I entered Romania at night, riding along winding hill roads that were in much better condition than in Moldova. I made it to Romania's third largest city, Iasi, which was the short-lived one-time capital of Romania, and the longer-standing capital of the province of Moldovia. Now it is a large university town. Nothing too exciting to report. After pulling a couple million lei out of the ATM (which covered a couple days expenses) I paid a visit to the cathedral that houses St. Friday's bones (and some rapidly genuflecting church goers). (1-10-05)

Lot's o' sheep in Romania. Occupied day after day with the task of chewing grass that they mistakenly assume is for them, but is really for the sweaters and the chops - even here in the windy foothills of the Romanian Carpathian Mountains. Shepherds, of the sort with staffs, of the sort who communicate with their sheep in a code of whistles and calls, and of the sort who live on the land moving from one unfenced patch of sweet grass to the next, are still carrying on in Romania. Progress killed the shepherd in most of Western Europe, and one day, even here in Romania, there will not be any more shepherds, and then the line of communication between man and sheep will be forever and irrevocably severed. Hmmm . . .

This was my second day of cycling in Romania, and it was warm enough to shed all my winter layers but a windbreaker, but it was pretty much day to day in Romania as to whether I could expect spring temperatures or snow flurries. (1-11-05)

In the small town of Tecuci, Romania, with horse drawn carts being the most popular mode of transportation, the only hotel in town was the spanking new "Matrix Club." A Romanian with some cash to spare apparently liked the movies and built a hotel and club to bring the trilogy alive in Tecuci. The club on the second floor (under all the rooms) was all black with graffiti spray painted on the walls, such as "The system controls everything, the system controls you." It made me laugh. This was the big cathedral in town, with the standard silver-plated domes, not too far from the Matrix Club. (1-12-05)

The mighty Danube River splits into three forks and slithers into the Black Sea on the Romanian coast, forming the Danube Delta. It is supposed to be full of birds, but all that I saw was one crane in this patch of trees twisting out of swampy fog-blanketed channels. Still, it was a nice ride. (1-14-05) *

Romanian road hazards took different forms, but most often were livestock and slow-moving horse drawn carts. I saw more horse drawn carts in Romania than I had previously imagined to still exist on our planet, and they were of the dark age variety. As you can see here, no automobile tires or axles - only the real wooden-spoked variety are in use. When I was approaching the two-reactor town of Tulcea (with another giant factory belching grey ash), these cows and cart were blocking the road momentarily. A driver of a new black sporty car started honking like he was suffering from a bit of Romanian road rage, exasperated that rural Romania was impeding his free-market Romanian car. There seemed to be a subtext to the honking that hinted at notions of self importance and arrogance. There really is a huge difference between rural and urban Romania, and the city mice live in a different world from the farm mice. (1-14-05)

Once again, sheep in the Delta. But for some reason, all I could smell was lavender and butterscotch in the air. It might have had something to do with the factory in nearby Tulcea. (1-14-05)

Constanta, Romania's second largest city, was supposed to be "plagued with street hustlers and thieves," but they must have been on winter vacation (like much of the Black Sea coast) when I arrived. The hotels in the old town near the port were crumbling with giant padlocks on the doors. A family across from one of the hotels offered me a room which was quite nice (although the air in the unheated house was so cold you could see your breath). The old guy kept on trying to get me to sample his moonshine of some sort that he kept in an old plastic coke bottle on the table, and I finally relented - wooooo, firey! The old town looked like it was bombed out, but it was economic ruin rather than warfare - houses with windows smashed in and laundry drying inside wintry squats. One thing that was really sad in Romania was the stray dog situation. There were so many wild dogs running around the cities and countryside trying to make it - and a lot of them were not succeeding. This building was at the end of the block where I stayed - obviously a part of town that had one day been pretty ritzy, but was now in decay. (1-16-05)

The Black Sea coast was WINDY! The kind of wind that you could almost fall into and still stand. So I was getting blown around on the walk near Constanta's scenic promanade. The coast is a resort area of sorts, but it felt a bit like the day after the party, because no one was really paying the coasts winter visits and many of the facilities were closed. (1-16-05)

Just outside Constanta (which is not too far from the Bulgarian border) I saw the first highway directional sign to Istanbul, which was pretty exciting. I could tell that I was getting closer to Turkey because I also started seeing mosques in the coastal towns. (1-16-05)