the Poenari

Blogging once a week makes me run out of ideas. I am not of any particular mood or feeling this week. What I am sure is that I was extremely tired last Thursday and this is week is the strangest week of all. Little unexpected things showed up recently and I was quite surprised and puzzled. Details are confidential of course.

Nadira suggested me to write something about my favourite books or anything I have read. I have yet to finish my #1 favourite book and the #2 is too complicated to be described even the overall story. Both books captivated me and they still do. The writers have excellent ideas and skills to describe them. They create a virtual seemingly real world in this actual real world. Amazing events are ingeniously expressed and illustrated in words. I was there, witnessing the events and the beauty of the places and their people, every time I read those books. For me, the skill is an intense, extreme gift to be bestowed upon. Why don’t I have such brilliant creativity? It’s quite true that I do not really enjoy writing stories but it would help a lot to have the knack in my studies of architecture.

Try browsing for castles through the internet. I would suggest anyone interested to look for ‘Castle of Dracula’. It is my favourite among all the buildings I know – excluding the Colosseum (because that one is also my favourite). Actually.. Dracula is the main question and mystery in my #1 book. It’s not anything childish or fancily exaggerated that you might think it is. The reason is that Dracula did exist as ‘Vlad the Impaler’ and for further enquiries due to sceptical curiosity, please refer to the net. In my so-far-#1 film, ‘The Gladiator’ (starring Rusell Crowe, not the one outdated and not about heroes), two of the settings are the majestic Colosseum and the Roman Forum.

I discovered that Vlad Tepes is an important part of the Romanian history. Even so, his real castle (the Poenari Castle) which sets in the Romanian mountains, in the middle of the Romanians, is rarely being crowded with people. And the Romanians are actually quite surprised why foreign travellers love and eager to visit the castle. What would be the reason if you are the one eager to see the ‘Real Castle of Dracula’? Mine would be..because I want to see for myself the residence and the torture location of the legendary evil blood-sucking vampire. That’s why the Romanians don’t bother much about the castle and why the entrance fee to the castle is only 2 lei (75 cents in US$). They never heard the story about the blood thirsty monster! This character was only created by the writer Bram Stoker. See how he has changed the ideas and perception of people all over the world? That is called ‘The Power of Magic Words’ which only the expert writers have.

The Poenari Castle is also one of the most haunted places on Earth. Why it is the only place where the Discovery Team fled from which they were supposed to do research and investigation on. Among the reasons is that, from the video they took of the castle from afar, there were a couple of red lights going up the hills and mountains, towards the castle, one night. Various techniques have been done to the clip in order to ascertain what those lights were. Their efforts were fruitless. What they discovered was that the red lights were going through routes which were impossible for a human, even a mountain goat to climb. And if somebody was only playing a trick on them, it was a really good one. ..

I just thought to make the visit to the Poenari Castle to be one of my dreams..I think I’ll think again.