Romania, Day 3 & 4

Poor Milla and Nik, after the gig in Braşov they had been up for nearly 24 hours! A rest at our Pension Sofie was well deserved. I wasn’t feeling to fresh myself, and I slept like a baby. I kept dreaming about dogs though, maybe that was because all night long dogs kept barking near the Pension!

We went for breakfast at 9 am and the fun started immediately. Nik and Milla are used to stuffing themselves full at breakfasts when they are traveling, so they can skip lunch. I was amazed at what Nik could eat so early in the morning! He downed like 3 or 4 eggs, massive amounts of bread, meat and cheese. Insane! It made me laugh so loud. The people working in the pension were also a little amazed I think, when they asked if he wanted eggs and his answer was ‘yes please, bring it on!’. Well, at least they complied to his wishes! This pension also served decent coffee, unlike the Ibis hotel. Man, the stuff at the Ibis hotel that they dared to call coffee was more like dog shit!

We packed our belongings after breakfast and walked to the train station. We bought tickets for the Rapid train to Bucharest. Well, we all knew what ‘rapid’ meant in this country by now. Mentally we prepared ourselves for a long stay in the train, but first, we went to explore Braşov! The city centre was really lovely, colorful, breathing history. The town hall/historic museum dates from the early 15th century and was very well preserved! Nik wanted to see the Black Church. It was closed but at least we could look at it from the outside. We also saw a building that reminded me a lot of the Efteling (a Dutch themepark with very peculiar architecture).

The townhall in Brasov

The Black Church

Detail of the Black Church


Me standing on the central square


An eldery man walking the streets in Brasov


Blue house!

All in all it was very relaxing to stroll around this nice little town, basking in the sunshine, chatting, laughing. We found a little shop where they sold ice cream. The woman behind the counter let us try all the different kinds before we decided what we actually wanted, so nice! For the first time in my life I had gingerbread ice cream and it was so lovely!

It was about time to head to the train station. The ‘rapid’ train was very clean and comfy and definitely went faster than the day before. I wouldn’t say fast by my own standards, but hey, different country, different standards. With only 10 minutes delay we arrived in Bucharest. The journey was a lot more pleasant for me because of the company. The three of us had so much to talk about that we probably annoyed the hell out of our fellow travelers!

We walked to the Silver Church from Gara de Nord, about 20 minutes walking. There was a hotel 50m from it and Nik and Milla managed to negotiate a price for me. You see, it was an expensive hotel, way above my budget. Nik and Milla hung up a story about me being such a nice and decent girl wahaha! So I ended up in this posh hotel for a decent price. The room was so nice looking!

The Silver Church was so crowded when we finally got there at 7:15 pm. Alcest had already begun playing. It was their first show and they were great! Nik and I really wanted to go up front for Agalloch. Nik, with his scary looks, plowed his way through the masses and I followed him. We got nearly at the front finally and enjoyed 45 minutes more of Alcest. The music is atmospheric, with loads of post-rock, soundscape influences. Sometimes I could sense a hint of Amesoeurs in it, but not often. I’m still sad how Amesoeurs ended, but it’s not for me to judge the personal reasons that were behind it.

Agalloch set up their stuff and around me I could feel the tension rise. People were pressing against each other, the anticipation was there! The show began with the ritual of incense and John holding up the deer hoof again, although it was only visible for those standing at the front. The show started and the crowd went wild. The girl right in front of me started headbanging, and didn’t stop until the show had ended! She had very long, black hair and every other second I would get it smashed in my face. I had to put up with that the whole show and I’m telling ya, if it wasn’t Agalloch playing I would have left haha!

The ritual

However, the headbanging girl became my ticket to stand really up front, because the girl standing next to her couldn’t take the hair in her face anymore and left! I quickly took her place all the way at the front. Even more hair in my face, but whatever. The only remedy was to start headbanging myself, and that’s what I did!

At the beginning there were some problems with the sound, John making agitated gestures to the sound peeps. It made me remember the first shows I saw in 2006, where there was also trouble with the sound! It makes John irritated if it isn’t good enough. I can understand his irritation, but for the atmosphere it didn’t matter at all. People were going crazy during the show, everybody was into it (at least, so it seemed to be at the front). After 30 minutes I looked at Nik and there was blood running over his face. Turned out he hit his head at John’s monitor! He split his eyebrow, but looked bad ass metal now.

The more time passed into the show, the more people were pressing against each other, headbanging. The crowd become one big living organism, apt to move with the music. I myself felt like I was drunk, stoned and in trance at the same time. I experienced this performance as very intense. As encore they played The Lodge (Dismantled) again, ending with the noise. Man man, people around me went insane! I was pressed up all against the stage, because people wanted to see Don and John crawling over the stage, holding their guitar up in the air, letting the audience participate. Nik and I had a great moment with John last year in Den Bosch, when he grabbed our hands and we just stood there for minutes in the noise. This time it was different, because unlike the show in NL (where Nik and I definitely were one of the more enthusiastic people) EVERYBODY wanted to participate here. Crazy!

John engulfed by smoke

John pressed the Bambi hoof in my hand all of a sudden. I held on tight to it, because people were grabbing for it. Later Don pressed his plectrum in my hands, but I just had to give it away to two Romanian girls next to me. They were pleading for it! I had started talking to them during the show and I felt I couldn’t be too greedy and keep all the stuff for myself. I had the Bambi hoof already! Don said goodbye to the audience by shaking hands and hugging people. It was over! Or so we thought.....The most unheard of thing happened. The audience was making so much noise and stampede, that the band played a second encore! Of Stone, Wind and Pillor! A great surprise for the fans that didn’t see the Braşov show.

Now it was really over....Milla had seen the show from the side and looked at Nik’s bloody appearance. It was quite bad looking, because it had bled so much. Nik said he didn’t feel much pain though. We went to look for the band again, because we wanted some pics with them with our newly acquired souvenirs. Nik had managed to get one of Aesop’s broken drumsticks. We told them what a great show it had been and Milla took some pictures. After that we just hung around a bit. We talked mostly to Jason. To my surprise Jason told me he also loved the Netherlands very much and that he and his family were really considering moving there! After Nick and Tyson, Jason also turned out to be a Holland lover. I was surprised and pleased. After seeing Romania my opinion of my own country has risen, I must say. And when people tell you they love your country, well, it’s good to hear! Especially when it’s not just because of the weed and the hookers, you know. After hanging around for some time, talking to the band and other people it was about time to say goodbye.

Tough moment, I hate saying goodbye. Especially when you are with people that you don’t see a lot anyway, and it has been such a great time. Jason and Aesop want us to come to the States and I hope we surely will. I’ll start saving anyway! Hugs for goodbye and off we were....

Jason, Don, John, Aesop, Nick, Tyson, Milla, Nik: I loved seeing you all, thought it was way too short and hope we will meet again soon!



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After a really short nap in the hotel it was time to get going to the airport. My hotel called me a cab (Meridian company ftw, no crooks!) and off I was. For the last time I could marvel at the craziness of Bucharest. My taxidriver managed to avoid all the crazy holes in the road (some were pretty deep and dangerous) and delivered me to the airport for only 27 Lei. I’m converting it to Euro’s just now (I never bothered before) and see that it’s just 6,60, now that’s what I call cheap! Considering that just after that I ordered an espresso at the airport for frikkin’ 15 lei (= 3,70 euro) the taxi is even cheaper! Fuck.

Not much left to tell now. Flew back to NL. Managed to transport the Bambi hoof by checking in my backpack. Thank the gods I wasn’t flying with RyanAir or some other cheap ass air carrier that makes you pay extra if you want to bring more than just hand luggage. I was only carrying a daypack now because it seemed excessive to bring a suitcase for just 4 days. It saved me the trouble to hand in luggage and wait for it in Romania. But now, I just had to save the Bambi hoof! I was afraid that if I wouldn’t check in my bag it would get confiscated at customs. I mean, which normal person walks about with a part of a dead deer in their bags? I certainly would have thought such a person was a little insane. At Schiphol I checked the bag, and Bambi has made it to NL!

Boarding a Dutch train was a bliss after Romania I can tell you. Okay, the train was a little dirty because the cleaners are on strike (still!), but hey, at least it went 140km/h!

End of this epic tale of the journey to Romania. If I ever get to visit the country again, I would surely explore Transylvania more!