HI HI. So while we're here, we are given two 4-day weekends throughout the semester, and our first one was 2 weekends ago! We decided to go to Brasov and Transylvania, and it was soo fun. Brasov is one of the cutest towns I've ever been to. The streets are small and all lined with super old and colorful buildings, and we all loved it the moment we got there. 

We left on Friday morning at like 6am, and it took a 6 hour bus ride to get there. We stayed at a place called the Rolling Stone Hostel, and our host CeCe was so sweet and gave us a lot of information on what we should do while we were there. We also were staying up in the attic of the hostel, and all of our beds were lined up on both sides, so we all kind of felt like we were at girl's camp again, or on the set of Annie. Haha. Shortly after we arrived, we all stuffed into 2 large vans and drove to the Bran castle in Transylvania, aka the DRACULA castle. I loved it. It's always so interesting to me go into super old castles and places and try to picture people living in them hundreds of years ago. Also because this is my first time to Europe and we don't have this kind of history in America. The freaky part about the Bran castle was that they had a whole room dedicated to different torturing devices with pictures and descriptions included. They sure were, uh, creative back then haha. At the bottom of the castle, they had a bunch of vendors set up with a ton of different souvenirs. They were all pretty much selling the same stuff, but they were all super cool to browse through and it took a lot of restraint not to spend all my money haha. We also went to the Rasnov fortress that day! It was on top of a hill, so when you were on top of the fortress you could see the whole city. Pretty cool! ALSO, that night our host CeCe found a stray kitten outside the hostel and brought it up to our room to play with and see. I just about died and tried real hard to convince my head teacher to let us bring her home. Didn't work.

Bran Castle

On top of the Rasnov fortress

On Saturday, we started off by going to the Peles castle. Oh my goodness, it was honestly one of the prettiest places I've ever been to. It's also one of those places that I've definitely pinned onto my travel board on pinterest, so I felt pretty accomplished. It was the summer home for the first royal family of Romania, who actually came from Germany, so it has a lot of German influence. It also actually built in the late 1800's, so it has things like heating/cooling, a vacuum cleaner, and a retractable roof. The inside was ammaaazing. We couldn't take any pictures inside unless we bought the photo-pass ticket, so sorry you'll just have to trust me on this one. Or you could just google "Peles castle inside." Either one. The amount of detail in there was honestly mind blowing.

 After the Peles Castle, we got dropped off to go on a hike called the Canionul Sapte Scari, aka the Seven Ladders Canyon. Seriously. It took us about 40 minutes from the car to get to where we paid 10 Lei and start the actual hike. I didn't know what to actually expect, but this hike was one of the coolest/prettiest/SCARIEST things I've ever done. You go through a canyon has waterfalls going through it, and you climb 7 different ladders to get through it. The scary part is that they all vary in length and degrees of how vertical they are. The ladders and platforms are metal and upon first impression don't seem the most reliable haha. If you know me, I'm a big wimp. Like scared to try wake boarding and roller coasters kind of wimp, but now that I'm 21 and technically an adult I don't want my wimpy-ness to hold me back from scary things. The first couple of ladders weren't thaaat bad, just a little scary. But when we saw the fourth ladder, we all almost peed our pants. It was straight up for like 50 feet. But we all did it, woohoo!!! After getting through the canyon, the walk to loop back around to the beginning was sooo pretty. One of the prettiest things I've ever witnessed, and my pictures don't even do it justice. That night, we all just went out to dinner and got gelato!

Peles Castle!

Seven Steps Hike (that is definitely not the ladder I was talking about vv)

On Sunday, we had a more laid-back day. Me and some of the girls went out and got a pastry for breakfast from a placed called Gigi. So good. After that, me and two other girls, Sydney and Hannah, rented bikes for two hours. I loved that because we got to ride around and see a lot of Brasov without having to walk, which would have taken a much longer time.
The next day, we were leaving around 2pm, so we decided to go up to the Brasov sign that morning. We took the tram up and then hiked down. The site from the top was gorgeous! And it was cool because you could actually touch and climb up on the sign.

The most narrow road in Europe

Brasov sign

Overall, it was a really great weekend and I absolutely love the girls I'm here with! Brasov is a gorgeous city and it makes me wonder why eastern Europe is so dang underrated (????). But I'm seriously so blessed to be here experiencing everything and being able to travel to these really cool places. 

Kara