We saw wooden carts of all sizes, some horse-drawn, some pushed by men. We also saw a lot of satellite dishes, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, there were internet cafes everywhere.

This is the courtyard of Bran Castle. They will let you take pictures inside, but not outside -- go figure. It is possible that Vlad Tepes (also known as Vlad the Impaler and Vlad Dracul) spent a couple of nights here, but it was not his residence. It's just that Stoker decided to make this Dracula's castle in his novel, and the tourists started showing up in droves.

It was in the nearby town of Brasov that I saw a little girl begging. I knew about all the abandoned children in Romania so I went to get some money from the Professor. But when I came back out of the train station, I saw a man directing a group of children on which way to go and who to beg from. I just turned around and went back inside with the money still in my hand. He may be providing a measure of security for the kids, but mostly he is just exploiting them and teaching them to beg, not to earn a living.

This is what haystacks look like in Romania. In the US you get bales or rolls, but I never before saw actual stacks.

This is the town of Sighisoara, the birthplace of Vladdy the Baddy. They promote that a bit, but mostly it is a charming medieval town. I bought some needlework in this square as souvenirs.

We ate lunch in this restaurant, and it was so good we figured we couldn't beat it and went back for dinner. (The waiter loved us.) I look so happy here because the bathroom was clean and had John Wayne toilet paper -- which, after several days of Attila the Hun toilet paper, is a real luxury. One thing I have learned from traveling is that Americans have the most pampered butts in the world.