April 16-18 Istanbul to Marosvasarhely

Leaving Istanbul at ten at night was easy, and we had a compartment in the train all to ourselves so were able to sleep some. We had to change trains at the Bulgarian border, which gave us this sleeping car room, which we had paid dearly for. What we hadn't figured on was how slow the train went – it took 5 hours to go the 180 miles to the border. Then the Bulgarian border police, guardians of the European Union, turned back two young Turks who were evidently trying an undocumented run. This took two hours. So we settled into bed at 5 A.M. As we found on awakening around noon, Bulgaria in that area is pretty much like Kansas, so we figure we hadn't missed much.
Passing into Romania was a piece of cake, everything was handled quickly and on board. The border is the Danube, here showing the Chernobyl style power plant (now closed) on the Bulgarian side. We stayed overnight in Bucharest, then headed on yet another train to Sighisoara in north central Romania and the hub of our travels here. We passed the unofficial border of Hungarian Romania through the Carpathian Mountains to the Carpathian basin. This was the Dracula Hotel, obviously capitalizing on hopelessly romantic American Goth's squishy view of reality. BTW, if you squint just right, you can see the bats hanging from the overhead power lines. Also, very clear in this picture, is Dracula's actual castle, up there on the crest – you see it clearly right above the snow arrow. Yes?

We switch from train to bus in Signisoara, hub of our stay here, heading to Marosvasarhely, TG Mures on the map, the Romanian name. In that city, it's about 50/50 ethnic Romanian/Hungarian, so most Unitarian children, who are ethnic Hungarian, are bilingual, and many learn English as well. Some of American culture has invaded, so we passed MacDonald's, Gap, Burger King, etc. We walked to Sighisoara to get lunch and access to an ATM, which cheerfully offered us the option of talking to our Tennessee bank in English, and delivered 1,000 Lei. We got to the bus station near the church in Marosvasarhely and John Dale, from the UU Partnership Church Council and gave us a quick tour of town,(where he lives 10 months a year) and delivered us to the edge of city church and it's excellent staff and B&B. Here is the upstairs B&B common area.
Matilda, a young minister's widow and church administrator, and Csaba, the minister, were most generous with their time and hearts. More of that next.