nothing will ever top this hike

So our second day into Romania - L2 and I wanted to hike. We had a grand plan of hiking for four hours across the ridges of the Fagaras mountains and ending up at a cabana that would cost 10 euro.

Instead the ridges were more like straight up and down a mountain. Our path was blown out due to snow and it was so icy that we had to go down on our rain jackets for about 100/200 feet. That was actually fun. In the end we got about half way (what we discovered was half way) and found out the cabana was still four hours away. We had been hiking for 3.5 by then and was purely exhausted. Romania hikes were not for the faint of heart. Also, we only had about an hour and a half of sun left.

So we slept in a rescue shelter with three romanian boys and an avid hiker. Slat wooden boards really didn't help with my severe sunstroke and most likely altitude sickness. Feel bad for L2.

L2 dubbed it the death march of July 2008.

introduction to Lenny and Carl.

So in Heathrow Terminal 5, Liam and I had some time to kill and were starving. What did that mean - smoothies and pain chocolate! In addition - we got these great giraffes. And it was love at first plastic. Now named 'Lenny and Carl' - they are going on every journey with us. We hope to take their picture at every place we go to (a la Amelie gnome style but without the weight of a garden gnome). Here are Lenny and Carl at the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest. The second largest building in the world. It's just thick with concrete.Next picture - the swiss alps

Saving one women's chastity by natural disaster

Finally blogging about specific things in Romania. Got lazy due to the ridicilous sunny weather in London and it was about 25 degrees. Perfecto.

Anyhoo - one of the stories we were told in Romania was about Killer Lake. The lake holds undisintegrated tree stumps from 1837. They still have no clue why this phenomen happened. But the reason for the flooding - a beautiful women's virtue.

One day, a gorgeous women went to Gheorgeni (the closest town to Killer Lake). There she met a very handsome man and as two good looking people do - they fell in love. Unfortunately, the guy had to leave and fight against the Turks. They were unable to marry before he left and she often would go down to the stream in her valley and pine for him.

Several years later, the boy had still not returned home and the girl kept pining. Her beauty had attracted the local chief and he wanted her to love him and marry him. He was not so pretty and she kept denying him. Finally, (by way of force and persuasion on her family) he forced her into agreeing to marry. She desperately didn't want to - and again went down to her stream and talked to it.

This time it listened and a massive earthquake happened, crumbling the mountain onto the village and killing everyone. By the time everything had ended - there was a lake (where there was once a stream) and the trees peered over - living and keeping her memory alive.

The Borat connection

Again - waiting for photographs but in the meantime L2 and I found out the strangest connection in Romania. All those village scenes in Borat when he's back in his 'home country' of Kazakhstan... yeah it was filmed in southern Romania. Also, all the locals speaking that are not speaking English, they are not speaking Kazakhstanian - they are unabashedly speaking Romanian.

Apparently they are suing Sacha Baron Cohen at the present time due to the meagre funds the production gave them and they did not understand the release waiver because it was not in their language.

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