Brasov and Bucharest

..Actually, Brasov. My camera died the first day of the trip, and I'd inconveniently forgotten to bring my charger. Nevertheless, I managed to snap a few photos of Brasov, a large city (300,000) in the Carpathian mountains, built by the Germans and near the home of the legendary Vlad Tepes, known colloquially as Dracula. Quite a safe place most of the time, apparently, but as our tour guide repeatedly warned us, vampires come down from the mountains at night to prey on American tourists.

Dedicated tourist seeks to understand secret treasure map

Those of you who have seen Iasi will appreciate this a bit more--in Brasov the old men play chess in the park in the rain because they have a fancy-schmansy roof.

This one is for you, Trevor. It's not a castle. Not really sure what it is, actually, but it's a cool building. There are a lot of these. Reason #2 why you should come to Romania. Reason #1 being of course that I'm here.

Orthodox church--somehow cleaner/whiter/brighter looking than Iasi orthodox churches.

Brasov is a city with a wannabe ego--they think they're the best city in the world, but they're really not sure, so they're gonna say "probably." I thought these two umbrellas were a contradiction until our tourguide enlightened us as to the fact that Kronstadt (Crown City) is the German name for Brasov.

Street in the German section of town

The sidewalks, oh, the sidewalks! Look at how wide! How smooth! And particularly note that there are no cars parked on the sidewalks! Oh novelty.