Day 8 - Sunday 10th October - Log Carting!
Official Itinerary says: "Today we have a free day so you can chill out at Hotel Castle Dracula or enjoy our optional trip to Vatra Dornei. If you decide to stay at the hotel you can enjoy a lie in (but don't forget breakfast). If the weather's good you could take a walk in the valley (there is a small church to visit), check out the local market stalls, or get round to writing those postcards (the hotel sells a range of suitably cheesy Dracula inspired cards). Alternatively you could enjoy a hot chocolate or raspberry vodka watching the clouds rolling around the valley from the hotel's rooftop bar.
For those with insatiable energy or a taste for adventure there's an optional day trip, which will start with a ride in horse drawn carts or caleches through the forest to the village of Lunca IIvei, where expat Julian Ross and his wife run an equestrian centre. From Lunca, we will be catching a local train to the spa town of Vatra Dornei. The hour's train journey will take us through some spectacular mountain scenery, to the spa, which sits at the confluence of the Dorna and Bistrita rivers at the foot of the Rarau-Giumalau Mountains. As well as providing mineral cures for a wide range of ailments the town is famous for its cheeses. Our coach will collect us from the town and return us to Hotel Castle Dracula.
In the evening there will be a bonfire outside the hotel with mulled wine, a special festive dinner and some spooky surprises. There will be a masked ball/party and an opportunity to dress up in your favourite fantasy dress/clubbing outfit - just remember to bring a coat as well or you will freeze when you go outside!"
Pronunciation lesson of the day: 'Tihuta', the area in which we’re staying, is pronounced 'ta-hoo-ta', not 'two-hooters'. I'm beginning to see a pattern to our method of pronunciation here – we simplify the names and try to turn them into something vaguely rude. Later this week we're going to be going to 'Brasov', which has already been christened 'Bras-off'. We so childish sometimes.
Anyway. We got up to the Hotel Castle Dracula last night, and it's not actually as bad (or as good even) as you'd really expect – it just looks like most other hotels. The scenery is very beautiful though, but again it's not quite like you would expect. There were lots of pine forests and tiny peasant hamlets around as we were driving up, but the pass itself is more like a plateau, filled with rolling farming land and surrounded by mountains. Hardly the sort of thing you see in vampire movies and stuff, but very pretty nonetheless.
Once we’ve got our rooms sorted, ditched our stuff and checked out the ‘rooftop bar’ (which is actually a normal bar with a small veranda outside... lovely view though) we all head down to dinner. After dinner while we were all getting very nicely drunk, I get involved with one of the most surreal arguments I’ve ever had. It was entirely my own stupid fault as well, because I happened to mention that I personally think 'Return of the Jedi' was better than 'Empire Strikes Back'. If any of you guys reading this have nerds for friends, you will know that this is not really a good thing to say. I'm perfectly aware that it's a stupid thing to say, but I still stick by my beliefs... even though I know that very few people ever agree with me.
Last night though, the reaction is a bit extreme. I start the argument with Ginger Dave and Becky, who are both lovely people but very, very opinionated and immensely stubborn. They tell me straight away that I’m just plain wrong. To give me credit, I never at any point try to actually convince them that 'Jedi' is better than 'Empire' – I’m just stating my opinion, I’m not out to change anyone else's mind. It quickly turns into a huge fight for me to just get them to accept that I’m entitled to my own opinion. 'But you're wrong!' is their constant point. I tell them that if they don’t allow me to have my own beliefs, then they were being horribly intolerant and very narrow-minded. I’m entitled to believe what I like, after all. But they still refuse point-blank.
Eventually, I change tack and ask them something else. I'm always curious as to how firmly people are in their beliefs (especially the stupid ones), so I ask Dave and Becky if there's anything in the world that would convince them to admit that 'Jedi' was the better movie. I tell them they don't even have to mean it, just say it that one time to me, and I would never mention it again. But they both refuse, no matter how much money (real or hypothetical) I offer them. Wow, lookit the people with principles.
I end up asking Dave if he will admit this one simple thing (again, just to me and just the once) if I said I would blow up the world if he didn't. He concedes that, yes, in that case he'd admit it. Phew, that's a relief. I was beginning to think they were being irrational. Okay, so how about if I say that I would blow up a continent? A country? A single person? He decides that he would concede to any of those, since he doesn't think anyone else should suffer for his beliefs. Alright, we're definitely making progress now. So, what if I say that I would chop off one of his fingers?
'Which one?' he asks.
I point to the smallest finger of his left hand. Ginger Dave has remarkably long fingernails, incidentally. 'This one,' I tell him.
'You can chop that one off,' he says breezily.
O-kay… what about his ring finger as well? 'Well, I'm never going to use that one... so sure.'
Eeek, this is getting a bit freaky. I have here someone who would rather have two of his fingers cut off than admit, just once and just to me, that 'Jedi' is better than 'Empire'. Holy crap. I suddenly feel really unprincipled. I mean, I would happily have admitted 'Empire' was better if they'd offered to buy me a drink. I can't think of anything immaterial in the whole world that I would happily have my fingers cut off for. I sit back down, raise my glass and tell Dave and Becky that they've won the argument, they are more principled than me, and 'Empire' is better than 'Jedi'.
This is still bugging me, incidentally. I still can't think of any principle I care that much about… not a single one. Am I really that unprincipled? I've never had any problem with admitting I'm wrong, or that other people are right, even if they're not. I'd say anything just to keep the peace, and suddenly I'm beginning to wonder if that is really such a good thing. I suspect that this is going to bother me for some time to come, and I’m going to be trying hard to think of some principle that I honestly value that much.
After the argument, me, Dave and Becky all make up and have a load more drinks. Ginger Dave ends up initiating a Slo-Mo Gun Fight (if you've not seen the series 'Spaced', then think of John Woo movies) with me, which I also lose, although I have a lot of fun in the process. Then this morning Dave's proudly sporting a t-shirt reading 'Zero Tolerance', and I've made myself a large sticker saying 'Thank you for not arguing with me'. You remember what I said about not arguing with nerds and those who are more sure of themselves than you are? This is exactly why.
KT got the front seat and she was clinging on for dear life (the only time she let go was to light cigarettes or turn round to grin maniacally at me). Once I'd got the hang of it, it wasn't so bad, and I sat there filming the scenery and the cart behind us with my video camera, leaning out far enough over the side for KT to yell at me to be more careful. One of the girls, Kylie, managed to break her seat as we went over a particularly large bump, and we all stood up in the cart to watch the driver fix it with another plank of wood. Of course, as soon as we stood up the horses decided it was time to move on, and we all almost ended up in the mud.
All the way down, the second cart (the one behind us, since we were leading) were singing, but apart from Scary Robert leading our cart in a couple of verses of 'The Lumberjack Song' we didn't really join in. Which is a bit of a shame, and made me wish a little bit that I'd sat on the other cart. But even without singing the trip was fantastic – dark, creepy forests, lingering mist overhead, rushing river on one side of the track... gorgeous. Even if we were all stiff and sore and covered in mud by the time we got down to the bottom (some of us were more covered than others – Mick the Younger is now officially known as 'Mucky Mick' because, as Scary Robert pointed out when he got off the cart, "Your arse looks like the Somme").
At the bottom on the hill there's a small village and a train station, but there are no trains at that particularly. Since we’ve got down the hill two hours early, we now have a two-hour wait until our train leaves. The toilets at the train station are OFFICIALLY the Worst Toilets in the World EVER (I don't think they even count as a hole-in-the-ground... more like a crack-in-the-ground), so we go looking for more hospitable surroundings, and predictably enough end up in a bar. Yay!
At least it's warm in there. Well, warmer than sitting on a mud-encrusted horse cart at least. Stella and me go halves on a nice bottle of wine, and spend about ten minutes dividing up the price before we belatedly realise that it cost about 65,000 Lei... which is about a pound. Great, so we've just spent ten minutes quibbling over the equivalent of about five pence. Oh well, on the plus side we now have a very tasty bottle of wine that only cost us a pound. I'm not complaining.
After we've finished off our wine, assorted spirits and Ursus beer we head back to the train station to get our train. Amusingly enough, Ginger Dave is not very happy at all by this point, because he's apparently allergic to horses. He never realised before – "I’m a city boy, why would I have been near horses?". But now his eyes have swelled up and gone red, and he's walking around with his sunglasses on, despite the cloudy weather. To quote Brody from 'Mallrats' - "that's what you get for fucking with me".
Hee hee hee... okay, I’ll put my voodoo doll away now.
I'm going to curl up and have a sleep in a minute (all the exercise, excitement and cheap red wine has worn me out), because there's still an hour or so till we get off the train. And then apparently, we’re having a masked ball this evening and everyone's going to be getting really dolled up. I'm absolutely sure that I'm going to be outclassed yet again, but I guess I'll have to make an effort. And now I'm going to have a sleep. Night!
TO BE CONTINUED!