Hockley Heights Gazette

Well our last trip to the continent certainly was an adventure. It started on a Sunday, well just Sunday, as It was 2 o'clock in the morning when we had to get out of bed! From then on it just got worse as we had to drive into London (although that was one of the first times that the M25 wasn't gridlocked so it was under 3 hours this time!) to Gatwick airport. We flew with EasyJet to Bucharest which was an okay flight although every time we fly the seats seem to get smaller! We arrived in Bucharest at about 12 local time and then had to get on a train for a two hour trip to Brasov the place we were staying for 6 nights (in Transylvania). When we got there all we could think of was BED! As by this time we had been up for 19 hours straight!
The next day we woke up to discover that half the day had already gone so we went to the centre of town and had as little look around there! Very nice!
On Tuesday we went to the famous 'Dracula's Castle' Which is quite interesting because it actually has nothing to do with Dracula! It is the castle that used to house the royal family type thing so I don't know how Dracula got involved because it really doesn't look anything like what Dracula would live in! The next day we went to Dracula's Home village which was very village like, with cobbled streets, horses everywhere, everybody knows everybody that sort of thing. Oh yeah did I mention this was another 2 hour train trip! Thursday, finally a day where we did something that Mitchell and I would enjoy more then Mum and Dad, skiing! Although because it was the end of the season the ski-lift wasn't on so we had to walk up the enormous mountain and then when we were going down we discovered that most of the snow was actually slush. So going down the mountain was incredibly slow! It was still fun even though we had to spend 20 minutes climbing up the mountain and then spent three boring minutes sliding down!
On Friday we had a semi rest day and saw the local church (which happen to be the black church) and also we went on this fun cable car ride up the hill which looks over the village and interestingly this hill has a Big light-up Brasov sign like the Hollywood sign! Our second last day in Romania (very sad) we took the two hour train trip back to Bucharest where we got off at Gara de Nord, the main station, which must win the prize for the most dodgy looking people in one area! There we were greatly over charged by a taxi driver on our trip to the apartment where we were staying on the last night of our holiday. At our apartment we met a local, young couple (who were called Andy and Andreea) and they provided a tour for us around the amazing Bucharest. When we first arrived in Bucharest on the first Sunday all we saw was Gara de Nord and we got a very misunderstood impression of the city. IT is actually a very nice city with giant buildings, great big gardens and some good museums (see picture). Thats right I admit it I did enjoy a museum! (It was a museum which showed old-styled houses from all different parts of Romania).
That night we had dinner with the 'andies' back at the apartment (which we got from a kebab shop from across the road) but Oh well it was good. The next morning we got a taxi to the airport where we had a two hour delay as well as an hour delay in England before we even got off the plane (by the way the delay was for snow in England). First of all when does it snow in England in April and second of all when does it ever snow hard enough to stop planes from London?! Anyway that was our spectacular holiday to Romania! A country which is a lot more westernized and fun then I thought! Just goes to show you have to visit a country to really know what its like! Jackson.