Final Free Weekend

This is the last free weekend that we get, as the next weekend is when the season finishes and members of the team go their separate ways.

Ioana, (not the cooking Ioana, but another girl who is one of the Romanian workers) invited all of us to go to Diesel, a club in Zalau. After a shower and three pre-club shots of tuica, I was ready to go. I'd borrowed a dress from Erin and was looking pretty snazzy, if I do say so myself. All the ladies looked great that night. Ashley had gotten pretty smashed though, and Val had to take her home early. But I think they continued to have a bit of fun back at the camp, so it wasn't too bad for them.

At the club, it was Annie, Erin, Brian, Jonathan, Lauren, Mark, Sean and myself, as well as Ioana with her friends. Sean dislikes the fact that I seem to be a bit of a tank when it comes to drinks, so he bought all of mine. However, he failed in his endeavour, and I was capable of walking straight at the end of the night.

Saturday, Val and I got up early for our trip to Sighisoara (where I write now). Eric kindly drove us to Zalau where we caught a bus to Cluj. Then we took a train straight through to Sighisoara.

It's a very nice and very concentrated town. There's lots of construction going on here, probably in preparation for the medieval festival next weekend. We're staying in this charming budget hotel called Casa Wagner, and it's in a historic monument (which technically isn't all that impressive, because the entire town is made up of them.) It's got two comfy beds and a shower; we've decided to shower four days straight, just because it's a luxury we can't afford at Porolissum.

Saturday, we decided to stay in after a delicious dinner in the hotel's restaurant (applesauce chicken and rice pilaf, yummy!) We spent the night watching music videos on VH1.

Sunday: We've seen most everything within the citadel, and it was all fairly easy to find. The sights are so close together that you can just take one day here to see it all. We started with the Clock Tower which also houses the History Museum. There were lots of displays like pharmaceuticals, pottery, and Hermann Oberth's life (the space physicist who grew up here). You could also see the mechanics of the clock, which has statues (of mythological, mystical and astronomical figures) that rotate to a window outside, each one according to a day of the week. Then we went to the Torture Room museum, which was really just a small room with some chains and torture devices - a very quick visit, but still neat. Next stop was a Medieval Arms museum, which held various weapons of different types and centuries, and had English explanations for them.

After a quick stop at the statue of Vlad Tepes, we ate lunch at Casa Dracula, a restaurant in the house of Vlad Tepes who supposedly lived there until the age of 4. I had breaded chicken wings and boiled potatoes, while Val had mici and french fries. We walked up the 172 steps of the covered stairway to the Church on the Hill. It has a nice view of the citadel below, and the Church was unique, being stone-built with painted walls inside (though deteriorated and painted over, because it was Catholic first and the Saxon Protestants took it over and covered the Catholic imagery.)

We've been dropping in and out of various souvenir shops, and we've found them to be of much better quality than the ones in Brasov and Maramures; mostly we've been window shopping, but it's still enjoyable.

After this stop at the Internet Cafe, we might drop by the Tailors' Tower for a final sightseeing spot. Where to next, we don't know. Tomorrow morning we'll travel back to Porolissum, thus missing one day of excavation but we should get there in time for Rob's birthday party.

Right now I'm reading a fantasy novel, The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks; it was lent to me by Jonathan because I didn't have anything left of my own to read (except for Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, which I've read before). I'm 200 pages in, out of about 700. We'll see how far I can get tonight and tomorrow!

Another week with the team; the parting will be pretty sad. But Val and I will have some time left in Romania, and I'm looking forward to further travels.

Until next time, cheers!