No summary of Cluj is complete without talking about the ridiculous nightlife in this city. The big thing here is that bars stay open until... well whenever. So unlike in the states where there's this 2am cutoff where you are forced home, you have to exercise some sort of self-control with regard to leaving the bar. If you're 'not tuned' for this, well then you'll do what I did and accidentally stay out well past 4am. That's bad on the weekdays :P

Here are some pics of the cool cats I've been hanging out with. On the left is a group of Rares's friends that went out one Sunday with me to play some pool. They have slightly different billiards rules here (gee imagine that :P I've played about 10 variants of 8-ball on my travels) but it's actually pretty close to US rules. You don't really get penalized for scratching, which is very strange. They also had one of those 'snooker' tables there; I had never seen such a big pool table. On the right, is the work crew of folks - Dan, Cosmin, Razvan and Liviu out one night at a funny place named "Insomnia". It was a pretty wild coffee shop with pictures of sheep humping pigs on the walls. Never quite figured out what that was all about. But, as they say it's probably better than 5 guys 1 beer and some feminine products (such an inside joke).

As far as bizarre bar sightings, it's hard to top this place. Diesel bar, which would be the trendy multilevel club sorta place, looked straight out of Dracula's dungeon or something. Red velvet curtains, mirrors, weird lights. Prefect Transylvania club really :) I only went there the first night, as the clubbing crew really isn't my brand of people to hang out with.

I spent most of my bar time in the shadier brand of bar. Here are some pics from my Halloween night out on the town with Dan and Vlad. Place called the Hard Rock Cafe. You certainly won't find one of those cheesy t-shirts here - they have Pantera or Metallica playing on the projector screen 24-7 in this place. It's very smoky (as all bars in Romania are), but other than that it's a pretty cool place. I can't find a picture to really do it justice. And on the right is one of the poorer decisions I've made on this trip -- a drink called the 'passport to hell'. It certainly led me to a stiff hangover on a Thursday morning. Much thanks to Dan for being my drinking buddy over this 2 week span after the Austin crew left me in Cluj -- good times for sure!

It's hard to sum up Cluj-Napoca in a few sentences. There are so many little oddities that sum together to define the city. First check out its skyline -- the tallest building around is the giant gothic church at the center of downtown's Piaşa Unirii. I had never seen an example of 'gothic architecture' before, but it is quite commonplace in this region. This church, which dates back hundreds and hundreds of years ago, is pretty bare on the inside. Check out the sepulcher in the center of the building though, such elaborate woodwork and really just plain creepy looking.

I couldn't capture the large student population of Cluj in a photograph. There are 2 big universities here, UT (Technical Univ.) and Babes Univ. (Liberal Arts). It adds up to a ton of late night food options, a very youthful look to your average passerby, and a crazy set of nightclubs and bars to satisfy the masses. That also means that there's lots of student housing around as well -- which accounts for the hundreds of dingy little apartment buildings dotting the outskirts of the city.

Here are some other sights I took in during my walk around town a few weeks ago. There's a common statue of this really thin archway, but no one has been able to tell me what it signifies. Adjacent to the arch there's an old orthodox church right down from one of Romania's most famous opera houses. I thought this guy randomly painting a building here was kinda neat as well. There are a lot of different colors on the buildings here, though really more than 50% of them could use that extra coat of paint.

A rainy Sunday in Cluj may seem to not be very interesting. However, it can get a lot more interesting if you choose to take a car ride with Horia somewhere. In this case, a big group of folks headed up to Bǎişoara to see the first big snow of the year in Romania.

Bǎişoara is a tiny little "town" of sorts, with a nice little ski run right off of the main road. It was great to see snow! The place reminded me so much of my Colorado home, it was crazy. Pine trees, fresh air, snowflakes.

I have to admit though, I've never actually tried doing anything besides skiing on a ski run. These guys are champions, and since there was not enough snow to ski on, we packed on the hiking boots and walked up the ski run instead. Pretty nice, though I was a bit winded (probably from all that Romanian food and none of that American exercise. Anyway, a few snowballs later, we were back in the Romanian driving amusement ride heading back to Cluj.