More long-distance celebrations

Three very important things related to my existence happened this week.

My grandma, Paula, celebrated her birthday a few days ago.

and today my parents celebrate their anniversary and my Maia celebrates her birthday as well.

So one more time...
Laaaaaaaaaa Muuuuuulti Aaaaaaaaaaani!

(found this in a google search...:))

Adventures in Romania - road trip style (REVISED)

So about 30-some hours ago I put Julia and Kristy in a cab to the airport.
Julia called me not long before they boarded their plane and I have since spoken to Kristy on the internet. It seems they've arrived in one piece. :)

Having them here has been great, although exhausting. It's kind of amazing how much we saw in the ten days they were here.

When I get the chance I will sit and write a long explanation about our adventures (which included six days driving around Transylvania and the Moldova region of Romania in a little white rental car). However, given the way things are currently going I think I'd better give a little summary photo-essay style.

The "Turkish room" of a Romanian restaurant in northern Bucharest. This was taken the first full day that the girls were here.


We spent much of that day researching our travel options and trying to figure out what the best mode of transport would be for the pending little adventure. After a lot of debate (and pizza) we decided that we would rent a car. The next day, in the morning, Monica and Andrei helped us find a good rental firm that wasn't too pricey (the normal Avis and supposed BudgetRentACar charge ridiculous prices since the mostly frequented by westerners attracted by the name recognition). Monica and Andrei went with us to the rental office and also lent us a brand new GPS system that we affectionately named Noel, after a British friend of ours in Brooklyn (the GPS English setting had a British accent). I'm not sure if Julia got any actual pictures of the car - a white Renault Clio...if that matters for anyone. :)

*Addendum - Andrei got us in the car and the picture can be found here.

On the way to Brasov we, of course, stopped in Sinaia to visit Peles. Peles was probably the most 'dangerous' aspect of our trip in my opinion, as the rugs on the stairs weren't fixed properly and I actually tripped and fell on the main staircase hitting my elbows pretty hard. Had some nice bruises to show, although they are pretty much gone now.


Kristy and a puppy - given how many she wanted to adopt and take home with her I'm sort of amazed we arrived back in town puppy, or rather, doggy-free.


Then from Sinaia we went directly to Brasov, where we stayed for the next three nights in the house of my mother's friend, Mariana. So, the day after our first night we wandered around Brasov and visited the towers of the old wall (a black tower and white tower about which several Lord of the Rings references were made in one of our sillier moments) and the Black Church, and ate in the square etc. We also visited Poiana Brasov in the hopes of eating at Coliba Haiducilor, however once we got up there it was closed.

Entryway to the Black Church.

Biserica Neagra (Black Church)


The neighbors who look after the house and who also treated us with fantastic hospitality that included giving us a place to park the car, putting fresh-cut flowers in the kitchen one day while we were out, and giving us cakes (and great stories) on our way out. From them I got to learn a bit about the Sash people (German -speaking) that settled in the Transylvania area before it was Romania.


The second day we went and visited Bran and Rasnov in the morning and then headed out to Sibiu in the evening. Unfortunately, the road to Sibiu was under construction (which is another story in of itself that involves a lot of stop lights and grinning construction workers) and we didn't arrive there until late. I will include pictures of Sibiu another time.

Cross in Bran


Bran Castle (the supposed Dracula's Castle)


Picture in Rasnov - a much less commercialized medieval citadel with an amazing view.

Below is the town of Rasnov.


Then we had our last night in Brasov and proceeded on to Sighisoara. Another medieval German city that is supposedly the birth place of Vlad the Impaler (Dracula). This was also the beginning of our "peace corps" tour, where we had dinner with a really nice girl, originally from New Jersey, named Monica. She was placed in Sighisoara and works with a religious organization, the only NGO in the area, capacity building in several areas.


It really does look like something out of a fairytale there.


After the afternoon in Sighisoara we headed towards Rehgin, where my friend Alan had said that we could crash for the night. We arrived in Rehgin pretty late and left pretty early so I don't have many pictures of the places itself. But big thanks to Alan for letting us stay and showing us the local rocker hangout.

We kind of made a...game...out of trying to take pictures of horse-carts on the road. You'd be surprised how difficult it is in a moving car. This one is probably our greatest success.


In the morning, we left Rehgin and crossed the Carpathian Mountains on our way to my friend Kenny's place in Cimpulung-Moldovensc.

Pictures from the road through the mountains.

Kenny is also great for letting us stay and we even happened to show up on a night when several people were passing through on their way to a Peace Corps party in Cluj, apparently involving a production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show...yes, the Rocky Horror Picture Show was indeed put on in Transylvania. I'm a little sorry that we didn't get to witness this...historic...event.
In any event, we got the opportunity to have dinner with a large group of Peace Corps members and hang out at Kenny's place.

Before that, however, we took a drive out to a couple of the monasteries. Unfortunately, we only got to see two of them, Voronet and Arbore, but given how much we managed to do in just six days, I'm glad we managed to fit those two in.

These are pictures from Voronet, famous for the color blue used to paint the walls.


After leaving Kenny's (our earliest wake-up time of the trip), we basically drove straight back to Bucharest (via Bacau) non stop until we reached the rental office. Kristy is a real trooper for pulling that off, I have to say. So, we returned the car - a little dirty from the adventure, but still in one piece.

Friday night we were rather tired, of course. On Saturday, we met up with Monica and Andrei and went to the peasant's museum and the village museum here in Bucharest. There was a great exposition of Romanian artisans at the Village museum, in honor of the fact that this weekend was the 'white night' (a European event in which for one night the museums are open to the public late and for free). We also took advantage of the white night and went to the history museum.

Sunday night we walked all around the city - to Casa Popurlui (although we couldn't get close because of some sort of car racing event, that is actually still going on and making traffic in the city even worse...?!?), through lipscani, to the old synagogue, and finally up to Cismigiu.

So, there it is. A little more than a summary actually. Now I need to get my head around this being my last two weeks. :) I'm going to help deliver some clothes to a center outside of Bucharest now. Enjoy.

On the road!

Hello all!

Just wanted to give a general hello and heads up that I will be traveling these next five or so days around the country.

Julia and Kristy arrived Friday afternoon and, although I had an experience actually getting to the airport by bus on a Friday afternoon, things went really well.

Since then we've been trying to plan the next ten days and I've been giving them a little taste of
life in Bucharest.

Will try to update a bit from the road. Best wishes to everyone.

m

Friends, Family, and Feta Cheese

Hello all - back from 'mini-break' (as they say in England - or, at least, as I think they say in England...)

In any event, it was definitely a break.

I basically 'checked-out' of any normal Romania routines and just enjoyed the great weather, the good, and the amazing hospitality that I received while in Athens.

I flew from Otopeni (the main airport in Buch.) to Athens on Thursday evening (turns out the bus that runs to the airport is actually really easy to find and convenient).

Mom - Tarom is actually an OK airline. :) They even give you a little baguette with ham, cascaval, and green pepper. Plus, the flight only took an hour and twenty or so minutes.

At the airport I was met by Antonis. A little background - Antonis' mother, Katerina, and my aunt, Mika a very old and close friends. Katerina is my cousin Nicolas' godmother - making Antonis and I...god cousins? or so it was decided.

myself, Katerina, Antonis and Arian (who reminded me a lot of Sirius for some reason, even though for the most part they don't look all that much alike)

So, I was picked up from the airport by Antonis and he took me back to the family's house in Nea Kifisia (a northern suburb of Athens).

Everything about that first twenty-four hours is a bit of a blur to be honest. As i kept saying while I was there, I didn't realize how psychologically exhausted I was until I got there. So those first twenty-four hours, my mind sort of shut down and I just really allowed myself to relax. I even finally got to go running on the streets near the house.

Everyone was extremely accommodating. Katerina and her husband Manos were extremely nice to me (and Katerina even let me engage in full chatterbox mode - I'm not sure why I had so much to say, but for some reason my mouth didn't seem to stop the whole four days! :))

So, Friday I was a bit dazed over all. Spent some time chatting with Giannhs (Katerina's other son) about music and other things and in the evening I watched the European basketball semifinals with one of Antonis' friends and his friends.

Greece won the whole thing -in case you didn't know.

Saturday, the highlight of the day was going to Mikrolimano,or, small port. We (Antonis, his girlfriend Eliza, and I) sat on a terrace and had coffee and Fanta overlooking the water.

picture of the port

That night, Antonis and some of his friends took me out to a club well-known in Athens because it has a terrace with a fantastic view of both the Acropolis and Lykavittos.

Sunday, we woke up late but in the afternoon I met with Danae and Leda (my aunt's nieces) at an African food
, music and art festival that took place at the South African embassy in Athens. The smell of the food and the music playing reminded me a lot of my time in Cape Town. I spent the rest of the evening with the girls and some of their friends. Oh yes, and before I met with the girls, Antonis and I went out for grilled Calamari - one of my major goals of the trip. Very tasty.


Danae eating food at the African festival.

Leda hanging out later.

Monday, I finished up some work in the morning, had coffee with Danae in the afternoon and then took the train from Kifisia to Monastiraki where I got out and wandered around on my own for about two hours.

I had a nice little moment when I had found a little landing with a great view of the city and Lykavittos. I sat on a little step/ledge for about an hour writing, watching lost tourists confusedly climb up and down on either side of me. Occasionally, someone would get my attention and ask me if I knew where the entrance to the Acropolis museum is...but I didn't.

I did have a nice brief little conversation with a group of French Canadians in French only to realize that Romanian has sort of taken over the linguistic part of my brain for the moment.


The view from my spot.

On Tuesday, before I left, I went and visited with Mika's brother (Spiros) and sister-in-law (Nikki). It was really nice to see them again, I'm only sorry I didn't have more time to see them more. Unfortunately, I did not get to meet with Mika's mother Irini, with whom I get along extremely well considering that we do not speak the same language at all. Julia and I stayed with her when I was in Athens the first time in 2003. Irini was away for most of the weekend and unfortunately things just did not work out on Tuesday.

So, as I'm sure you can tell, I had an overall great time filled with really nice people, food, and weather.

Although I was unhappy to leave, it's good to be back as well. Monica and Andrei surprised me by meeting me at the airport and when I arrived in Bucharest I met with Kat who also happened to be in town - it was nice to come home to people waiting for me I must say.

Today I was enlisted to help sort donated clothes from families in Ireland that were being stored at a nearby church. They were doing construction and I still think I'm covered in the dust.

Julia and Kristy arrive on Friday...
I'm making lists of things to do and things to keep in mind, but if anyone has any suggestions or advice please feel free!

Finally...an update.

Hi! :)

So, although I promised an extensive report about Budapest, it’s been a week since I returned and I still have not delivered. How come?

Because I continue to keep being busy in the little time I’ve been spending in Bucharest in between other adventures. In fact, late last night, I got back from my most recent one and tomorrow night I leave for the next one.

Although I have begun working on the Budapest post (it’s going to be a long one - possibly in two parts – and hopefully with a few nice pictures thrown in there), I thought I’d give an update on what has happened since we came back.

We arrived from Budapest on Thursday afternoon and I went almost directly from the train station to the Ovidiu Rom office (since I’m spending so little time in Bucharest these weeks, I’m trying to go there whenever I’m around). My parents spent more time visiting with people, which I unfortunately kept having to skip out on.

After, I met up with them, as well as Andrei and Monica, and we all went to the theater. When we arrived we found out that the play we were supposed to see, the premier of a Romanian play who’s name I forget at the moment, had switched nights with a play that’s currently in repertoire – Manageria de Sticla. Translation? The Glass Menagerie. So, since we already had tickets, we went to go see Tennessee Williams translated in Romanian and adapted for a Romanian audience. It was certainly interesting, if anything, although probably my least favorite of the five plays I have seen since I have been here. Certain things just don’t translate well I guess – or require extensive forethought that I think might have been lacking in this case.

Afterwards, we met up with Val’s friend Florin at a Bistro near the Athenee.

Friday -

Friday morning was a bit hectic, as my parents were leaving two days and had plans to go a get together of my mother’s high school friend’s at Mara’s summer house and pensiune (bed and breakfast is the closest translation I can think of) in Breaza.

I, again headed down to Ovidiu Rom, where they were preparing to send out a big newsletter to their entire electronic mailing list. The endeavor turned out to be more complicated that originally anticipated and those poor women ended up staying and working on it until around 11 or 12 at night. I had had to leave around 10 due to previous plans that I had made with some new friends.

Saturday -

Saturday morning I left the house early to catch a train to Breaza and meet up with my parents and the party that was going on there. At the time, getting myself to Breaza seemed a bit complicated, given that at first it was unclear which train to take since there are two different stations that Breaza in their names and people were a bit confused at first which was which. Also, once on the train, the man sitting next to me was convinced that the train we were on was not going to actually stop in Breaza and was therefore getting off a stop early. After which, of course, there was a brief moment of confused phone calls, but ultimately I arrived at the Breaza train station and the train did, in fact, stop. HOWEVER, given my more recent adventure it was actually extraordinarily easy.

Breaza itself was a great time. The yard where the house and then pensiune is fabulous and we spent most of our time there. (I unfortunately did not bring my camera, although there of course extensive numbers of pictures floating around out there somewhere taken by various people including my father). Everyone, in general, seemed relaxed and happy in a celebratory mood. I think the party they had the night before I got there must’ve been a great time. I really enjoyed talking to the people there and even got to see some high school pictures of my mom and her group at school. It was pretty ok weather, a little bit of clouds and rain throughout, but the sun was out for most of it and all the flowers in the yard and the trees were in bloom.

Puppies and Kitties - Mara keeps up there two cats (whose names I currently can’t remember) and a dog (blackie), however there are also two dogs that live in the currently abandoned lots next door and Poufuleţ (Poufy…Pufi?), my friend from Easter weekend, also came up from Ploiesti with Cristina and Cata, to get his first taste of the country. Poufy’s adjustment to the outside, the tress, the other cats, and especially the dogs was a process that periodically became the main entertainment for the group throughout the morning. Poor Poufy – he spent a lot of time being really scared and hissing at various unknown things. He also spent a lot of time up in a tree (which was especially a problem since initially he didn’t know how to get down).

In terms of puppies – one of the dogs in the lot next door had just had a litter of puppies and we went to go explore the lot and find them (A note on the lot - there is currently a large legal process involving 12 or 13 people concerning the house and property in the lot and so it’s currently not-in-use and slowly falling into ruin - this is, unfortunately, not an uncommon situation concerning the redistribution of confiscated property here in Romania). The puppies weren’t in the spot where Mara had initially seen them, so we had to do some searching, but eventually we did find them underneath some stairs that led to a basement in the back. They were hard to reach, but I did get to hold one of them. : )

After a nice meal and lots of singing (it was Mara’s 28^th anniversary amongst other reasons to celebrate), and a little more relaxing, my parents, Monica and Andrei, and myself said our goodbyes and headed back to Bucharest, stopping in Sinaia and strolling around the Peleş along the way. We also stopped at this really interesting restaurant just before reentering Bucharest But I think I will skip the description, as there are several other things that are even more interesting that I’m going to attempt to get to.

Sunday -

Sunday morning seems kind of a blur. Of course my parents had to pack, get themselves together and to take care of last minute things, however I also had to figure out whether or not I would be leaving the city that day as well.

A couple of weeks ago I had been invited by Kat to a party in Constanţa, where she lives, in celebration of her birthday (the 29th of April) and as a part of the celebration for the first of May. The first of May is technically International Workers’ Day and as a remnant of the communist system continues to be a national holiday and also the day when all the resorts open at the Black Sea. The First of May is celebrated fourth-of-July-style with a lot of gratar (BBQ-ing) and going to the sea side. So, in honor of the two, Kat invited everyone she knows out to Constanţa for several days. However, a few days before, she decided to go down with several of the other peace corps kids that were already down there to Vama Veche, a beach area about another hour and a half/two hours south of Constanţa – not that far really from the Bulgarian border.

I did not actually decide officially that I was going down to meet them until a few days before and it was still not quite clear where exactly they would be. In all honesty, given that on the day I was supposed to go I was not actually able to get a hold of Kat before leaving, I wasn’t sure I was going until the moment that I bought the ticket.

From there began the adventure of getting myself to Vama Veche, having never been there and without speaking to Kat a single time between the moment I left and the moment I found her in her tent. I later found out that the poor girl had her phone stolen, so I can’t really blame her for the uncertainty, nor would since everything worked out fine. (The truth of the matter is I ended up making a series of phone calls getting the numbers of various people who might be there until I finally got some directions – that and two girls in the train who were also going down to Vama let me tag along with them).

In order to get to Vama Veche, you have to first get to Mangalia (another town along the coast) from where you catch a MaxiTaxi – basically a white van with a sign that says it’s stopping in the place you want to go. Because of construction, the InterCity train (the fastest one) took almost six hours to Constanţa, it's apparently supposed to take no more than three. Not to mention, there was an exodus of people from Bucuresti to Constata. From Constanţa there was a bus to Manglia which took about an hour and from Manglia there was the maxi taxi to Vama (which were almost overflowing with people), where I finally met up with the group in their tents on the beach.

Vama Veche - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vama_Veche

I guess that’s a rather « clean » description of Vama Veche, but it works. And no, I did not see the ‘no tents’ sign, but yes, we stayed in tents. At night it was really cold and during the day we got sunburned, but overall it was a really good time. The water was too cold to swim in, however.

The day after I arrived, myself and two other took a walk down to Doi Mai (where my parents met) and also headed into Mangalia. The trip back was also a bit of an adventure, but that’s another story for another time I think. I’ve been told in my life several stories about the parties that my parents and their friends used to have on the black sea. It was nice to finally get to see it.

I’m going to get some work done here now and who knows, maybe I will be able to completely that Budapest blog at some point soon. :) Tomorrow night…I’m going to Athens for five days. Really.

Budapesta - a quick little note

hello all,
sorry I have been somewhat unresponsive to recent emails, comments, etc. Right now I'm sitting on a park bench in Budapest with my dad, piggybacking off of someone's unsecured wireless network.

Hopefully, we will find the time to actually sit down and write at some point soon (it's looking likely that tomorrow we will be somewhere with better ineternet access).

best to everyone,
Myra

A weekend in the country...

Or so my last post was supposed to be titled until I realized that most of the week has gone by and there are several other things to write about...

The last few days have been extremely busy, especially since my parents arrived Tuesday afternoon. I haven't really had time to go to an internet cafe and this is my first time at Ovidiu Rom since last Friday.

In any event, I will start with last weekend, since it was really interesting and a bit different than what I've been experiencing and writing about thus far.

Late last week Sergiu and Mona (friends of my father's) invited me to Rucar with them, a village on the way from Bucharest to Bran (where Dracula's castle is supposed located) where they often go to stay with a family they got to know about twenty years ago when Sergiu was up there working on a hydroelectric plant.

Rucar is located near the Dumbovita Valley along the Dumbovita river.

Since I don't quite have the time to really get into the details of the weekend, I thought I would just post a bunch of pictures and describe them a bit in that hopes that it will transmit a least a little of the experience.


On the way to Rucar we past through a lot of little villages and then at a certain point began to climb into the mountains. This is a heard of sheep from the top of the first major hill we went up.



Dumbovita Valley (more towards Bran, passed Rucar, but worth posting nonetheless)



Main road up into the hills a bit, sharing the road with a horse-drawn cart.

Shots in the backyard of the house in Rucar:


one of these things is not like the other...




Sergiu's friend Nick after having just finished grilling the main course on the grill (seen behind him).

Pictures of Dennis "cel mai mare pericul"...ie Dennis the Menace - Nick's grandson:


Dennis trying out the tractor on his dad's lap.



The cow that provided cheese for dinner and lunch the next day. Thank you cow!


Rucar - the village:


On Sundays, the town dresses up and everyone comes to the center. They go to buy, sell, but most importantly to meet up with the other people in the town.



Mona in a cave a bit into the mountains that surround the Dumbovita Valley.

I really did want to go into more detail about the weekend, as it was really enjoyable, but as I said, it's not looking like there's going to be time.

On Monday I continued my little break and spent a lot of my day hanging out with more peace corps people that happened to be in town. We met up at a small international student festival that had been set up in Pta Universitate. Although it really was very small, it was interesting to see the booths and how different the different students represented themselves.

Tuesday, after spending the morning cleaning and preparing, it was arranged that I would go with a cab to pick my parents up from the airport. The cabby was extremely verbose and went on several different diatribes about life in Romania on the way to the airport. Once we picked up my parents he focused mainly on car models and politics...

Since Tuesday evening, my parents have been getting things together and planning meetings and 'get-to-gethers' with the many people that they are supposed to see. I skipped out on most of the action today in order to come here to the office to write and to do some work for them if they needed it.

Interesting political note - today, Romanian President Basescu was suspended as president by parliamentary vote. The Parliament has the right to suspend the president for a period of a month, at which point a referrendum is held concerning whether he will continue to be president.

In case you're interested.

At the moment there is a rally for Basescu (and against his suspension) in Pta. Universitatii, not that far from the office.

Again, I apologize for the choppy nature of this last one. Hope the pics made up for it. Now it's off to meet everyone for a big dinner. :)