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.