Two perfect afternoons

Because the pandemic is not over, on this trip, we're staying close to home. (Yes I realize we've just flown nearly half way around the globe so to say that I'm staying close to home is a bit of a contradiction but bear with me on this.)

That means no flights to Barcelona, no road trips to Italy, not even a jaunt to Budapest. Other than Istanbul, (because that's where our connection is) we're keeping ourselves strictly within the borders of Romania. A simple itinerary is for the best, considering we're only here for three weeks and we have a lot of business to take care of in Viştea.

But it's also been affording us the opportunity to spend some quality time with family and friends, people who, on our last two trips, we only crossed paths with briefly.

After some rain and cool temperatures, the weather improved and we had a few days with bright, crisp mornings that developed into hot, sunny afternoons. It's the sort of weather that's perfect for 1 or 2 hour drives past fields full of tractors harvesting corn, and shepherds bringing in herds of cows and sheep.  They are short trips for the purpose of lunching. laughing, lounging, and generally catch up with folks we love, folks who are well deserving of our undivided time and attention.

The first perfect afternoon began with a drive to Horezu to pick up some pottery. I love the pottery in Horezu and I would gladly buy enough to stuff a suitcase full but, you can imagine what a suitcase full of pottery would look like once I picked it up in San Francisco: a suitcase full of pottery shards. So I have to settle for a couple of tiny pieces that I think might make it safely. 

(I have no photos of the actual pottery I bought,  just the pottery section of the town.)

Then it was a 10 minute trip down the road to Vaideeni to have a much-needed, long-awaited visit with Vali and Simona. 

In their lovely yard we lounged for the afternoon, thinking about the hundreds of wonderful memories we have from this place. 

We admired the garden, sipped Simona's homemade vişinată, and let Vali entertain us all by trying to jump road with a grape vine.

It felt good to know that after all these years, some things (and some people) never change.

The second perfect afternoon was spent at Tatni Miora's house in Goicea, having lunch with her and Ligia. 

It was a hot afternoon but we were comfortable and content under the canopy of grape leaves while we enjoyed ciorba de pui, warm, fresh baked country bread, some more homemade vişinată, and other delicious treats while in the company of dear friends.

More than a year into this terrible pandemic, we felt especially fortunate to be able to spend time in the physical company of loved ones. Such a simple pleasure, and yet after the travel bans and unrest of the past year, we realize more than ever how we should never take for granted the opportunity to embrace our family and friends and tell them face to face how much we love them and how much, when we are apart, we miss them.

Old friends

 

Earlier in the week, we invited Silviu to go with us to Vistea, but he stayed home because he'd just gotten the news that Traian's cancer has returned. 

Traian is Silviu's best friend. They talk on the phone several times a day, double that if a football match is on. (There's a pre-game, intermission, and post-game conversation.) 

So the return of the cancer is bad news and Silviu is in a funk. 

Fortunately Silviu and Traian have other close friends, namely: Radu, Marcella, Carmen, Cornelia, Nuța, and Mioara. These friends decided that what everyone needed was a party, and so a party was thrown.

We bought the food and they bought the champagne and made all of the preparations, including the cooking, which goes a long way in my book of reasons why I like a person.

Another reason for me to like a person is if they thoroughly embrace an afternoon spent eating, drinking champagne, singing songs, and laughing. Extra points if they don't mind my heavily accented and poorly constructed Romanian. Not only did these folks ignore how badly I butcher their language, they never once tried to force me to pronounce anything correctly. Then they stayed and helped wash the dishes afterward. At that point I was ready to hand out Friend of the Year awards for everyone.

It was a traditional Romanian party menu with plates of salată de vinete, salami, caşcaval, smoked fish, gogoşi, tomatoes, icre, bread, and palikă. 

There were no less than two cakes, the aforementioned champagne, and―because why not―fire works.

With his usual good humor, Lucian endured all of the old folks (me included) telling him what he and Mircea were like as babies and little boys. He hung out with us for the entire afternoon and everyone loved him for it.

Where will we all be two years from now when Mihai and I return? Will Lucian be off on his own adventures? Will Mihai and I stay in Obedin or will we be up north in Viştea? Will Traian be successfully surviving his recurrence of cancer? No one has the answers to these questions and maybe that's what made the afternoon all that much more special―the feeling that this moment in time shouldn't be quickly brushed aside and forgotten, but savored, and stored in the place where precious memories are kept. The place that's full of music and laughter, good food and even better friends, and, of course, champagne.

Construction time again

Mihai and his maternal grandmother, Eufrosina, circa 1978.

From September to June, Mihai and his brother lived in Craiova with Pia and Silviu but from June to September, the boys stayed with their maternal grandmother in her house in Viștea. (I'm including a map for some reference since I understand that it's hard to find Romania on a globe, much less figure out the location of Oltenia in relation to Transylvania.)

For reference, we are currently in Obedin which is just outside of Craiova. Viștea is between Sibiu and Brașov.

Contrary to the impression he might give, Mihai has a very sentimental nature and the memories of both his grandmother, and the years spent in her house, hold a special place in his heart. 

After his grandmother died, the property was never really maintained, at least not with the care and attention she had given it. Over the years, we would stop by and check on things and invariably, Mihai would leave in a depressed funk over the state of disrepair.  

His aunt, Dița, would occasionally stay there, but she had an apartment in another city so visits were rare and she had no inclination to maintain the property.

During the last years of her life, Dița moved to Viştea but sadly, she was suffering from alcoholic encephalopathy and if anything, the condition of the house and property got worse. 

A couple of years ago, Dița died and Mihai inherited the property. But once again it sat, almost entirely abandoned. It was a blight to the neighborhood which felt unfair to the community since, as you can see below, they put time and energy into maintaining their homes quite nicely. 

We couldn't just continue status quo, something had to be done. Enter plans A, B, and C.

Plan A was to sell it, but sentimentality overrode plan A. 

In sentimentality's favor, however, is the fact that the location of Viștea is ideal. 

For one thing, it's at the base of the Carpathian mountains which means the summers are cooler―a lovely break from the sweltering humidity of the southern plain. 

Another plus is that they have municipal water, sewage, and gas, none of which exist in the house in Obedin. 

In addition, it's close to Sibiu which is not only our favorite city in Romania, but also the stopping point for every trip we make to Budapest (and you know we make a lot of trips to Budapest). Instead of staying in Hotel Ibis, we reasoned, we could stay in Viștea when we travel. 

Plan B thus involved converting a closet into a shower and fixing the ceiling and walls in the kitchen so that it could be functional. (It also was going to involve a great deal of cleaning, but is that simply stating the obvious?)

However, once the contractors started working, plan B fell apart. Quite literally. The house fell down. (Did I mention it had not been maintained?)

On to plan C. We now had a blank slate and Mihai found a house plan we thought would work, then the contractor switched from a remodel to a brand new construction. 

Let me be clear: we do not need a second house and had plan B not failed, I would be thoroughly delighted with what was going to essentially be a barn with a toilet and a stove. 

But plan B did fail, and plan A is not something Mihai could handle emotionally.

So here we are.

On a clearer day, you can see the snow on the Carpathian Mountains from our house. Alas, it was not a clear day.

Sentimentality aside, the second best thing I can say about this new house is that I know some of you express (you might not say it with words but I can read your non-verbal cues) a reluctance to visit us in Obedin given the lack of municipal water, bad roads, and general chaos that surrounds us here. I understand.

The last time I checked, neither Obedin (nor Oltenia for that matter), showed up on any "Top 100 Places to Travel" lists. 

However, most people hold at least some romantic notions of Transylvania and it's my hope that the exotic local, running water, and good climate will be sufficient to push anyone hesitating to make the trip. My hope is that, at last, people might actually come and visit us. (A quick shout out to Griffin and Logan who were brave enough to make the trip in 2018.)

Before we head back to California, we'll make at least one more trip to Viștea but since I don't really want this to become a construction blog (the two very, very long posts about the ADU come to mind), this will be the only post dealing with the house. 

Unless everyone is clamoring for photos of concrete and stories of abandoned property? 

I thought not.

Likely no one is really clamoring for photos and stories of Sibiu, either. We've been there too many times for long-time readers to be thrilled with that city. 

But we're still dealing with the pandemic and in the interests of safety and responsibility, we're just not going to do that much traveling. So you'll get Sibiu and Obedin and maybe Horezu and Vaideeni. 

Just be glad it's not Budapest.

Views from the morning

Although I don't know why,  I've carried around the erroneous belief that if I could just sleep on the flight to Europe, my jet lag would be eliminated (is this what happens when you ignore science?). 

While it's true we were better rested than had we not flown business class, there is a limit to what an upgrade can do. For example, not only is it incapable of making one look more fashionable, but it also cannot immediately reset the inner clock. 

Which brings me to the first morning after our arrival when I found myself awake before dawn, standing on the front balcony to watch the sunrise. 

Those of you who know me are aware that I have the circadian rhythm of a chicken so I'm generally up to see the sunrise no matter which continent I'm on. But autumn mornings in Romania hold a treasured place in my soul. There's a special kind of pleasure in waking to the scent of woodsmoke on the crisp morning air, to see that particular maturity that only autumn sunlight seems to possess, to hear the roosters and cows stir, the clip-clop of horses hoofs on the street below, and the full-throated laughter of children on their way to school.

Even though it makes my heart feel a bit tender and sore, longing for years past when Pia was alive, the garden was full of vegetables and flowers, the house was full of the sounds of my children and Alexandru, I couldn't resist walking about and taking in all of the sights and smells that transport me back to those days. 

For these reasons, autumn feels like the perfect time to be here with the one notable exception: because we had to change the dates for this trip, Mircea and Madeline weren't able to come. It's possible this is the reason for the exceptional sentimentality that I'm feeling. 

In any case, the following photos are not particularly well-crafted, (they're just shots taken from my phone) but they represent a little bit of the sorts of sights that make me long for this place when I'm far away. 

Yes, I even miss the plastic gnomes and alligators Pia used to love so much. Apparently nostalgia does not have very good taste.

I'm not so nostalgic for the kitchen mess (or the foam Disney decals that Silvia glued to the tiles which I have since removed) but I love the ritual of eating bread, salami, gogoși and mustard around the kitchen table

Soon we're off to Viștea to see the new/old house and spend a few days in Sibiu. It won't be a new city for long-time readers but hopefully the photos will be more interesting for those of you who don't fall into a melancholy puddle over sunrises and pickled food.