9:37am

I'm sitting in a beautiful dining area in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains at our couchsurfers house. As it turns out, he has built a gorgeous guest house with 18 rooms at the feet of some of the most gorgeous mountain peaks. The guest house is fairly full, but we got a room and the boys slept in an attic loft. It was an amazing sleep.

The journey here was something of an adventure. We knew we needed to get to Zarnesti first of all so jumped a one hour train to get there. On the way the locals make valiant attempts at making conversation with us in English. One old guy shows us his water with exuberant hand gestures. Turns out it's not water, but some bootlegged whiskey or something. He's pretty proud of it.

Zarnesti is a Romanian version of Krasny Mak, or so it appears. We get off the train in this small village, no street signs, no stores, nothing but old houses and two roads heading off towards the mountains. We decide to follow one because there are more people walking down it than the other. THe street keeps going and you feel in a way that you are totally intruding on this quiet little village. We ask a couple of young guys about a taxi, they motion to keep walking.

After about 10 minutes, a taxi does indeed pull up beside us. It's a small one intended for four bodies, not six. However...the old guy is pretty convincing and he says he know where Plaui Foii is, so after setting the price of the ride, we all pile in. It's VERY crowded. He puts the spare tire on the roof, the rear hatch won't close. Then...we head out of town and into the mountains. The road is akin to something you'd see in Fort St. John. It's dark, and we're totally at the mercy of this cab driver, and the hope that he understands the two words I wrote on a napkin: Plaui Foii. After 11km's of bottoming out, squinting at signs in the dark, and several cell phone calls, we finally reach the place.

It's a brief meeting with our host Andras, he shows us our beds, and because the kids are falling asleep on their feet, we head to bed! Of course, AFTER everyone has a hot shower in the nicest bathroom we've seen to date in Eastern Europe!