Romania

After taking the 4am shuttle bus to Madrid Barajas Airport, it seemed we should have just spent the night at the airport sleeping on the baggage belts beside the check-in counters like everyone else did. Though swearing never to fly Easyjet (elbowjet) again because of their no seat allocation/get-your-elbows-out policy, we eventually found ourselves being shoved to the outside of a throng of five foot tall, matronly Romanian women at the boarding gate. Last on the plane, we managed to find seats across the aisle from each other. Before the plane had even reached the arrivals gate in Bucharest, the aisle was full of Romanian woman yelling at Glenn in Romanian to hand them their oversized cabin bags from the overhead compartment.

We took a new-age bus from the airport to the train station in Bucharest to meet Soph and Jimi and Troy who were arriving from London on a later flight and then jumped the next train to Brasov. According to a certain travel bible, Bucharest's greatest annoyance is it's enormous number of 'community dogs' (read: stray, often mangey, sometimes rabid dogs) that roam throughout the city. There were nine dogs on the platform as our train took off for Brasov. Our train took more than three hours to cover the 120km to Brasov, hence Romania was re-named SlowTrainia.

The plan was to go to Brasov for a week of skiing at a resort called Poiana Brasov, 12km north of the town of Brasov in Transylvanian Romania (home of Dracula and all that). Again, we were foiled by the weather. Brasov has had an unseasonably mild winter with no recent decent snow. We took a day trip to the stunning Bran castle (often referred to as Dracula's castle, when in fact he's most likely never set foot in it) and spent most of our days planning our next meals. We're embarrassed to say that most nights we didn't make it past our local restaurant whose sausages and cabbage dishes were highly rated, even amongst the Irish in our group. The beer flowed freely; Romania produces a remarkably good black beer called Ursus Brun.

Bran Castle

Soph and Jimi departed early, which left Troy and Glenn and Bec to head to the ski resort to check out the action anyway (and for Troy to feel justified in hauling his snowboard bag and gear all the way from London). Troy's snowboard made for a good but uncomfortable sled.

In the middle of Brasov's old town square is an ice skating rink which we were keen to try out. Troy was good at it, Bec (decked out in a pair of ski crash pants she'd borrowed from Troy to protect her previously broken backside) was average at it and Glenn was rubbish at it. Even the lessons we got from a seven year old Romanian boy didn't help us.

Ice skating

It snowed on the Thursday night and we decided to head back to the mountain to see what the ski conditions were like for one final time. There proved to be enough snow for Bec and Glenn to have a ski lesson and for Troy to do a few runs on his board. Troy was good at it, Glenn was average at it and Bec was rubbish at it. At least Glenn had the decency not to gloat about it, unlike Bec who gloated famously about the ice skating. As predicted, Bec was the first to ditch the ski slope for the ski lodge while Glenn perfected his snow plows and turns.

Poiana's sludgy ski hill

Set into the hill above Brasov, alongside the cablecar station, is a giant Hollywood-style sign (that reads Brasov, of course). The day before we left town we took the cablecar to the top of Mt Tampa (Glenn and Troy were feeling almost at home) and climbed all over the Brasov sign.

Bec climbing Brasov

We then took the train back to Bucharest. Troy took an early morning flight back to London and we were left to our own devices for a couple of days in Bucharest. We're not adverse to big cities, but just prefer places that are easy to get around on foot. Bucharest has its charms, but we were keen to move on to Bulgarian pastures. Farewelled by a mob of community dogs, we took the train to Bulgaria.