Our First Impressions Of Romania (TRANSYLVANIA)

I'm Oscar and I'm Dan and today we're in Romania, country 89. If you're new here we're Oscar and Dan, two Swedish boys traveling the world together full-time. We recently did a trip around southeastern Europe to Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova and in this video we explore the world famous region of Transylvania. Let's go! Good morning guys from Bucharest airport in country 89. We landed last night and spent the evening here at an airport hotel. Now we're going to pick up our rental car to drive to the home of Dracula Transylvania. This is so random but one of our closest friends from university is from Romania, Cristi and Dan is just obsessed with everyone here having the same accent as him and now I'm starting to get it like it feels like Cristi is in the room every time we speak with people here. It's just so fun when you've heard an accent outside its you know homeland and the first time you hear everyone with the same accent you're like oh my god oh my god the temperature. What time is it? 12. God damn it wait oh I need to turn right. Yep. Home patrol. Romanian petrol. Oh I was like what are you reading? Oh my god it smells so good in here. All right guys we just made it to Brasov. We have stayed in quite a few airbnbs in our days but this is hands down one of the craziest we've ever stayed in. It's huge. It's up in the mountains and we just gotta show you it. It's crazy. You have this huge open kitchen, super spacious living room and going in here into our bedroom this is like the craziest part of the whole apartment. Look at this. It's just beautiful. The design is absolutely stunning and then we haven't even showed you the best part which is right out here our terrace. Look at this. It's honestly huge. It really is so special when you find such a unique airbnb because it really enriches the experience like it's not at all like staying in a very standard hotel room or anything like that. Although staying at hotels can be a lot more convenient sometimes and since the experience is so sort of standardized you kind of know what to expect but this really just makes this experience and this stay here in Brasov so much more unique for us. So the first stop of the day is Bran Castle, the home of Dracula. We see it. We have spotted the house of Dracula. So the whole story of Dracula was written by an Irish author, basically some guy who stabbed a few people to death. This is wildly inaccurate but don't worry because we'll tell you more about Dracula soon. It really has nothing to do with vampires but the legend is pretty awesome, the story is pretty awesome and Romania and Transylvania make a lot from it so good for them. In the 15th century, there was a ruler called Vlad III. After gaining a reputation for being a quite brutal ruler, he became known as Vlad the Impaler because he, well, liked to get rid of dissidents that way. The stories of his tyrannical rule spread across Europe and eventually inspired the story of Count Dracula the Vampire. Vlad, who despite his reputation has become a national hero in Romania, is thought to have stayed at this castle only for a brief period but somehow it still turned into the top tourist site in the region. It's really hard to get into that vampire Dracula spirit and the castle is so beautiful and it's situated in the most gorgeous nature as well. It doesn't really go together. So I'm in this room all alone and oh my god. We're really going in on the horror theme now. This section is basically just listing out a bunch of different like folklore scary things like ghosts, the grim reaper, centaurs. Yeah, I'm like what the f**k, Romania? What is this? What is this? Wait, we didn't sign up for a haunted house. Usually in situations like this when it comes to horror, I am a child under 14 so I don't know if I should continue or not. Is this gonna work? We're going down into this 30 something meter deep tunnel under the castle. This apparently won some kind of award for being the coolest elevator of the year in 2019 or something. Yeah, the time tunnel because it's the only elevator that climbs into victory which is the castle and descends into the future. We are not sending you in time because of technology. Okay, cool. You're welcome. We're really just us. It's just us. We're going back to the future, down to the future. Whoa. Goes on the list of very strange tourist activities we've done I think. Apparently we have to interact. That was it. So cool to have been here although it would have been cooler if it was like on Halloween or something. I feel like they really wanted to do a lot with that exhibition. It was kind of all over the place. I mean it was good, it was fun but you know there was the whole like scary element of it, all the folklore. But then they also wanted to add more wholesome stuff I guess about the royal family that lived there after Vlad the Impaler or Dracula. Yeah, it was kind of a big jumble but it was still fun. Guys, look at this in the visitors brochure. No thank you. Just withdrew some cash because we need that in the parking and we haven't done that yet. So this is what Romanian money looks like. All right, so after that whole Dracula visit, we wanted to visit the Rachnov Citadel but it turns out it's closed for restoration. So we've decided for now at least to just explore the town of Rachnov instead. On all the pictures of the citadel or the fortress are like drone shots. So it's like okay when we go up there we still won't get the famous perspective but maybe this little guy will. Maybe he will. He'll send you for a little flight droney. We call him droney. Now you get to rest. So I feel like this can be a little confusing if you're not here. So the city we're staying in is Brasov and this is Rachnov. I think this is a literally shimmering. Please church tell me what's your skincare routine? How do you get that glow? We made it back to home sweet home Brasov and we're gonna have lunch at 5 p.m. I don't even want to know how many parking applications I've downloaded in different countries to like just park once. So with all the information and all the payment information and everything it's worth it Here was the machine. There's our car. Well here's the machine. I only spent about 10 minutes doing all things. My god one week ago I'd never even heard of Brasov but it is so beautiful. I also love that we're staying in Brasov although we're staying in the hills above it and it's taken us until now to actually go into town. I don't know if anyone has ever seen the movie and I think it's called A Series of Unfortunate Events. It's about these three kids whose parents die and then they get like thrown around to all these different caretakers and the first caretaker, Count Olaf I think, lives in a house that looks exactly like this. So it's very that sort of scary energy. Oh my god. So awesome. I can't remember the last time we found so many vegan options at a bakery. We got one of these, one of these, and one of these. Okay this one looks so freaking good. Cinnamon, almond, I don't know. Beyond. Beyond. Okay let's try it. Seriously like nine and a half out of ten. Wow I can't wait to eat it now. It's so good. Wow. So fluffy. Oscar you try. Okay. That is really good. Very um I want to say moist but I'm not gonna use that word. What's a good word? Yeah it's juicy. Okay time for the next one. This kind of looks like a sugary pretzel. Okay why are there no Romanian bakeries around the world? And last but not least the cherry strudel. Yes and I love anything with cherry. As a half American, cherry lives in me and pear. The Swedish flavor and the American flavor. God damn. Three out of three. Not bad Romania. We've had like similar things to this in other countries but never this good. Once again how beautiful. You're gorgeous. You're literally gorgeous. We just got our ticket to the largest gothic church in Europe. So I expect everyone in here to be wearing hot topic and a black hair. We have made it to Transylvania and if they do not sell human blood and bags in there, we're in the wrong place. Whoa. Wow that is that is rare. Clam paste burgers, sausages. It's out here in Dracula land. Oh my god. So far I am obsessed with this grocery store. That's some of the best vegan selection we've seen anywhere outside of western Europe and they have cooking spray which we've never really used before but I've been wanting to get it for our air fryer at home. It's like impossible to find in Europe so. Love it. Oh my god. What? Whoa. I haven't even seen this like at home. No. Like the alcohol. More vegan vegan vegan. So uh while cooking we both had accidents. Yeah we're usually great chefs but today we really screwed up big time. I was gonna take out a pizza from the oven and the oven mitten didn't really you know actually uh. Work. Work. Yeah. So I'm here with ice right now and. I cut myself on a can so blood was literally like gushing down my hand. I was like ah. I think it's the vampire effects. Actually yeah. It's the Transylvanian. They smell my blood. Hello. I feel like a little child at the dinner table. We made these beautiful big salads. It's so nice to eat healthy whenever you have a chance when you're traveling. That's why airbnbs are so great. We've been staying in hotels so much this year that I almost forgot that like airbnbs can actually be much much better. You have laundry. You have a kitchen. Let's eat this I agree. Monet and Shay stood out. No one's shocked. They've both done very well. Monet didn't cry. Everybody's saying love. It's our last day in Pennsylvania. It's our last day in Transylvania. Sadly um Dan's tonsils have taken a turn for the worse. So he's gonna be speaking minimally today. What? The plan was to go hiking today and that's obviously not happening. Instead we're gonna go up to one of the ski resorts that is like close to Brasov before we drive back to Bucharest. Dan will tell you more about it later but just briefly he's had problems with his tonsils for like many years now and the Swedish healthcare system is very conservative when it comes to you know removing the tonsils. So it's been a very slow process. Hopefully he's gonna be able to take them out soon. It's like we've left Romania and entered Austria. I wish I could share my comments but this does not feel like Romania. It feels like Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Alps. Looking forward to that. What? We're driving a different route this time than when we came up so we're getting different scenery. That should be a nice drive but difficult it seems to me.