clueless traveler

This last week in language school we were taught vocabulary for traveling on trains. Since this was my fourth weekend in Romania, I felt like it was time to leave Ploiesti. Ever since I arrived in Romania, my Gazda, her nephew, my language instructors and every other Romanian I meet asks me if I have been to Brasov yet. They keep telling me it is "frumoasa" (beautiful).
Since my going to Brasov seemed so important to so many people, I decided that the time had come. So on Friday morning I packed my bag with a change of clothes and toothpaste and waited until the school day was over. A fellow trainee, Monica, and I went to the West Train station and unintentionally asked for a train ticket from the information window. When we finally had the tickets for Brasov and had succesfully located our platform, we waited in uncertainty as trains came and went.
"Este Tren pentru Brasov?" we asked every conductor we saw.
"Nu." They would reply, looking at us pityingly.
Our train rolled in a couple minutes late and we got settled into a compartment with a stuck window, plastic brown seats and old brown curtains that fluttered in our faces from the open window.
The train stopped at every station and lasted past the sunset and stopped in Brasov's unlit section of the train station.
"This is the depths of despair," Monica told me as we jumped off the train and into the darkness.
Eventually we found the lit section of the train station and from there, a bus to go into the center of Brasov. We weren't sure when we would know we were in the center, though, so we got off at a random stop and started walking. The center of Brasov is cobblestoned, with quaint European buildings, cathedral spires, fountains and numerous outdoor cafes. Very different from industrial Ploiesti.
We asked around for directions for a hotel a volunteer had recommended which was hidden in a side alley. By the time we had a room and went out to find food, all the restaurants in Brasov were closed. After a couple unsuccessful attempts, we spotted a lighted-up sign for a Restaurant at the end of an alley where people were sitting in the seats. So we walked to the restaurant and were rebuffed for the third time. I started to walk away, then turned back and asked, in broken Romanian, "where food in Brasov?" I must have looked forlorn and starving as the woman hestitated than beckoned for us to sit down and brought us menus! The restaurant ended up being Sicilian and after she made us pasta (the best I've had in Romania yet) the chef( a Romanian woman), and her husband (a Sicilian), sat with us and we "talked" about where we and they were from. Whenever their was an awkward silence, we diverted our attention to their cat, Totsi, we kept playing with leaves.
The next morning I walked around part of the wall that was built sometime between the late 1400's and and mid-1600's as a fortification for Brasov. It is now surrounded by posch clay tennis courts, a tree-covered walking path, and playgrounds.
I came back from Brasov alone, and a couple middle-aged woman shared my compartment with me. They were very quiet at first, but when they found out that my Romanian is impassable, they talked about foreigners and their families (I think). When we passed fields of grain and corn, they would teach me how to say it in Romanian.
I'm not going to lie, I feel pretty competent after my first Romanian train experience. Booyah.