The Red Lake – Going back to Timișoara

 I started my day by backing up my stuff and preparing to leave the beautiful lands of Székelyföld and going back to the flat plains of Banat. I will be missing the landscape and the people from the Székelyföld region... But school will start in about 2 weeks, so I needed to get back home.

The forest as seen from the fountain.

I check-outed from the pension and got to a small grocery store right by the Red Lake, I got some yogurt to drink and a small bread to eat on my way back. After half an hour, I stopped at a small fountain to get some water from the region. Because who knows when I will be able to come back here?

After I was done filling 3 - 5 bottles with water, I got back on the road. But a few minutes later, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was somewhere around Târgu Mureș. I just entered the A3 highway, the sun was blasting with head. I wanted to sleep some more just to pass the time, but I wasn't tired anymore. So, I stayed up!

Once I got to the A10 highway interchange with the A1 highway one, I took a break for about half an hour. After that, I got on the A1 highway. This aera wasn't interesting at all, I think this is because there was a big traffic jam at the 2 segments of the A1 highway. During it, I tried to sleep. And I half succeeded!

When I was about 85 kilometers from Timișoara, I made a stop to grab some of my stuff that I let at the village, not to be confused with the another one. Once I packed the stuff that I let at the village, I got to Timișoara.

Now that I am in Timișoara, I am going to prepare for another trip which will be soon™.

With that said I hope that one day I get to visit Moldova, or maybe even Ukraine if the war is cooling down. I mean, I was so close to the both of them! So, why should I let them out from my travel list?

Also, sorry for putting only one picture. But what I was going to photograph? The highway?

The Red Lake – Street View

 I started my day by preparing for the bobsleigh track, by grabbing my Insta360 and my GPS remote.

Today, as I said yesterday I'll be going to do a street view at the bobsleigh track. I had only 2 rounds left, so I needed it to be as perfect as I can. My first try did not succeed, because my GPS remote did not want to colabrorate with the camera in any way. So, I did a normal 360°. As for the next and final round, my GPS remote finally decided to work! And, I did my street view!

The landscape as viewed from the road that goes to the pension.

After successfully doing my street view, I got back to the Red Lake and did the route that surrounds it. When I finished it, I thought that it would be cool to go to the pension on foot instead, so that's what I did!

Also, I bought a small flag that will 100% remind me of this region. The Székely falg!

After making my purchase and arriving at the pension, my legs all hurt. So, I took a nap for about 2 hours, until I woke up and got back to the Red Lake to eat dinner.

The Red Lake as seen from the route.

I ate at a small restaurant right by the lake instead of eating at the biggest restaurant in the region, which is Panorama. Right after finishing my dinner, I got a kürtőskalács with nuts to eat at the pension. Which was really good by the way!

Then, after finishing all my food, I played some Rummy. Where of course I got beaten most of the time, but at least I had fun. And because I'll be going to my grandparents right after this trip, I'll buy them a Rummy to play with them, because they don't have one.

And that was for this day! Tomorrow I'll be going back to Timișoara, and now that I think about it. I'll be missing the landscape, the Székely people, and other cool things in the region.

If you ever got a chance to visit the Red Lake and by extension the surrounding areas. I strongly recommend you do so!

Also, I need to apologize for only putting 2 photos instead of 3. The thing is that I have a lot of photos, but there isn't space for them. Sorry about that!

The Red Lake – Bobsleigh Track

 This is my second day in the Red Lake region, and all I have to say is... I love the Székely people and their lifestyle! Some people might tell you that they are just Hungarians, but they are completely different. They are littery the 180° of Hungarians!

Anyways, I started my day by waking up and going to the kitchen from the pension I'm staying at. The food was really good compared to other places I stayed at in the past, and the staff is really friendly. After I ate the food, I got to the bobsleigh track from the Red Lake. It is approximately 950 meters bobsleigh track, it isn't long but it gets the job done. It was so nice of the staff there for letting me film the entire track with my Insta360, also I was thinking of putting the whole track on Street View. Which I'll 100% do!

The mountains as seen from the Bicaz Gorges.

After I used the 3 out of 5 rounds, I've decided to go to Cheile Bicazului (English: The Bicaz Gorges). There I also used my Insta360 to film a bit of the route!

After that I was pretty hungry, so I stopped at a mini restaurant at the side of the road. The food was as mid as it could get, but at least it satisfied my hunger. On the road, I also saw some shops, but because the parking situation wasn't the best, I walked until there! It was like a mini adventure, trying not to get hit by a car and seeing beautiful scenery.

The Ceaușescu mug.

Once I got to the shops I saw everything from the weirdest things to the coolest things to ever exist. Like this little mug with Ceaușescu splattered on it, which I end up buying. Then I walked all the way back to the car, to get back to the Red Lake.

The Red Lake as seen from the balcony.

As I arrived at the Red Lake there was a walk path right by the lake's edge, on which I walked for a good while. As I walked, I saw a little balcony with a view of the lake. I took some pictures and then went to a restaurant to drink something because I was really thirsty.

The Bicaz River close to the Red Lake.

But first, I explored the area by the lake and found some ducks. After visiting the ducks, I walked to the restaurant, and I ended up ordering an ice cream too besides water. You know, just to end the day nicely!

Then I got back to the pension and played some Rummy, because outside there was a thunderstorm.

Once the storm ended I walked outside and ended up seeing a fox just roaming around the pension. Could this be a sign? Probably!

The Red Lake – First day

This is the first post in a series documenting my trip in the Red Lake region from Romania.

The posts in this series are marked with the tag "Red Lake Trip".

The journey started at home. Packing things up and preparing for the trip. Then I got on the A1 highway, where after getting in the Hunedoara county, right after entering the Alba county. I made a break for around an hour and a half, during which I slept cause I was tired from waking up at 6:30 AM instead of waking up at 9 – 10 AM.

After I woke up, I got back on the highway. Where I entered the A10 highway to go to the A3 highway which brought me closer to the destination without using national roads or county ones.

The landscape as viewed form the pension.

But eventually the highway ended. I was forced to use the national roads, but at least the view was awesome! I'm talking about hills and mountains, and also lakes... Sadly I don't have any pictures from the road, but at least I have some from my walk after I registered at the pension, so I'm gonna add some here! Even though I don't have photos from the road, the view from my walk was very similar.

Once I got at the Red Lake, I stopped to a restaurant. I got a steak hamburger, which was really good! I recommend going to this restaurant 100%, even though the food was about 53 RON (~10 Euros), I still recommend checking them out!

A picture with some local houses.

After eating, I got to the pension I was tired, but not tired enough. So, I've taken a walk until I got to the entrance of a village name Trei Fântâni (English: Tree Fountains), the walk until there was beautiful! Lots of beautiful sinecry, lots of beautiful and small houses... Everything was like I was in Switzerland or any other country known for it's mountains.

The Bicăhel River.

During my walk, I've also found a tiny little fountain. The water was extremely cold, but at least it tasted good! After drinking some water, I've walked for about 500 meters and got to the entrance of Trei Fântâni (English: Tree Fountains). Also when I came back to the pension, I stumbled across a river, the Bicăhel River.

And that's it for this day! See you in the next post!

By the way, I made this post in a new format that I've talked about more in detail in this post.

Tell me if you liked it or not in the comments bellow or send email me at businessiulian@gmail.com!

I've decided to do some changes to the blog

Since I started this blog all the way back in November 2023, I've never posted a post with an image. I did that to make this blog look as close as it can to a 2000s blog. But that will change today!

I realized that putting little icons and images in a block of text, really changes the mood of it and it adds to a enjoyment of reading.

I think that more blogs and websites in general should do the same.

If you're opposed to this decision, please tell me in the comments or send me an email at businessiulian@gmail.com.

I started exploring the "dark web"

 A couple of days ago, I installed the one and only Tor Browser, with the intention that if in the near future the internet in Romania (by extension the European Union) becomes locked down like it is now in the United Kingdom, I would still have some freedom of speech.

Little did I know that I would go down a rabbit hole so deep, that it became a pleasure to explore it. Now just to defend myself, in the time I was on the Tor network, I did not explore illegal content and I don't intend to use the Tor network to cause harm. This is only out of curiosity and ambiguity.

If you want to know what the Tor network is and how it works, check out this Wikipedia article right here. But if you're too lazy to do so, here's a brief explanation from me:

The Tor network is a network composed of millions of computers "talking" to each other, creating a separate network independent from the internet we all use on a daily basis. On the Tor network websites are not accessible using a normal TLD (top-level domain) like .com, .org, etc. Instead, websites are accessed using a .onion domain, this domain is composed of a hash generated by the server. This makes the Tor network private and inaccessible using a normal browser.

 Now that that's out of the way, I'll start documenting my findings! Because the "dark web" is speared, I can't use Google or any other search engine to search stuff, so I use Torch instead.

My first finding was by searching for a term which most people consider controversial... "furry". Upon searching for it, lots of websites popped up. After scrolling a bit, I've found a website titled "S-Config" (which has a normal counterpart as well) is a blog run by someone called S (as I understand). The website has a very "emo" look, like the ones from the 2000s (no offence to it). And in general, it seems like a very interesting website nonetheless!

After visiting S-Config, I searched the term "Google street view", which brought me to a transcript of a 2016 podcast called "Security Now!" and I'm gonna say it... HOLY YAP! Even I don't yap that much! Anyways, it was interesting seeing it and torturing ChatGPT into summarizing it!

The podcast talked about how Adobe Flash will die, and how a telemetry code was found in Microsoft's Visual Studio 2015. Other than that, they talked about data breaches, software bugs from big companies, how anyone can hack into a camera and watch you, etc. Now the interesting part was that they also talked about how this will become the norm in the future, and they were not wrong!

Flash is dead, telemetry is just everywhere, data breaches happen every week, software bugs are a daily occurrence, and Chinese cameras that connect to strange servers are popular now!

So yeah, these were the 2 things that caught my attention. I hope to find more stuff like this in the future, it really brings me back to the days when Flash games were a norm and exploring the internet wasn't a weird thing.