Last day in Europe :(

Bye Budapest!

Debrecen

Debrecen is so cute! Heres a pic of the great church, and some pics of the Turda salt mine that has a mini amusement park inside! And a train with a funny face!

Cluj is awesome!

Wish i could stay longer! I had baked ice cream today! And hot chocolate!

Braşov!

I'm in Braşov and it's gorgeous here! I visited Sinaia on my way here.from Bucharest. I didnt stay in Bucharest, only waited for an hour after my overnight train from Sofia. Long story short, lots of trains, confusion, and three castles in two.days! Well, maybe one is a fortress, but whichever. Here are some pics!

Im not sharing

All this baklava

Can you honestly expect me to refuse?

Sofia pics

Heres the museum, city view, pastry, and a tunnel that was super fun to ride through! Oh and balkan beer is awesome, huge plastic bottles of it!

My dinner from Montana

Mmmmtrout

Sofia!

Well, i finally made it to Sofia but had to give up and take a train to get there. It seems that the muscles in my legs have kicked the bucket. Not really any pain, just total weariness. I visited the fortress and painted caves in belogradchik after taking a route where the road was i guess actually closed, seeing at least half of it was made exclusively of gravel (gravel meaning chunks of rock up to the size of a fist). After some walking, camping, and frustration, i made it to the town. Oh yeah, there was a bridge missing too. After that town i spent the night in Montana, then biked to Vratsa, then gave up and took a train for the remaining 100km to Sofia. I may have been more inclined to ride had my last experience following Bulgarian road signs not been dreadful, but on top of that, on the way to Vratsa the remaining km to Sofia kept changing erratically. I know i travelled for 12km on this road, and the remaining km on the next sign had increased... Anyway, now im staying in Sofia with a guy named Cvetan. Hes super! I went to the National History Museum today..meh. Had an incredible pastry on the way though!  And had a lot of fun riding back, even though most of the road on my return trip was cobblestone. The museum is in a neighboring town, btw.

hello again, dunav

Okay, so i tried to post yesterday with some pictures too but yet again the blogger application ate my entry. Yesterday was tough, but rewarding enough to keep me going. There were a lot of big long hills once i finally navigated out of Belgrade. Belgrade is made out of mountains, by the way. Seriously its some treacherous terrain. With the long hills out of the city came some beautiful views of the Danube from afar, as well as views of the countyside with some fall foliage. The downhills were amazing, up to 53km/hour. Too bad they were precluded by uphills of 6km/hr :( All in all it worked out okay, but was definitely challenging. The drivers and passersby were very friendly too, one old guy who amazingly spoke english offered me coffee or tea after finding me overheated and perched on the cement 112km road marker in his front yard. Beats me how i can overheat when its 55f outside. One driver that waved quite enthusiastically really reminded me of Misi, too bad it wasnt Misi! Today! was a whole different can of beans. I somehow pushed myself stupidly against the wind for five hours to travel only 35km. The wind was worse than the Rosedale ride that one year when we had to forcibly pedal even the downhills. Maybe only worse because of the baggage, dunno. The weather would have been amazing and perfect except for the wind. Flat terrain, maybe only one climb, but still I could only move about 6km/hr, i got excited to reach 9km/hr, only.even for a few seconds. I was yelling at the wind to stop please for maybe an hour or at least slow down but the wind didnt care. I had to walk for a bit because the wind was throwing me around too much for me to be comfortable traveling anywhere.near cars, then i had to rest in a ditch because walking was too difficult too. Had to.give up on waiting the wind out, and ride again. Finally i reached.Veliko Gradište. Not much to report there...met up with the Danube again briefly. The wind was managable about 8km before Veliko Gradište as i started descending into the valley. The decent was 7% and seemed to last forever, but i did have a sinking feeling that i would have to.climb up that steeply again. Not yet though. Im staying just past Golubac for the night, just around the bend from the fortress. Once the walls of the valley started getting steeper, i was really glad that i had been tortured so much for a large part of the day. The views are amazing, so much so.that my bike had to reward me by getting a flat, then the wind started up again, ha. Either way, the fortress is amazing and the cliffs are amazing and the truck driver that stopped in the restaurant under the place i am staying is amazing too. One truck driver there knew english and helped me arrange my nightly accommodations; I finally got in trouble for not having the paper card that tells the police everywhere I have stayed in Serbia. Hopefully things will work out at the border on my way out, ha. Anyway, hot shower, hot soup, hot coffee, mostly cured. Hopefully tomorrow my broken ass knee will have decided to stop whining and carrying on. It should figure out by now it's not getting a break! Now to fix my flat...

The embassy sucks

So does nato..

Belgrade!

Att cut my data plan off; yay!

Trip to Belgrade

Quality repairs

Serbia, continued!

Im still in Vrsac, now scoping out dance groups in Belgrade with my host's help. My cycling partner, Tamara, and I parted ways and she is now in Croatia, enjoying the coast and warm weather. Victor has shown me that the Danube follows the border of Serbia and Romania, and turns into a beautiful canyon, so I hope to check that out soon on my way to Sofia.

serbia

Okay, I haven't posted in a while. I'm in Vrsac, Serbia, right now. My new bike partner, Tamara, and I just biked here from Timisoara, Romania. Our host in Romania was Razvan; he had a party last night and we got to try some sour cherry homemade alcohol, and lots of amazing food. The alcohol was sweet and good. In Serbia, our host is Victor, and he's really cool, a cinematographer. He's crazy hospitable too, and this town is so cute, right on the edge of a mountain. The house we are staying in is pretty awesome too. Tonight we had some almond alcohol that Victor's mom made. Bitter, but good. All in all, everything is going great, just very busy lately with little time to update. Hopefully I can find some wifi soon and post some pictures!

Arad

Okay, on Friday morning I left Szeged and biked to Arad, Romania. The border crossing was super easy! Im really happy to not be a truck driver though. They only have one lane to wait in, and they were backed up at least a mile. I definitely got some strange looks from them as I biked through the car lane. Now I have three stamps in my passport; very exciting for me! There isnt very much to report about my journey, although I did arrive in a not so nice looking part of the city on my way in and was a little hesitant at first, but was quickly reassured.
My host, Daniel, is pretty amazing. He had to go out of town for the weekend, and he was very welcoming and we had a chance to talk for a couple of hours before he left, which is fortunate. Yesterday I explored some, and went to the grocery and cooked myself a big dinner and stuffed myself. I really need to buying cookies though! Today I got rained on when I left the house, so I stopped riding and im at the mall using the wifi and drying out. Its chilly here, high of 60F, hopefully it warms up again..

Hedgehog

Possibly the highlight of yesterday was seeing a hedgehog. I didnt get any pictures of it, but it was super cute! I went to a tanchaz last night. It was fun, reviewed some dances and learned some mens footwork in detail that I had been faking my way through. The city was quite beautiful on my way home...
I spent a lot of yesterday reading Adrian Mole: the cappuccino years, by Sue Townsend. It was very good, and I got caught up in it.

Langos

Today I ate langos which put me out for a while. Fried pastry with cheese, sour cream, and garlic. I had already eaten half in the picture. Also tracked down some jack and the beanstalk tower, and people-watched a lot today.

Szeged continues

Burek is amazing, heres a picture. Its a pastry with ham and maybe cheese in the middle. Ive been sightseeing and hanging out with the family and playing polo and more. And bike riding. And eating italian ice cream. Good stuff.

The blogger phone app sucks, btw

<p>&lt;p&gt;I had a lovely and eloquent post written, but I suppose i will be rewriting it now.&lt;/p&gt;<br>
&lt;p&gt;Yesterday morning I slept in on purpose to try and rejuvinate my knees, but im not sure how much that helped. I biked into town for the afternoon, walked around, took pictures, and shopped. I also had an amazing iced coffee with ice.cream and whipped cream in it. And chocolate. After all that, I went home to meet Isabella's sister, who was taking me dancing. She took me to a Delafoldi beginners class, which was especially awesome.because the class was accompanied by a man playing a traditional instrument and singing along with a voice that perfectly complemented the instrument. I will have to look up the name because I was told two names for it so I promptly forgot both. It was like a nykelharpa (which I also probably cant spell), except there was a crank on the side. The teacher was pretty awesome too: lots of energy and ability to appeal to all skill levels. No english though, of course! There were people of all skill levels and ages in the group, so it was a pretty varied group of people. I feel fortunate to have been able to.go; many thanks to Peter and his family for arranging it! </p>
<p>After dancing, I came home and watched.discovery channel's "how it works", or whatever its called, with the kids, Noemi and Florian. Twin sister and brother, almost 6 years old. Then they went to bed, and Peter and Isabella and I talked, and then Peter showed me some places to go and places to eat on a map for the coming days.

A century (in km)

Yesterday was rough! First thing, I went to the applied folk art museum in kecskemét. There are really some crazy things that people can make! Tons of time and tons of patience. There were all sorts of woodcrafts, embroidery, weaving, and more, separated by the regions they.come from and identified by the people who made them. After that, I left town and took the scenic tour to Szeged (no, not a euphemism for getting lost).

I saw some pretty amazing country scenes, some beautiful towns, some not so beautiful towns, lots of old people on bikes, and more. Does Hungary have a big trade in sunflower seeds? I saw a lot of fields of planted sunflowers. Also I saw cornfields with official looking signs in front of the corn. Genetic strains? I ate lunch/dinner in a small place between a bike road and the highway. It looked so charming that I had to stop. It wasnt the best hamburger ive ever had, but was maybe the best beer, ha. The people were really nice, but didnt speak english. I ended up biking 120 km yesterday (72 miles). When I got to Szeged, I dropped my bags off and went to bike polo. Yes, evidently I am a masochist. I played a couple of grandma style games on Sofia, due to tiredness and inability to play on that bike. It was a practice session; I guess they play for real on Saturday. We played in a Tesco (giant supermarket) parking lot, no boards, walls, etc. A nice guy has put together a bicycle that I can play on for Saturday, but I am worried about it! It is fixed gear, with spd pedals. I may end up killing myself, fingers crossed! When I got back to Peter's, I experienced the most amazing shower.

Picture explanations: saw this huge windmill restaurant, and then while resting by the road I saw the biggest catapiller I have ever seen, next to a smashed beercan. Right after that pic I heard a mouse getting attacked ( probably by another monster catapiller, so I left.very.quickly)

Wifi again!

Okay, sunday I played polo in Budapest, and not much else..we rode around the neighborhood looking for treasures in the trash piles, and watched the gypsies. On Monday, the dog, Petra was spayed. She was drugged and very pitiful all day. She was so sad looking :(

On Tuesday, I mailed off my dance shoes, hopefully they will arrive sometime...then I gave a fond farewell to Eva and Gabor. I then headed off to Kecskemét. The roads were really nice and there were even bike trails in places. I saw lots of farms. I rode 80 km (50 miles) to get there, and couldnt find a real hostel (only student living places) so I stayed at a panzio.  I fit all my bags, myself, and my bicycle into this tiny lift to get to the 5th floor. My room was huge, with private bath, and was very clean, for about $20. It was well worth it. Got a tv too, and the german station even had some programs in english. I ended up watching the cowboys vs. redskins, translated into hungarian of course!

Szentendre

Today I meandered on down to Szentendre. I took my sweet time, finally arriving at about 1:30. I took lots of pictures on the way. Fortunately there were a.lot of.other people biking there. Although there is a bike trail (part of.eurovelo 6), it got confusing or hairy.at times, and I could pull off the trail when confused and see where other people were going. When hairy, I was glad that I have a little experience mountain biking, cause I needed it! I saw a few people riding with very skinny road tires though, and even a fixed gear! The town was very pretty and the roads were indeed narrow and cobblestoned. The ride and weather were perfect! Evidently the town is quite big on tourism. A ton of shops, most with the exact same things for sale. Stopped by the kovacs blue dye shop, and had a late lunch at a cafe and had a very yummy iced coffee with whipped cream, and a very.yummy pasta dish. I enjoyed watching the people as I ate, and there was even a parade that went by.

There were tons of oldsters on tour busses that went there. It was pretty funny to see them freak out as they were late to get back on and had to jog to make it back. After lunch I did some more shopping, and finally headed back. There are a lot of cottages where people vacation, and an area midway between Budapest and Szentendre where there are a ton of little cafes and eating establishments, I guess that cater to the cottages and the bikers. Most of the trail was right along the Danube. On the way back, I stopped at this grocery that ended up being like a huge monster walmart. Totally overwhelming, but a great vocabulary lesson! Then I of course got a little lost on the way back (thanks gps), but quickly figured it out. Then I meandered home and ate some dinner!

Lazy day!

<p>I spent most of the day lazing around today. Slept in, plus some internet research. Also I watched Eva train Petra, the dog, to look for truffles. That was pretty cool! Finally I headed into the city to go to the Timar's dance rehearsal. It was definitely worth going! I saw a political rally going on on the Margit bridge, but didnt have too much time to.check it out. When I got to the rehearsal, I had to practically beg these.two girls to please let me in and show me where to go. They seemed quite reluctant until I mentioned Matyi Timar's name. When I went in, I met I guess mom, and two I guess kids that were going to lead rehearsal. Thats when all the english stopped. I really got.in touch with my following the lead skills. Where to go, what to do. Too bad I dont know Hungarian! I got some sort.of introduction from the.teacher/daughter lady. Someone is going to have to clear this all up for me, ha. Then I was thrown into umpteen dances and had an amazing time trying to figure out what was going on. All the dances were.familiar to me, but not the choreographies. Well, I take that back, there was some.sort of circle dance with theatrics before it, and a few small.things, but all and all was awesome. When I left, I got a little lost, as usual. I am unfamiliar with the Buda side, and was looking for my street! I finally found it, and took my bike on a crazy awesome photoshoot, though unfortunately only on my camera and not my phone. I cant adjust shutter speed on this thing...anyway, stopped at some burger place and ate dinner for about $2.50. Some british ( I think) guy said he liked my bike and gave me a sticker for a facebook page. Yay stickers! When I got home, Eva and Gabor told me there is a satellite that id going to hit the earth? Pretty scary. One in 3200 chance that it will hit a person; that seems pretty high to.me!