Blogs from Cluj-Napoca, Cluj, Transilvania, Romania, Europe - page 4

So I just finished up my very first day with the kids, who are so awesome!! It's pretty crazy how many of them have never met an American, quite the responsibility to prove we're cool people. So, from the begining of the day.... We started out by introducing eachother and learning names. (as though it's not hard enough when the names are familiar in English....) Then we went outside where I tought them red-rover red-rover. the best thing ever was that they couldn't quite get the American "r" sound down, so they said land-rover land-rover. SO great! I then showed them duck-duck-goose which in Romanian is Ratsa Ratsa Gu(oo)ska. The kids enjoyed that greatly. We then wondered inside and we split the kids into 2 rooms so they would fit comfortably. There's maybe 20 kids so ... read more

Before leaving Romania, we had two more stops to make to see a bit more of what the country was like when free of tourists. Cluj-Napoca is on the edge of Transylvania, pretty scenery on the way there of course, and a nice town when we got there. Despite the taxi driver who 'misunderstood' where we wanted to go (and made some extra money) it was a nice stop. A good hostel for the night, lovely buildings of course, and green parks. It cost to go into the botanical gardens, go figure, so we enjoyed the other parks for free, eating lunch and watching the locals. Wandering around a town is the best way of discovering it I think, and this place was no exception. Oradea is on the border of Romania and Hungary, and wasn't ... read more

Ok, I hope it's 2 of 2...and I can finish up the wedding details! I think I left off at the first stop...where we picked up Carmen and Simone, and of course, Mircea, the groom! Carmen is a friend of Dana's, they used to work together... and Simona is a cousin. Both speak English! Carmen spent a lot of time with us "Americans." She's not only beautiful, but also an absolute sweetheart, with a smile worth gold! She and Simona were dressed in elegant, green, summer dresses...beautiful. We met them at the first stop, along with Mircea, his dad...all his immediate/close-extended family. We went up to their apartment, which was on either the 3rd or 4th floor. There was a small "lift" (elevator), but everyone chose to march on up! Mircea wasn't even dressed when we ... read more

It's been a few days since I last wrote so I am going to do a quick run down. Going back to Turkey. Our second day in Istanbul has been the best of the whole tour. It is hands down my favourite city so far. We started the day off with a bus tour around the city and stopped at a rug place so people could buy really over priced turkish rugs. You couldn't spend less then $400 on a rug and that got you a shitty small one made of the worst material. Some people dropped a couple grand which blows my mind. They weren't even that nice but I guess they're good quality. Next we split up and went to the Turkish Grand Bazaar. This was like heaven for me. 4000 shops under one ... read more