http://politics.propeller.com/story/2008/06/16/village-re-elects-dead-mayor?icid=200100397x1204266469x1200186112

Village re-elects dead mayor.

I’m reading a great real life travel book at the moment called Chasing Sunsets by Lawrence Pane and his family. He, his wife and young son took off on a six year circumnavigation of the world by boat and the book is a documentation of their adventures.

I don’t know the first thing about sailing but after reading this book it made me want to learn – what an adventure! What I found most appealing was the fact that it was written by an average guy, not some salty sea-farer, and so I could relate much more to what was going on. After all, this was just an average guy and his family who took off around the world. The photos were great too.

BTW, I am surprised you didn’t mention Sibiu. About the “good stuff” they say nothing beats Transilvanya’s “palinca de Bihor” (not the one manufactured by ‘European drinks’! The real stuff, from Bihor). Also, many Jidvei and even some Recaş wines are in my opinion better than most of the Moldavian wines – but hey, I am biased here, I’m from Alba Iulia :P

About Romanian mountains – the really breathtaking places are those where you can’t get by car…. unfortunately, lots of poor-quality romanians spoil even the most beautiful places if they can get there by car. I’ve taken some of my friends on a mountain walk, in “Apuseni”, through an unmarked path in the forest, to climb on a “bald” cliff which opened the view over the entire valley (one of the few places I know where you can regularly find edelweiss) – and one of them stopped suddenly and was literally speechless for half minute, I initially thought she was afraid of the heights but she simply did not expect the view to be so beautiful. And Romania has some very nice caves, too (also in Apuseni).
But on the other hand, mountains are no lesser spectacular elsewhere in Europe… at least, from the pictures I saw from Slovenia, and from the lonelyplanet guide…. it seems much better than Romania :P
Fact is, you shouldn’t be looking for beauty in the communist cities from Romania. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of nice places.

Matt – I’ve got more pics of Romania than the tourism board. Perhaps I’ll put together one of those cyber collages to music after I return at the end of July.

Jamie – Is you mom single?

Mary – I saw the 0-0 tie with France. Arg. I bet there was an hour of horn honking and drunken screaming in Buch to mark the occasion anyway. I’m still walking funny, but at least I’m walking.

Martin – I may drink your wine tonight. If the phone rings at 2am, it’s me.

And the romanians are doing quite well in Euro 08! That’s another good thing!

Good times.

That’s a naughty name of the town but would be great to tell an english speaker that’s where you live!