Jokers Cave of Games

Some of the required literature...ahem For this fall, we are intending to take a small vacation, a chance to expand the mind and have a good time. This time, it's going to be Romania! SAS is a good company to travel with. Scandinavian reliability and all that. And they fly direct from Copenhagen to Bucharest. Our intention will be to depart on the 5th of Sep, arriving in Bucharest at around 2300. Since it's a bit late, the plan is to take a room at one of the airport hotels, just overnight, most likely http://www.vi-hotels.com/en/angelo-bucharest/ On the 6th, we will check out a car. www.rentalcars.com seems like a good site to book. The one thing to remember here is to get the sticker for the highways. A small cost of around 3€ for seven days, but it needs to be done as the fines are extensive. Hopefully, the rental company has it arranged. Otherwise, they can be picked up at a local gas station, I think.  Then we drive. First, the road will carry us towards Bras...

Yes, yes, I know you guys have been frantically expecting the elephants. Not to worry, here they come.  The tour with the elephants was a great one, for several reasons. We chose to go with the local travel agent, from a connection at the hotel, instead of Fritidsresor, which was really a great choice! Much less people (just us and two other couples and one of those couples now constitutes really good friends!), much cheaper (almost half the price) and shows some other things than the official tour (a better chance to see things behind the scenes). Getting behind the scenes is really what it is about, for me. Meeting some locals, sampling the local cuisine, listening to the music. To see how they live and enjoy life, and the contrast of how that differs to our own way of life. And perhaps even to hone or advance my own way of living. That's really what matters most to me. I want something out of it that allows me to become a better person. They say that travel broadens the minds, ...

Vacation. For me, it's always been hard to relax, to take a vacation and really enjoy it. Guess I am tense that way. Still, to arrive way early in the morning, just after sunrise, and feel the 35-degree heat blasting down with palmtrees of the jungle swaying all around you and the gentle seasurf rolling across the beach, that helps a lot. The Apsara Beachfront resort left something to be desired, for sure. The rainforest is aptly named and rain will quite often crash down unlike anything we are used to in Scandinavia. And it eats buildings up. The locals tend to have very waterresistant houses, putting energy into the lightweight roofs, while walls are very often totally non-existant. A hotel can't really have that luxury, since we tourists tend to keep valuables and a sense of privacy with us, no matter where we go.  The first room we got lasted for the day. During the night, we slept very poorly and awoke to strange, pattering sounds. Vendela thought the room was swarming w...