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Published: August 5th 2008
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I certainly got a taste of life today as I visited the 'villages' or the Romanian suburbs.
I started the day out feeling determined to find that history museum from yesterday. I hopped a bus in the morning and started the search. After some time, I finally found what looked to be very familiar from the website. At last I had finally found the building that had plagued me for all of 24 hours. I also realized why I couldn't find the place the day before... on maps... Statue and Street abreviations are one letter off. So I read "St. Constantine whatever" as street insetad of statue. Ahh, so that solves that.
I got into the museum and was shocked at the crazy things they had. I first walked into a room full of animal and even one human skulls. They even had a bear skeleton up on the wall. So I kept walking and saw the usual pots, pans, hunting tools and everything. Then I went into a room where they had 3 human skeletons in cases but they were still in the ground that they were buried in. So you were able to see the bodies fully entact with
Aphrodite?
I think... their jewels and gifts for the afterlife around them. The only downside to the whole thing was that the entire place was all described in Romanian so I think I know what was what but I'm not entirely positive. Anyways, I kept walking and they had bits of Roman civilization such as coins, war things, builing pieces. Then I came to the Egyption room where they had a real mummy on display. I seriously couldn't figure out who it was exactly but I know it was a woman (thanks History classes). They had some other artifacts such as a mumified aligator with the head sticking out, some idols and such. Overall it was pretty interesting. I'm glad I at least kind of paid attention in History class so I was able to use that whole crititcal thinking thing to figure out was everything was.
I hopped the bus home and not a minute later we were in the car with Ramona, her boyfriend and her brother's sister on our way to the outskirts of Cluj. It was alot like San Bruno or Millbrae(Suburbs) versus San Francisco (Cluj). The c;imate changed dramatically as well. We went from sunny Cluj to an
overcast setting very quickly. The group of us went to the Village Museum where they have (I'm not sure if they're real or re-created) houses and other buildings that were used back in the day by the Romanians. Many of they buildings were super tiny and I have to note that the doorways were just my size as the native people were more my size. Also, the church they had on display smelled like an old building and there were murals on the wall that had to have been pretty old as they were barely there.
We kept cruising and it started to rain a bit, but that didn't stop us and we went through the village quickly. Ioana also told me we could eat the fruit on the treets there, something pretty much unheard of in most public settings in the States as everyone calls them here. So I had a few fresh apples and some black berries. Pretty good I must say.
Then it was onto Ramona's house for lunch. I met her family including her little old Grandma and her Mother, Father and one of the Aunts. I also met Ioana's father who was there. We proceeded
Burried Body
Here's the head to eat and Ioana turns to me and says "next we'll have the soup and then the meat and potatoes". I had been eating like the food I had been eating was everything. Oops. Without fail came more and more food. We had a chicken noodle soup without the chicken so, just noodle soup in chicken broth. Then they through my entire world off balance with bbq pork, more pork and some kind of mini beef things. Of course, being the traveler I felt I shoudl at least try their food simply because, when else am I going to get true Romanian home cooking? So I bit the bullet and tried a bit of each meat. Holy Pepto-Bismol was that an adventure. As amazing as all the food was my little body isn't so used to meat and I was chewing on rolaids for the better part of the rest of the day. Granted, the potatoes were really good and also helped get everything through my system faster.
Finally we ate some ice cream and cookies and my tummy could finally rest. A little note for all my wine drinkers, we had some red wine which was great alone, but
Mummy
oooo scarrryyy.. but AWESOME!!! to make it a bit softer they add Cola to it. It's really great and makes it more of an afternoon kind of drink. So I'm sure you're going to try it now and I totally encourage that decision.
After the meal we went upstairs and hung out like most 20-something year olds do. We watched a scary movie with Romanian subtitles and just had fun. At about 9 we decided to head back to the school and call it a night. However, simply from talking and whatnot we didn't get back until about 10:30. Wherever did the time go? I was dumb enough to step on the scale at Ramona's house and apparently I've gained almost 10 pounds from being here. It's worth it though just because all the food is SO great. Thats that for my traditional day.
Va Iubesc!!
Jenisa
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