Brasov, Romania July 8–13 - part 1

                                                    
We slept until breakfast, 10am, then at noon went back to sleep.  Boy did we need it.  And good to their word, Ciprian showed up and walked us around the old town of Brasov. 
He is an engineer working at a car engine manufacturing company. 

Old town is much less full of walls and towers, but has nice old buildings and churches.  More importantly, we have been learning about Romanians, at least these Romanians.  Like everywhere else, you cannot put any peoples into one lump.  We have been surprised to learn some things for none Russia did not come into Romania and make it Communist.  The Romanians chose to do it.  Under Communism the people had jobs and money, but nothing to buy.  The stores were empty.  Now, with Democracy and Capitalism, the stores are full of goods but the people don’t have jobs, or the jobs don’t pay enough to buy the goods.  Imagine how frustrating that is.  There is a lot of discontent here.  Of course, you don’t see it everywhere and there are people who are doing well, but according to the people who spoke to us about it, people with lots of money did not make it honestly and the government is totally corrupt.

The second day we stayed in during the day to let Arleen feel better.  Maybe something she ate or she got the stomach flu, but she felt bad.  In the evening, she was feeling better, so we went to an organ concert at the Black Church, which isn’t black, but was back in the 1800 when the town had a huge fire.  After the concert we met up with Ciprian and his wife Raluca, who is 6 months pregnant and lovely.  We walked around again and Duane got shorts and I got a very light weight dress.  Then a lovely dinner at a local touristy place with our companions.

We were planning on meeting our friends for dinner at their place, but Ciprian’s work got in the way, so we ate at our hotel after spending the day blogging and trying to figure out where we were heading to next.

Now for some pictures:
This is the smart pigeon,  all his friends are drinking dirty water, he was drinking directly from the fountain.
                                                   

              
                                    
               
                                                 
                                            
                                                                                                                                   Me and Ciprian walking into the       shopping area.