Fall Break!

Hi everyone,
This last week, I got to go on a big adventure! We didn't have school from Monday-Wednesday this week (October 23rd is the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a national holiday), and I joined 8 other BSM students on a trip through the Transylvania, which is a region of Romania that has often belonged to Hungary in the past and has a lot of interesting cultural history. We did a LOT on the trip, so this might be kind of a long post unless I end up getting tired and glossing over the details. I'll put up a bunch of pictures in another post right after this one too.

Our trip started out on Friday night, with an overnight train from Budapest to Brașov, Romania. I love traveling by train, and we had sleeper cars so the journey was very comfortable. This was also my first time traveling outside the borders of Hungary, so it was fun getting to have my passport stamped upon crossing the border into Romania. We made it to Brașov around 10:00 on Saturday morning and had the day to explore the city. We stayed in a nice guesthouse on a street named after Vlad Țepeș a.k.a. Dracula, who is a national hero in Romania. After leaving our bags at the guesthouse, we took a bus up to Poiana, one of the major ski resorts in the area. There isn't any snow there yet, but we had a nice lunch and enjoyed the beautiful fall colors in the hills. When we came back down, we joined a free walking tour of Brașov and saw some of the main buildings in the historic part of the city. Around the end of the tour, I went with three other BSM students to hike up a 1000 meter hill next to the city. Brașov has its named spelled out in Hollywood-style letters at the top of the hill (hearkening back to Communist times, when the city was renamed "Stalin" and the new name was spelled out in pine trees on the hillside), so we made it our goal to reach the letters. We got to the top right at sunset and took some great pictures before climbing all the way back down in the dark. A very nice local man and his dog helped show us the way back, which was great. In the evening, we all got dinner together before retiring to our guesthouse. It was one of the other student's  21st birthday, so some people bought wine and everyone stayed up late drinking it and chatting with one another.

On Sunday morning we got up, ate a nice breakfast, and departed Brașov by bus. It was Castle Day, where we visited three awesome castles in the region. The first was Peleș Castle, a palace built by Carol I (first king of independent Romania) around 1900. It was incredibly over-the-top, with rooms blending influences from all sorts of European styles, multiple secret doors, and precious stones and metals everywhere. We had a nice tour of the interior and got to enjoy the scenery outside for a while before driving off towards Bran Castle, which is a popular tourist attraction because it's where Dracula lived. We got there just before closing time, but we were allowed to walk through the rooms and take lots of cool photos of the stuff there. It was much older than Peleș and provided a neat contrast of style with its medieval fortifications. The last castle we visited was Râșnov Fortress, which was originally designed to be able to house the entire population of the city it overlooks in times of crisis. We weren't allowed within the walls because it was past closing time, but we explored the exterior and enjoyed the sunset from the hilltop. Afterwards, we drove for a couple of hours to reach the small village where our guesthouse was located. The host was wonderful and gave us a lovely dinner of traditional Romanian food, and before long we all dropped off to sleep.

On Monday we woke up and traveled to a nearby forest with an extensive cave system in the hills. Two experienced cavers gave us a tour, including some parts with very tight squeezes. Six out of the nine of us were able to make it through, and there was a lot of army-crawling to reach the more open rooms. It was awesome! There was also a room with very good acoustics, so all of us sang "Country Roads" together to see how it sounded. After the cave, we drove to Red Lake, which is a small lake in the mountains formed through a landslide. As a result of its sudden formation, a lot of trees were caught and petrified at the bottom, and their stumps stick out of the water. It was very cool, and we were able to rent rowboats to explore the surface of the water for half an hour or so. On the way back from the lake, we took a scenic route through a gorge in the mountains, which was stunningly beautiful. We got back to the guesthouse in time for dinner, and people stayed up late enjoying pálinka obtained from our host.

On Tuesday we packed up early and left the guesthouse for a long day of travel. Along the way we stopped by the Dârjiu fortified church, which is a medieval church that became one of the first Unitarian churches in the world after the Protestant Reformation. It was a beautiful structure, with some neat murals on the inside. I also got to try singing in there, which was great. After leaving the church we traveled to the city of Sighișoara, which is notable for its walled "Old Town." We had a couple of hours to explore there, and I saw a lot of neat old buildings, including City Hall when I accidentally entered it without permission. From Sighișoara we had a couple more hours of travel to get to our final guesthouse of the trip, in a small village an hour or so from Cluj. We ate well there and spent the evening chatting with one another.

Wednesday was the final day of the trip. Our train back to Budapest was leaving from Cluj at 14:40, so we had time to make one final stop before leaving Romania: Salina Turda, an enormous salt mine that has been converted into a tourist attraction. It was so cool! The main mine was the largest underground space I've ever been in--it's difficult to convey just how huge it was. The air currents and humidity in the mine mean that the salt gets redistributed into weird formations, while the walls develop beautiful wavy patterns. We were able to explore for an hour or two (and yes, I did try singing here too) before we needed to depart for Cluj. Because we spent a long time at the mine, we barely had any time to explore Cluj, but we were able to grab food and see the outside of one of the main churches before running to catch our train. The rest of the day was spent traveling back to Budapest, and that was the trip! It was an amazing experience overall.

In contrast to the many fun and exciting things I did in the last week, this next week promises to be far less pleasant. I have four midterms in four days, so essentially all of my free time is going towards studying for them. If I survive the exams, though, I get to go hiking in the mountains of Poland with my friend Grace! Wish me luck. :)