I sat down and had a drink before we walked backed to our tent and in the 10 minutes we were sitting there, lightning began to strike. And then a LOT of lightning began to strike. So we waited for a break in the storm and ran for the tent. Now this tent could hold the Solterbeck Clan with no issue and here it's Jocelyn, me and two foam boards. Lightning went every couple of seconds until around 5 in the morning. It was a wonderful night with intermitent sleep but we feel that we braved a pretty good one for the books.

Stay tuned because Jocelyn is going to update you all on what happened afterwards!!!

And yes, when we got up in the morning and the guy saw us, I think he was pretty impressed :)

Miss you all!!!

J&J