Expatiperro

I've always found that there's something about renting a car outside of the US that's so much more adventurous and exciting. There's no clean airport counter with handy brochures; no smiling Avis/Hertz/Dollar representatives trying to sell you extra insurance covers of gas reimbursements; no big, gas-guzzling American cars sitting out in the parking lot. Instead, there are shady one-room offices on the outskirts on the city, bearded men with thick accents asking for your passport, and tiny, inevitably European cars that a handful of frat boys could pick up and flip over. The whole process just feels so much more unpredictable, even exotic, for lack of a better word.

To start our week driving around Romania and Transylvania, Kyle and I picked up a rental car Monday morning in Bucharest, Romania. We chose the cheapest option, a four-door Dacia Logan, and apparently the law "you get what you pay for" applies in Eastern Europe as well. What we got for our €23 a day: a dirty, slightly dinged-up car that needed to be jump-started with no power steering, no ABS brakes, a radio that shorted out after two hours, smearing windshield wipers, and a lack of windshield wiper fluid. On the plus side, the clutch was set up so that the car was nearly impossible to stall, and it had seat belts.

Our car in hand, we set off on our drive north. Even on the main roads, you pass horse-drawn carriages, which, believe it or not, seem to have just as much right to use the lane as cars driving 60 mph. Drivers make passes going around blind corners, and you can only cringe as the guy in front of you pulls out to pass with a semi barreling towards him in the other lane. Of course, this being Romania and with a certain 'natural selection' process occurring on the roads (only the good drivers survive!), accidents are surprisingly rare, at least that we've seen.

(So you don't think that it's just me who's making this up, here's a funny article on driving in Romania. It's a few years old, and our car isn't quite as bad as the one described, but it's an entertaining look on what it's like to be on the roads here.)

It's not all near-death experiences, though. The scenery is beautiful- like everywhere else we've been, the fall colors are spectacular- and the Transylvania Castle's we've seen have been just as amazing as they're described. Driving is by far the best way to see a place as large and varied as this, and a few adrenaline rushes on the road is a small price to pay to see the sights.