rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

I’m in Varna, Bulgaria right now. at an internet cafe called FRAG. around which there are lots of local teenagers playing internet games and listening to techno. no one speaks English, everyone plays English video games. hmm.
so Mar and I tore ass through Romania over the last couple of days. we stayed in Brasov a few nights ago, which was legit. a very medieval city, what with walls and battlements and streets that make no sense. above the town on a nearby mountain, they’ve erected a Hollywood-esque sign – BRASOV – and it lights up at night. nice.
what else. Romania’s largest gothic church is there, which was legit. and the hostel we stayed at was interesting. an old man was also staying there. he smoked Pall Malls, was missing one of his front teeth and spoke only in French, which didn’t slow him down from talking to me, at great length, a few different times. honestly, I had no idea what he was talking about, but I caught “Elvis Presley” in there somewhere. and Mar and I had dinner with an Australian guy, about my age, who’s been traveling for about six months. we got to talking politics, and he got kind of pissed when I brought up the Sydney beach riots from last year. whoops.
the next day, we took a bus out to Bran Castle, which was described as the inspiration for Dracula’s castle by all of the guide books. according to the walking tour we took through the grounds and its halls, it has absolutely nothing to do with Dracula. which sucked; I had planned to stop Mar in the middle of the tour and say “this is the place that evntually spawned Count Chocula,” but I didn’t get the chance. honestly, though, that didn’t really matter. I got to walk around in a 12th century castle, and the Transylvanian countryside is really pretty. the bus ride out there was worth it.

moved on down to Bucarest, Romania’s capital, which is apparently an awful amalgamation of …
wait, they’re playing Dr. Dre now. christ.
anyway, Bucarest. nothing but communist era apartment blocks and stray dogs. within minutes of getting off the train, I lost my slippers and the sweater I had wrapped them in. they were tied to the top of my pack; they warn you of pickpockets and the like in Bucarest, but chances are the slips fell off, and I didn’t notice. fuck.
the hostel was kind of out of the way, but was cheap and clean. we only stayed the night, as we had a train to catch the next morning, and to be honest, I wasn’t really hating on Bucarest’s ugly sprawl. then I paid a dollar to take a shit at the train station and walked into the lavatory to find some eurotrash jerking off into a urinal, and decided I didn’t like the city anymore. I very smoothly turned around and got on a train to Bulgaria.
now Mar and I are here. the hostel we’re staying at is right in the heart of town on a pedestrian street, and almost empty. run by a British expatriate. one of the guys was watching “The Deer Hunter” when we walked in. small world.
what else.
I like cyrillic, even though I haven’t any idea what I’m looking at when I read it. very utilitarian, though. Bulgaria is very poor, but very pretty. the trainride here was legit. if, of course, you don’t mind the odd local coming up to you and rattling off something totally incomprehensible. you just shrug, and they’ll notice something on you, usually your clothes, which makes you pretty clearly western. and you keep rolling on. I’m nowhere near used to being an absolute tourist, but that comes with this territory. it’s worth it.

also, Spencer. don’t hate on Roseanne, dude. and how did you know?