[Brasov as seen from the Black Tower]

So, Romania is wonderful. Brasov is especially beautiful and interesting and old. I spent the past couple of days walking around the city and had the pleasure of a personal guide take me on a hike around the walls of the city (from where I took the above picture). As usual, being far away from home gives me an opportunity for perspective that I usually don’t get while stuck in traffic on the Garden State Parkway.

I’ve learned so much over the past few days, not the least of which is that I can deliver a fairly decent, hour-long presentation with no rehearsal and under three hours of sleep. My talk should have been a disaster since jet lag kept me from falling asleep last night until around 5AM and my 8AM wakeup call never called, causing me to wake up at 8:55 for a 9:10 presentation. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a disaster.

There is a vibrant outdoor cafe scene here in Brasov from where one can sit back and watch the streaming panoply of hunch-backed gypsy queens, euro-tourists and Eastern European fashion hipsters who have a sense of style that combines the worst of Bjork with the best of Dieter. The city itself is a strange cocktail of architecture from the 16th century against a backdrop of soviet-era cement block buildings. Every time I walk into the hotel I’m staying at I hear The Spy Who Loved Me in my head.

It took 24 very long hours of travel to get here and now I turn around tomorrow for an even longer trip home. I’ve got a lot more photos to post but the bandwidth here is limited so I’ll wait til I get home to post the rest of them. See some of you soon!