When we left Arad a day early we made a plan to stay in Hunedoara, which is about half way in a five hour journey.  In Hunedoara, they have a castle.  This, is the castle.

It was a pretty cool castle on the outside, and the inside was pretty much like many other castles I have been in – an empty shell of a castle.  Afterwards, we went to a little bar on the grounds and when I ordered white wine the bartendress told me they only sold it by the bottle.  So I bought one, and it came out warm with a bucket of ice cubes to cool it.  The first taste was shockingly bad for the simple reason that the wine was something like 10 years old.  Oh well.  If you have only one truly crappy wine experience on a trip, that’s a pretty good trip.  Dan smartly ordered beer.

Hunedoara, according to the Lonely Planet guide, hosts the Romanian Bowling Olympics or somesuch, so I was on the lookout for bowling alleys (because how fun would it be to bowl in Romania?) but I never did see one.. we went out to dinner, in a restaurant with only us in it.  Hunedoara is a nice looking town.  Next time I will find the bowling alley.

The next day we drove the rest of the way to Sibiu.  And on our way – we got pulled over by a cop.

I just thought it was a random stop, but it was not.  In fact it turned out to be a sort of tense experience as the officer took Dan’s passport and all the car information and was gone with it for a long time.  First, he wrote a number down on a piece of paper (I think it was 67.) We didn’t know what the heck he was talking about.  Then he left with the paperwork for a long time and came back with a ticket.  It was a speeding ticket! We had been going, I guess, 67 in a 50 zone.  Dan told the guy he was absolutely not speeding, but the officer was unswayed.  Well get this – we had to pay a fine of 80 lei on the spot. That is TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS.  Last time I got a speeding ticket (and I totally wasn’t speeding either, I don’t think) it cost me $350 plus online traffic school. Speeding is a freeking bargain in Romania.  Dan was pissed off though, and when the officer was leaving our car he called him an unkind name.  Fairly loudly.  I think he’s probably the only American in history to have ever called a Romanian traffic cop that particular name.

It was all worth it, for me at least, once we got to Sibiu. Stay tuned….

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