Romanian Odyssey

Back to Deva, I went straight to the station, where I got the first bad suprise: as doomingly predicted by Internet, there were no direct trains from Deva to Sighișoara. What I can do is take a train to Teiuș, then take one to Sighișoara. Problem: the first (and only train to Teiuș is at 20:30, takes two hours to get there, then the "coincidence" is or hour later. All in all, that'd mean getting to Sighișoara at 02:30am. Well, not much to do I guess, so I decided to go with it.Since it was rather early, I decided to get something to eat, something local. Which proved near to impossible. Deva closes early, thought I suspect being Sunday might have helped. I roamed the streets for one hours, with no luck. But hey, why nobody told me how wicked is Deva modern architecture? Everywhere seemed like 60's science fiction at its best, all white, curves and weird shapes. I tried to look it up on the Internet, but "Romania batshit crazy" architecture didn't give many results. Shame it was too dark to take pictures. In the end I ate some quick fast-food stuff in front of the station, and the wait began.

The train arrived in time (and it was rather nice), my seat was there but the electricity sockets didn't work, so I asked the ticket dude and he led me to some other seats, where I could recharge my devices. Darkness outside prevented me to enjoy the scenery.

We arrived at Teiuș with 30 minutes of delay. Since I had to wait a hour anyway, this didn't bother me. What bothered me, was having to wait another hour for the train, as the second was late as well. I am sure that somewhere, in Romania, someone says that when Nicolae was in power, train ran in time.

One hour in that station was surreal. It was a mix between Silent Hill, the Langoliers and some bad Balkan movie. People slept everywhere, dogs came and went. The toilet was Stephen King's material.

Finally, after all lost were about to be lost, the train arrived. It was greeted by a collective whisper. We could finally leave that god-forsaken station.

The trip has been rather awful. It was one the classic treni della speranza (train of hope), crammed with people, huge luggages and bad mood. A huge nerd, both literally and figuratively, watched bad anime on his monstrous laptop, while in front of me, the three ages of woman tried to get some sleep, mostly in vain. I read a bit, tried to sleep also but without any success. Finally, after an endless journey, we arrived in Sighișoara. The fact it's Vlad Dracul III (Vlad Tepeș) birthplace is clear from the start.

There was no way for me to reach the hostel, which closed after 0:00 anyway. Between being extremely tired (I left Timișoara in the morning) and not wanting to brave the -5°, I decided to sleep in the station. My extra jacket made a good pillow, the room was warm and I ultimately managed to sleep a bit, despite frequent wakes. In the morning I went to eat something warm (my first ciorbă!) and finally reached Burg Hostel, right in the middle of the fortified citadel, where I could finally sleep! Good night, friends!