We were due for some exercise!

I said yesterday that we were due for a more relaxing day, but I didn't expect it to be yesterday. Still, we did manage to get out for some exercise. We're trying to plan our onward travels but we're having a hard time coming up with something concrete, and part of the problem is that we're enjoying our time here in the village of Oarda de Sus.

We need to rent a car because there are several day trips we want to do from here. But the car rental places here base their daily pricing on how many days you have the car.

Now, this is a civilized way to buy wine!

It was 11:00am by the time we got out the door yesterday morning. It takes a long time to sort the photos of our activities and post the blog. I guess we have to stop doing so much stuff. We are kind of due for a relax day, but I don't see that happening any time soon...there is too much to see and do!

Our couchsurfing host Valentina was going into town, so we went along with her and she dropped us off at one of the entrances to the citadel here in central Alba Iulia.

Travel Day - Sibiu to Alba Iulia, Romania

Our Airbnb host Andrei was off to work yesterday morning at 7:30am, but he left us a key so that we could come and go. Our planned bus to Alba Iulia wasn't leaving until 2:15pm, so we had some time to go wander around the city of Sibiu some more.

So we stayed in until 10:00am or so as it started to warm up a little outside. The entire country of Romania has been experiencing an unusual cold spell, but that is supposed to break tomorrow.

Blizzard...but what an adventure!

Yesterday morning, I got a phone call from the blablacars driver we had booked, saying that he was ahead of schedule and could we meet him a half an hour early. We had to rush a bit, but it was no problem.

There had been some snow flurries early this morning, and it was gradually getting worse. By the time we left at about 11:15am, it was actually snowing quite heavily!

Around the medieval city wall, and a good dinner out!

We relaxed yesterday morning, and planned our travel for the next couple of days. We had been heading to Sibiu for a few days, about 2 1/2 hours west of Brasov. But we received an email from the Mayors office of the nearby city of Alba Iulia asking if we would visit their city, so that's what we're going to do! We're still going to Sibiu first though, but only for one night.

We were going to take the bus to Sibiu but Daniel (our host here at the guesthouse) asked if we had tried blablacars yet. I had heard of it, but no...we hadn't tried it.

Another great day in Romania!

First thing we had to do yesterday morning was to return our rental car. We had picked it up at 10:00am, and so we had to return it at the same time. But, the car rental company had also specified that it was our obligation to return it clean and washed, and of course full of gas...just the way we had picked it up.

So the first thing we did was to go to a Romanian gas station for the first time.

It was slippery and muddy, but we made it!

Okay, so here's the second part of our day yesterday. We did too much exploring (is there such a thing??), so we had to break it into two separate posts. You can go back and check part one here if you missed it...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2016/11/im-king-of-castle.html

When we left you last, we were in the medieval Sighișoara citadel, and about to wander the narrow streets to see some of the houses of the people who still live there.

I'm the king of the castle!

We had a busy day yesterday. And when we sorted through the 100 photos we took, we decided there was no way to show you them all in one blog post. And so even though we have whittled them down to 54 photos after tossing the not so good ones, you're still going to get two blog posts today.

So, here is part 1...

Peles Castle

We woke up to another drizzly day, but this time we hopped in the car and went exploring. We have to try and get out a little earlier, because time seems to go by so quickly when it gets dark around 5:00pm!

We were headed only about an hour south of Brasov to the town of Sinaia, and the magnificent Peles Castle.

Grocery shopping in Romania

We woke up to rain yesterday morning, so we just relaxed at the guest house. There are only four rooms here, and the basement is the common area with a nice living room and kitchen space. We've been the only ones here for two nights, although two more rooms were occupied last night.

This is a popular guesthouse, but it's low season for tourism here in Romania, so it's only been full on weekends.

A couple of funny things happened yesterday...

Yesterday morning we picked up our rental car. Our appointment was at 10:00am, and we were there five minutes ahead of time. They had booked us a 2012 Renault Clio, a small hatchback. But when the girl sat us down to do the paperwork, she apologized that the car was in service, and they were giving us a slightly bigger one, a 2013 Dacia Logan. No problem for us, we just wanted transportation.

Rental cars are priced in euros here in Romania, but when they charge your card, it is in the lei equivalent. It's tough to find anything under 25 euros ($37 CAD, $28 USD) per day, unless you are taking the car for longer than a week.

Busy day with lots of pictures in Brasov, Romania!

Our guesthouse host Daniel picked us up exactly at 10:00am from the studio apartment where we were staying at his parent's place. We drove through the old part of town to the opposite side, with Daniel pointing things out along the way.

Just before we arrived at La Despani Guesthouse, I noticed the car rental place where we have our booking for this morning. I knew it was quite close to the guesthouse, but it's almost right across the street!

Travel day!...Bucharest to Brasov

Travel days in a new country are always interesting!

You just never know exactly how things are going to go, despite planning in advance as much as you can. And of course you don't know what you're going to see along the way. Yesterday, we planned to take the train from Bucharest to Brasov, Romania a distance of about 166 kms (103 miles) by rail.

Lesson learned...

We slept in a little bit on Friday morning. Not much really, but then we kind of relaxed for a couple of hours before getting ambitious enough to get outside. It was about 10:30am by the time we left the apartment.

Oh, speaking of which, some of you had asked for pictures of where we're staying. We had booked an AirBnb rental to stay in a private room in a shared apartment in Bucharest. We got lucky in that our hosts Cosmin and Carmen are really nice and helpful people, and we will probably stay with them again when we return to Bucharest in mid December.

Exploring Bucharest, Romania

We haven't had any problem with "jet lag". But then, we rarely do. We try right away to put ourselves into the current time without thinking about what the time was when we left Canada. And so even though we had been tired the night before, we slept well and woke up just after 7:00am.

But then it took us a while to get going. We had some internet time and a cup of tea, and before we knew it it was 9:30am. Can't be wasting the day away, because there's too much to see!

Arrived in Romania!

When we left you yesterday, we were sitting in Zurich airport, waiting for our flight from Zurich to Bucharest.

The mid afternoon flight went fine, and in fact we even slept for part of it, which is not normal for us. But the previous overnight transatlantic flight and six hour time change does funny stuff to your system, so we were glad that we managed to get another hour's nap!

Hello Switzerland!

Well, we made it across the pond. A little tired, but excited to be here, so it's all good. Sitting in Zurich airport as I write this, waiting for our 11:55am flight to Bucharest.

The flight from Ottawa to Montreal was fine. I think we were only in the air for 20 minutes. You just get up there, and you start to come back down!

It's going to be a long day and a half!

But we love this stuff. The next time you hear from us, we'll be in Zurich, Switzerland. How cool is that??

We fly Air Canada from Ottawa to Montreal at 3:20 this afternoon. Then, a short wait before our 6:00pm overnight Swiss Air flight from Montreal to Zurich, Switzerland. The flight time is 7h:20m, and there's a 5 hour time change so it will be 6:20am when we arrive in Zurich.

October Expenses

Well, we obviously can't afford to keep coming back to Ottawa. Just kidding, but it does seem we spend more money sitting in one place than we do when we're traveling! It was all worth it of course...we had a fun month and it was great to see all of our Ottawa family and friends again.

We spent a total of $2,350 for the month. Definitely above average. But not one particular category was way out of whack, it's just that they were all slightly higher than normal and when you add them all up...well, they add up!

Would you take the bus, or the train?

One of the things we're going to have to decide on during our upcoming trip is whether to take the bus, or the train. If everything else is equal, we like to travel by train. We just think it's more relaxing, and you've got more space to get up and stretch your legs if you want to.

But, the train isn't always faster, and it can also be more expensive.

Busy last few days

It's been a busy couple of days for us. Trying to squeeze in some visits with family and friends while we get the chance because we're usually only in Ottawa once a year at the most. The next year will be a little different because of course we're back here at Christmas for two weeks, and then again next April.

On Friday, we went for lunch with my mother and my sister. Thanks Mom!

A little info about our next trip

Since we're going to be spending most of the month of November in the country of Romania, we figured we should give you a bit of a primer about the country itself.

Probably the first (and maybe the only) thing you might think of when asked about Romania is Dracula...and/or Transylvania. Most everybody will have heard of those two things that are closely related to Romania, and especially at this time of year, given that we're only a couple of days away from Halloween.

Shouldn't we be half way to Mexico by now?

That's what I was thinking to myself as I watched the snowflakes coming down yesterday.

They had been calling for a big rainstorm starting yesterday afternoon, but at the last minute they changed it to snow. And they called for between 3-7 cms (1-3 inches)!

Sure enough, the big wet flakes started to accumulate on the ground.

Change of plans...

Had an email yesterday from our couchsurfing host in Bucharest (we arrive next Wednesday) saying that they've had a problem with the heating in their house and that it won't be fixed until November 4th.

She said we were still welcome to stay with them if we were prepared to put up with some cold in the house. The temperature in Bucharest right now has highs around 10C (50F).

An Afternoon at a Nordic Spa

Today's blog post is written by Ruth for a change....

Yesterday, Lindsey and I had a mother daughter day and spent the afternoon relaxing at a nordic spa in Quebec.

A while back Lindsey found a special on Groupon for 4 hours at a nordic spa and a 4 course dinner at a restaurant nearby for a total of $80 CAD ($62 USD) for the two of us and asked if I would like to join her for the day away, of course I said YES!

Just grandpa and the grandkids

We dropped off our rental car yesterday, a day earlier than scheduled. When we booked it, we had forgotten that Ruth and our daughter Lindsey were going to be away for the day today. So it was more convenient to bring it back yesterday. We didn't really have any pressing use for another car until Friday anyhow.

So this morning, Ruth and Lindsey took off for the drive up to a day spa in Quebec about two and a half hours from here. They'll enjoy a massage and hot pools and then dinner later this afternoon. Just a mom and daughter day away!

Things are coming together

Spent a fair amount of time this past weekend organizing some accommodation for our six week trip to Romania and Moldova. We leave a week from tomorrow!

We arrive in Bucharest, Romania the afternoon of November 2nd. We've got a couchsurfing host arranged for three nights there...a younger couple (32) with their two cats. And then on the 5th, we take the train to Brasov.

Looking forward to visiting the Republic of Moldova

A few days ago, my mother had given us a newspaper article from a couple of months ago that she had saved for us. She knew that we were planning to visit the country of Moldova.

Because Ottawa is the capital of Canada, most other countries have their embassies located here. And this article was about Her Excellency Ala Beleavschi, the Ambassador from the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova to Canada.

We escaped!

It's been raining pretty steady for the past couple of days. But, the only thing you can change about the weather is your attitude towards it, so we had to come up with some indoor things to do.

That's pretty easy with our grandkids. They don't mind playing indoors. Cameron (5) is in school for most of the day, and Sadie (3) is pretty easy to keep occupied.

RV'ing in Iceland!

Of course RV'ing is a popular thing to do in both Canada and the United States. But we've learned that the RV culture is alive and well in many other countries too. We have camped ourselves in Africa and Mexico, and we're about to embark on a two month RV excursion in Spain.

But one country that we keep dreaming about exploring with an RV is Iceland!

Sherman's twin brother!

It was a nice day with a clear blue sky and we wanted to see more of the fall colors. So we had planned on having an early lunch and then going for a drive up to the ski resort area at Calabogie, Ontario.

But I had to wait for an important phone call at 1:00pm, so we rescheduled our time and had lunch at the normal hour and then took off after lunch. We'll tell you more about that important phone call on Saturday!

The little black car

A couple of months ago I saw a car rental deal, and I booked it. Originally, the plan had been to rent a car and drive down through Toronto to Pelee Island and visit our friends Heinz and Uli. There are some other people we could have visited along the way, as well as Ruth's sister and her husband.

But as the date drew closer, we simply didn't feel like doing the drive.

Pinterest?

It's a lot of work to run a daily blog like we do. We still enjoy doing it so we'll keep at it for a while yet! But between writing the blog, answering comments, posting to facebook and answering emails related to the blog...it's quite time consuming. Then, there's a raft of other social media possibilities that are expected of you and so far we've tried to avoid them because they simply take up more time.

Can't bring ourselves to "tweet" on a regular basis, so other than an automated tweet once a day when we post the blog, we don't use twitter. Facebook has worked well for us though. We get a lot of readers through Facebook. But one that we've always wanted to try is Pinterest because we've read that other travel bloggers have had a lot of success with it.

Starting our 10th year

It was nine years ago on Saturday that we drove our new (to us) motorhome Sherman to North Bay, Ontario on his first major trip. So yesterday marked the start of our tenth year since we embarked on an alternative lifestyle that doesn't involve so much commitment to work.

We were only 45 years old when we decided to "semi-retire" and devote ourselves to a life of frugal living and frugal travel that doesn't involve owning very much stuff.

Roast beef dinner and a campfire

So, I'm with a group of my male friends up at a beautiful cottage for the weekend located in between Smiths Falls and Kingston, Ontario. It was looking to be a nice day, and so 8 out of the 10 of us decided to go for a hike.

We went to the nearby Rock Dunder hiking trail. It's a very popular trail, and of course on a nice fall Saturday it was pretty busy.

Good start to the weekend.

Met up with my friends yesterday afternoon at a beautiful cottage at Whitefish Lake, Ontario. I parked the car, walked in the front door about 3:30pm, and the place was quiet.

Nobody around.

This old motorhome burned to the ground...

We went out for another nice walk yesterday. It had rained a bit in the morning, but we waited until it was less than a drizzle, and we were fine. There are a lot of snowmobile trails in a nearby bush area, and at this time of year it's great for going for a hike.

We try and keep up a fast pace, despite the fact that there were quite a few picture taking opportunities. It's a really pretty area!

Where are we now?

A year ago, our daughter and her husband bought a house in the village of Osgoode, Ontario.

The village is located 37 kms (23 miles) south of downtown Ottawa, the capitol city of Canada. The greater Osgoode area has a population of about 2,500 people, although legally it is now part of the the city of Ottawa.

The trees are in their prime fall colors...

Ruth went for a short walk with her dad yesterday morning, and then later on in the morning she and I went for a fast paced walk around "the rabbit path". No idea why it's called that, because it's simply a walk around the block on the country roads out here.

But, we did 5.2 kms (3.1 miles) in 52 minutes. Not bad to get the blood pumping!

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.

Thanksgiving Monday

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our Canadian readers. We hope you're enjoying your long weekend! Today, we're going back up to Ruth's dad's house and we're going to stay there with him for a couple of days.

Yesterday, we had my family visit for Sunday brunch at our daughter Lindsey's house. Grandson Cameron came with me to pick up our son Alex who had taken the bus out to this end of the city.

We can afford to buy one, but we can't afford to keep it.

We were on grandparent duty yesterday, and it started off with a drizzly morning. So rather than hang around Lindsey's house, Ruth called her Dad and we decided to pack the kids into Lindsey's car and drive on up there for the day. We haven't seen Ruth's dad since this time last year.

It's only about 80 kms (50 miles) depending on what route you take. So we arrived there about 11:00am.

September Expenses

We were so busy driving the last couple of weeks that we never published our September expense report.

Overall, it was a pretty good month. We spent a total of $995 CAD ($755 USD) for the month. The following figures are all in Canadian dollars. For USD equivalent, you can subtract about 25%.

Stocked up on wine!

Gorgeous sunny day yesterday...possibly the last really nice day of 2016 as the temperature here in Ottawa soared to 25C (77F) with sunshine. Normal highs are around 15C (60F).

So, we tried to spend as much time as possible outside. But, we did have to go out for a drive to the nearby village of Manotick, which is now actually a suburb of Ottawa.

Feels like coming home

We got up and drove right away after a great sleep. We put in a solid two hour drive before stopping for a break. By 10:00am we had put in a normal day's drive for us!

But, we were on a bit of a mission yesterday, and still had to make it to our old hometown of Ottawa.