Blogs from Romania, Europe - page 88

May your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmases be white! That's what I wish u all friends, family and readers of this blog. Unfortunately this Christmas wasn’t a white one here in Bucharest.. only for those lucky enough who traveled up in the mountain cities and villages.. Oh how I wish I had vacantion and I would have spend it in a remote village up in Maramures, where people still wear traditional clothes, gather together to sing old Christmas carols, cook divine traditional food and travel on sledge pulled by horses. Well so far it wasn’t so bad here in the city.. all my foregners friends told me that we, Romanians, spend to much time in the kitchen preparing too many types of food…and I agree.. don’t know how many nations spend ... read more

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to you all! We hope you all enjoyed a warm, happy and delicious day. Our first Thanksgiving in Romania was a distinct pleasure celebrated with 35 new found friends at a cabana in the mountains. We missed you all and are thankful for your thoughts, emails, and support. Thursday, the Turkey Day itself, we traveled from home to Arad (30 km from the Hungarian border and home to several hundred thousand) and Friday out to Hasmash (pronounced Hah-shMahsh) where one Alecia’s program colleagues lives (size 1,200). Needless to say, the Peace Corps people in both of these towns are having significantly different experiences than we our! Arad is a bustling investment center with miles of old Hungarian architecture and a famous ‘strand’ (a.k.a. summer-time swimming pool/adult playground). Known for its lack of clothing, ... read more

In the morning their offsider arrived and she spoke good English, sorted out money and things. I was going to go for a walk around but didn’t get to it, just checked my email. Couldn’t see the big dog that they had, well I assume he was big going by the barking he had been doing last night when I turned up. Before I had left Australia Monica has said to make sure I had some warm clothes and good shoes as it was minus 15 the night before and they had a foot of snow. Well not today… yes it was cold outside but not cold enough for snow. The train was due to leave Suceava station (“nord”) at 1pm so I was surprised when they said it was a short walk away. Turns out ... read more

Had a bit of sleep-in in the morning and when I got up I was hearing from the Istanbul kids all about the night out they had. Damn I was regretting not being able to. They had seen some extremely hot girls getting up on the bar and stripping off, dancing. “Ireland” (we all ended up using the country of someone’s origin instead of their name) said she was in no way bisexual but she would’ve jumped at the chance to try it with these girls. And I spent the night watching some paedophile perving on young girls. Damn damn damn. They were only now trying to organise a car out to Poenari which was a bit late. Turns out the hostel has someone who will drive people around, and taking them out to Poenari only ... read more

Felt a little seedy the next morning and didn’t get going until about 11am. Retraced my way back to the train station and got myself a ticket to Bucuresti (Bucharest is the English version), which is a two hour train ride south on the Wallachian plain. 42 lei for a first class seat, or 38 for second class... seemed like a no brainer and I thought better to pay a little bit more and be looked after a bit better away from the gypsies, but turns out when I got on the train it was one big carriage. First class was just divided from the others by a glass partition. But it was “express” in that there was only one stop on the way, at which a fairly attractive lady sat opposite and chatted the rest ... read more