Romania and Switzerland

My vacation was quite nice (photos here), but I returned to an apartment that still lacks internet. I blame Clara. Even now that I've taken charge of the problem it's still taking a remarkably long time to sort out. Without internet at home I've been slow updating this blog, instead using the time to read a few non-technical leisure books. It had been quite some time since I'd sat down with anything that wasn't math or science.

Romania was quite interesting and beautiful. I was particularly intrigued to see the bizarre mixture of classical beauty, modern developments, and derelict neighborhoods. Many Bucharest buildings once had grand facades, on par with anything you would have found in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. Today most of those facades are dilapidated. Some of the buildings have been fixed up, and there is ongoing work to improve other sections of the city. Unfortunately there is still a long way to go. Stray dogs roam city streets, and there are stretches of road lined with run-down communist block apartment buildings. My friend from Caltech, Alex, lives near the (in)famous People's Palace. Her parents are artists, and have been beautifully renovating their home. Let's hope some more people follow their lead.

Alex's Home

After a day and a half in Bucharest, we went to the town of Sinaia to the Royal Castle called Peleş. Peleş was gorgeous and is arguably the prettiest castle I've ever seen.

Peleş (the ş makes an "sh" sound)

That night I caught a ride with Dan, one of Alex's friends (and a current Caltech grad student), to the town of Sibiu in the heart of Transylvania. Romania notoriously has difficulties developing their roads, so I was surprised and impressed when we hit stretches of modern highway lined with the occasional glowing gas station. It was virtually indistinguishable from roads through the middle of Missouri. Other roads matched the reputation a little better, especially the ones with horse-drawn wooden carriages (complete with wooden spokeless wheels). I did some sightseeing in Sibiu then train hopped to the town of Braşov. Not far from Braşov is a town called Bran, which boasts an old castle on a mountain. This castle was commandeered by Hollywood, making it "Dracula's Castle" despite virtually no link to the historical dracula (Vlad Ţepeş). While nowhere near as impressive as Peleş, I felt compelled to pay the castle a visit.

After a little more Romanian sightseeing I caught a flight to Geneva, where I rendezvoused with an Oxford friend, Jessica, and her undergrad friend, Doug. Doug's now a physics grad student working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. My couple of days in Switzerland were great fun, but quite a bit pricier than my Eastern European adventure. Doug hooked us up with a tour of the accelerator, an outing to Gruyère, and a hike in the Jura Mountains.

A chamois in the Juras