Stuff around Bucharest and Sinaia

I have to admit, it's pretty charming walking around Bucharest.  The buildings are full of character.

But the traffic sucks balls.  I have zero idea when I can cross the road or how cars know when to turn.  It's a scary place!

 

They also really really like graffiti.  It's such as shame because these buildings are often so cool.  Many of them are in need of some large repairs though.  People have told me there are sometimes accidents when parts of the old buildings (awnings etc) fall on people.

Below:  some advertisements I saw in town.

Oh boy, I laughed when I saw this. Perfect.

This one takes the cake.  What is more sexy than popping a squat while naked with a billboard in front of you.  SO AWKWARD.

Anyways I took a train ride to a town called Sinaia this weekend.  In the train station:

Lots of pretzel food and people selling junk.  Not pictured:  Tons of homeless people :(

You can buy all this liqueur before you jump on the train.  Who doesn't want to get wasted on a train ride?  (Me)

The train!  It was a very comfortable ride.  The trains are quite smooth and the seats comfy.  Only problem is the signage at stops is terrible and they don't announce what station you are at.

Ok some guy came by and put like a keychain and a flashlight down.  And I was like this guy who's sitting with us has some weird shit.  Then he just started pulling out more and more crap and I was like "ooooohh ok I get it haha", also get your shit off my table! :P

Sinaia was really interesting.  All the houses and hotels were really old buildings. 

We took three gondolas up to the top of the mountain.  There were herding dogs and goats and sheep around, and they were playing yodelling music in the restaurant.

There's the town!

At the peak there's an area where tons of people spelled out things in rocks.  Over time, people have borrowed rocks from other peoples words and some of the rocks were getting covered by grass and moss.  I couldn't really make out much of what any of these were saying other than a couple names.

At the bottom we visited around the markets which were by the castle Pelas, Pelias  not sure of exact spelling.  Tons of weird tourist crap.  Like not what you would expect.  Lots of Dracula stuff I was expecting.  Hannah Montana items and plastic guns I was not expecting.  It's like they had some obsession with Hannah Montana.  There was shirts, Hannah Montana Monopoly, Bouncy balls, hats, slippers.  So strange and not at all appealing.  I left empty handed.

Lots of Dracula items.  The other thing I saw in abundance below....

......

Hey, what's more Romanian than a topless gnome? 

(If you want to be mentally scarred - topless gnome on left middle of picture)