vitals

• money
• passaport
• ticket
• insurance
• spare glaces
• glasses specification
• documentation
• lonely planet
• kiko
• padlock
• camera
• films

extras

• medical kit
• book
• cards
• binoculars
• swiss knife
• meglite
• garbage bags
• food bags
• liner
• stove
• fuel
• pad
• food
• toilet paper

clothes

• 2x long sleeve metal
• Summoning
• 3x t-shirts
• adventure trousers
• burton
• blue shorts

underwear

• 1x long johns
• 6x socks
• 4x boxers

footwear

• boots
• running shoes

hygine

• shower gel
• shaving things
• toothbrush
• deodorant
• towel
• face cloth

Pending

• Raincoat
• Umbrella
• Toilet paper
• Remove sins
• Martin - Chains / Padlock
• Mechanic
• Suede
• Card nos

I am going to bore everyone to death with all these Romania postings, but I'm using the blog as a planning and information transfer tool to full effect. This is the planned accommodation plan for the holiday. Lonely Planet has a limited number of recommendations so we had to find web resources. The best ones were:-

• Romania Tourism
• Romanian Travel Guide
• Rural Tourism

City	Hotel	Contact	Cost	Dates
Curtea de Arges	Posada Hotel**	248-721-451	450,- Lei	Fri 4
Brasov	Aro Sport*	268-478-800	495,- Lei	Sat 5
Sinaia	Hotel Economat***	244-311-151	1,200,- Lei	Sun 6 - Mon 7
Tulcea	Guesthouse Vasiliu	240 547 021 744 957 148	8 Euro p/p	Tue 8 - Fri 11
Bucharest				Sat 12

Bran === Guesthouse IULIA, 00 40 (0)268 236 966, cojanu_lili@yahoo.com, 15Euro

Curtea de Arges ============ Posada Hotel, 248-711800, posada@starnets.ro

Brasov =====

inbrasov.ro ---------------- Pensiunea Stejeris, .++40.268.476.249 Pensiunea Mara, 0268 333 353, 10 Euro p/p

lonely planet ------------------- Beke Guesthouse Casa Sperantei, (+40-68) 41 97 80, medipal@deuroconsult.ro Pensiunea Muri, (+40-68) 41 87 40, $30

Hotel Aro Sport, (+40-68) 14 28 40. 34, $14 Hotel Postavarul, (+40-68) 14 43 30, $16

Thur 3	In space
	HOME - BBU	KM 528 (2325 - 0235)
Fri 4	Curtea
	Bucharest - Curtea	(0638 - 1041)
	Hotel Check-in	Posada (248-721-451)
	Poienari Castle / Monastery
Sat 5	Brasov
	Curtea - Brasov	Mini Bus Service
	Hotel Check-in	Aro Sport (268-478-800)
	Bran / Black Church
Sun 6	Sinaia
	Brasov - Sinaia	(0755 - 0915) (1002 - 1104)
	Hotel Check-in	Hotel Economat (244-311-151)
	Peles Castle
Mon 7	Sinaia
	Trekking
Tue 8	Tulcea / Crisan
	Sinaia - Bucharest	(0322 - 0500) / 0712 / 1105 / 1151
	Bucharest - Tulcea	(0640 - 1118) / (1725 - 2154)
	Tulcea
	Tulcea - Crisan	Pontoon 2 direction Sulina - (1330 - 1600)
	Tulcea / Crisan Check-in	Guesthouse Vasiliu (240 547 021 - Mob. (0)744 957 148)
Wed 9	Crisan
	Delta
Thur 10	Crisan
	Delta
Fri 11	Crisan
	Delta
Sat 12	Bucharest
	Crisan - Tulcea	(0700 - 1020)
	Tulcea - Bucharest	(0605 - 1032) - (1400-1825)
	Hotel Check-in
Sun 13	Home
	BBU - MXP / MXP - HOME	AZ 509 (1215 - 1350) / KM 629 (1925 - 2125)
	BBU - ZRH / ZRH - HOME	LX 1885 (1340 - 1505) KM 491 (1740 - 1950)

Yesterday my pals left me alone all morning because they attended the SMS presentation. I juggled some software maintenance and helping a quitting friend write his CV. Strangely enough, the company sent him the first interview by mail as a test.

The company he applied for is a Microsoft based security company, and amongst other questions there was a question about VS API. This is a Virus Scanning API integrated within Microsoft Exchange to ensure that each e-mail message is scanned at least once. The major advantage of this API is that if the message has already been scanned it is not rescanned thus increasing efficiency. There was a question about the NTFS file system and did a quick search to find additional info apart from the usual things everybody knows. NTFS allows security at file level while FAT does not, and theoretically NTFS provides better security against viruses.

Today I bothered to search how to split a huge file into smaller files in Linux. I split the 1GB web log file into 10 smaller files by "split –b 100m combined_log" . The 100m stands for 100MB and sizes can be defined in bytes, kb or number of lines. Split then creates files with names xaa, xab, xac … I finally compressed them with "tar –czf xab.tar.Z xab"

After work we went to the computer store to replace my 7th million faulty RAM chip and solve the printer ink smudging problem. The ink problem was caused by a small piece of plastic that remained attached to the print cartridge. My RAM was a little more problematic because from three different sets of RAM none was compatible. I got my money back and spent half of them on cat food. She laughed so heartily when I got a 4kg dried food bag that half of the super market starred at us like idiots. My loved ones freaked out when they saw so much food. We played God and showered them with cat food.

FC Porto won the Champions League final beating Monaco by 3 – 0. Like all finals it wasn’t an over enthusiastic game with Porto scoring the latter two goals from counter attacks. Morientes played a dull game but had a number of miscalled offsides to his disadvantage.

At last I am busying myself with Romania Research. Good Boy! These are the accommodation results of the Tulcea Region.

Tulcea

Maliuc vilage
Letea (typically village in the delta)
Mila 23 / Lakes Furtuna & Baclanesti
Crisan
Sf. Georghe
Uzlina

Hotels for Danube Trip

Tulcea

Hotel Egreta, Tel.0240.51.71.03 carmenjolo@yahoo.com
Hotel Europolis, Tel.0240.5124.43
Hotel Delta, Tel.0240.51.47.20
Hotel Ipo, Tel.0240.531.674

Maliuc

Mila 23

La Vica
Guesthouse MARCOV, Tel.00 40 (0)240 546 452, 8 Euro, B & B

Crisan

Silviu Gheorghe
Trifim Sorin, 00 40 (0)240 547 077, 7 Euro, B & B
Calin Maria
Vasiliu Petre, 00 40 (0)240 547 021 petrerotl@yahoo.com, 10 Euro, B & B
Cacencu Trifan, 00 40 (0)240 547 066, 7 Euro, B & B
Gherasim Gabriel, 00 40 (0)240 547 020

At last today we started some serious planning for the imminent Romania holiday. I'm going to exploit the blog to report my findings maybe this time I will not go over the same searches and findings over and over again. This part may bore some readers to death so I'll take no offence if you skip over.

Places to visit (Romanian Tourism Itinerary Suggestion)

• Sinaia – Nature and Bird watching base with the option of tracking (see Proposal 1). Also visit Peles Castle and Black Church
• Brasov – Main city base in South Transylvania region. Visit Bran Castle
• Curtea de Arges – Visit Dracula's original castle climbing a flight of 1425 steps (see Trip Report)
• Tulcea – Stopping city for Danube Trip
• Danube Delta – Main bird watching location

Transport (Trains)

• Bucuresti Nord Gr A -- Sinaia – Brasov (direct connection between 3 hrs)
• Brasov -- Curtea (PROBLEM !!)
• Brasov -- Bucuresti Nord Gr A -- Tulcea Oras (1 stop approx 7 hrs)

I've spent a whole weekend battling with DC++ because I couldn't download anything. I was able to connect to hubs as usual, but could not search or download anything, not even simple user file lists. Like all first attempts I tried turning off the Norton Personal Firewall but the problem persisted. After re-installing the program about 5 times using different versions I looked in the forums and searched for the timeout error. Upon browsing it occurred to me that that I could have Window's Firewall activated, and could be conflicting. Upon turning off Window's Firewall DC++ worked fine. These automatic system firewalls are very irritating with default activation. I had the same problem with ipchains on Linux and spent a whole week to sort out the problem. At least it was at work.

While taking my Cadbury High Light Mint Chocolate Drink and reading Simon Willison's blog at work I came across the Infinite cat project link. For anybody who likes cats or is interested in a really original idea … check it out.

We got our Romania Lonely Planet today, which means we are going to Romania. Trip is planned for the beginning of June for her birthday. It seems that there is excellent bird watching in the Danube Delta and Transylvania has always been one of our dreams.