The south end of the beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Hua Hin, Thailand.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Maldives on March 23rd.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Three weeks to go

Only three weeks until we arrive in Bucharest, Romania. So I figured we had better start looking for somewhere to stay. Our first choice is always to stay with a local when arriving in a new country, so I started searching the profiles on the couchsurfing website.

There are quite a few choices in Bucharest, Romania. In fact, there are over 16,000 profiles registered for the city. But, we narrow things down quickly because we prefer a private room in a non smoking household within walking distance to the city center. Still, that left us with 23 possibilities.

I only sent out the first request last night, and they got back to me this morning. They accepted our request!

So, we'll be staying with a young couple (31) and their two cats in their two bedroom apartment that is located 30 minutes walk from downtown Bucharest. Nice!

We're only going to spend three nights with them, and that gives us two full days to see the main sights of Bucharest. If we like it, we can plan to return there earlier at the end of our trip. Otherwise, that will be enough time in the big city and we will head to the smaller city of Brasov where we hope to stay for a week and just do day trips from there.

Now, we will start looking for somewhere to stay in Brasov, as well as possibly booking a rental car for our week there.

Had a fun day with the family yesterday. We're back up at Ruth's dad's and we had Thanksgiving dinner with Ruth's side of the family. Her sister couldn't make it, but with our kids and grandkids there were 12 of us here.

Thanksgiving dinner.

No turkey though...Ruth and Lindsey made prime rib roast beef!

Ruth's brother Colin and his girlfriend Brenda had bought Halloween costumes for the kids. You'll have to wait until then to see the pictures, but Ruth looked pretty good trying on some of the parts of Sadie's costume!

Yep, Ruth is my princess!

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Just in time for Halloween...this set of 8 monster movies is the Universal Studios classic horror movie collection...





10 comments:

  1. Lovely header photo and a lovely Princess Ruth.

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  2. Another lovely header photo and your family pics are great, too. Your family always looks like they are all enjoying each other so much. Your couch surfing plans sound awesome and how fun to get to experience the culture in real life, rather than from a hotel.

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    1. Thank you Lori! Yes, our families usually have some pretty good laughs when we are all together like this on holidays.

      Couchsurfing is one of our favourite ways to stay when we are traveling in other countries. It really gives us a much better idea of what life is like and we are able to ask questions, generally about everything. We do also like to stay by ourselves though so we always try to mix things up a bit.

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  3. I'm intrigued by couch surfing...I've heard of it but it sounds somewhat scary. Have you ever done couch surfing? Do you have a back up plan if it doesn't work out? I would love to know more!

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    1. We have done couchsurfing over 50 times, either hosting or being hosted. We love it and have never had a bad experience. We had one or two odd ones but not risky ones. We have met some amazing people that we are still in contact with even today. We wrote a post about it before that you can check out. www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2012/04/couchsurfing.html Also if you google "kevin and ruth couchsurfing" it will bring up many of the posts from where we used couchsurfing and will mention some of our experiences with it.

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  4. Will be interested to hear your thoughts on Bucharest. We found it interesting (wait till you see/experience the traffic and lack-of-parking dilemnas), but we thoroughly enjoyed Brasov and it's surroinding areas. And oh are you going to looove the incredible prices, particular restaurant dining. :-)

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    1. We are looking forward to it as well. We have had a number of people (Romanians) tell us that there is not much in Bucharest and not to spend much time there as there are a number of smaller cities and big towns that are much, much better. We aren't worried about the lack of parking because we won't have a car there to worry about. We are definitely looking forward to Brasov and some of the other areas around there. I think in general we are going to love the prices there. :-)

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