First Impressions

"It's just so different from what I'm used to." - Logan Rummel

I vividly recall the first time I came to Romania. We arrived in Bucharest in the middle of a muggy summer night, our suitcases filled with diapers, toilet paper, deodorant, and other random items like a set of silverware, a can of compound cement, and a cheese grater.  Unless we could squeeze it in our luggage, we had to live without it because so few things were available in Romania in those days. Amenities were virtually nonexistent and whatever you could find in the way of necessities was usually such poor quality that you often didn't bother to buy it.
The infrastructure was a mess: during most hours of the day the water was shut off and electricity was spotty. The highways were nothing more than two lane roads filled with Dacias and Trabants. (To appease the newly arrived, safety-conscious American, Silviu installed seat belts in his Dacia but at some point I realized that none of the seats were bolted into the floor of the car.)
No one spoke English, there was no internet, and the only way to contact the States was to make a long-distance call at a cost of 15 cents per minute.
It was really entering another world.
So I wondered, now, in 2017, at Villa Ionescu with its high speed internet, WhatsApp, and shopping malls filled with stores like Zara and KFC, what would it be like for a first-time visitor to Romania? Would it feel like they had traveled to another country or would it merely feel like they were in a colder version of Santa Cruz?
I sat down with Griffin and Logan and asked them about their impressions of Romania so far. The answer at the beginning of this post is what I got from Logan. In addition, they had the following observations:

-The village looked like what I thought an Eastern European town would look like. If it had snowed it would look better.*

-The village is kind of run down, there are a lot of unfinished buildings.  

-It's weird to walk around and speak English and have people stare at us.

-It's strange to smell diesel and cigarette smoke everywhere. 

-The milk is creamier, the meat is better, there are a lot of sour things and everything is homemade.

So, internet and KFC aside, Romania still makes an impression on the American traveler.

Although we're focusing these first few days on relaxing so we can get over our sleep debt and jet-lag, we still took the boys out for a walk through the village and into Craiova to visit friends and do some shopping.
Below are a few photos I took with my phone to document some of the new things they've been exposed to:

Everyone in Romania wears papuci in the house. Silvia bought all of us brand new papuci so we feel like bona fide Romanians

Mititei and sausages at Kaufland

Tanti Lenuţa's beci, and filling up bottles with her zeamă de varză 

Garbage pick up in Obedin

We've spent a lot of time playing games which Logan says he's really enjoying because he's not used to doing nothing while on vacation.  (I include the top photo since, to date, it's the only one I have of Silvia's face)

Logan looking as if he's posing for a Christmas ad with Silviu's cats

Early morning fire with Tibb

Below are Griffin and Logan's photos from one of our walks through the village. I love seeing what they feel is worthy of photographing

*for photos of our village under snow, search for "winter" in the search box, upper right at the top of the page

Village LIfe part 10: The return of the Italians

"You can't go home again"
So said Thomas Wolfe

I'm wondering if this is true for folks who have two homes; one on one continent, one on another. Does the rule still apply? Is it less true the more homes you have or does it, in fact, become more true? Is it division or multiplication? Addition or subtraction? Where does the quadratic equation come in to play?

I realize this a supposed to be a travel blog where we discuss fun and exciting things which means I should not get math involved. Getting math involved is like starting a wedding speech discussing the results of your colonoscopy. Sure it's a necessary procedure but no one wants to hear about it and you force everyone to think about the details of their own most recent bowel movement and that just brings everyone down when they should be thinking about how many slices of cake they'll get and if the DJ will play their favorite hits from the 80's.

Frankly, I'm already down, which has nothing to do with the state of my GI tract and everything to do with being a bit travel-weary and probably even more to do with becoming emotionally overwrought at the thought of having to leave Romania so soon after we've arrived.

Not that Italy wasn't wonderful, not that I want to sound ungrateful for having been given the opportunity to spend three weeks galavanting around Europe. No. But we've had so little time at home. And by home I mean that place where you can lay on the couch eating popcorn, using your pajamas as a napkin while you watch mindless TV.  Home is where your hand knows where all of the light switches are without having to think twice, where you can make it to the toilet at 3 a.m, half asleep, and not wake up in the morning to discover you actually urinated in the closet.

I like being home, whether it's Santa Cruz home or Obedin home. Being home is pretty much my favorite thing.

So I suppose I'm down because during this trip we didn't stay in our Obedin home for very long. Instead we spent most of our time overeating in Italy.

We managed to be here long enough to do the necessary things like pay our taxes and get the boys' passports renewed. But there are other important things that make a trip home feel like a trip home: freeze a bottle of Fanta and make Fanta slushies, go to the school and play on the playground, watch an episode of Romania Au Talent, have a BBQ with Maru, be spoken to in Italian.*

Mihai and I unfortunately (but rather unsurprisingly given the lack of sleep we were getting) came down with a flu/cold and were unable to do our traditional 2-3 hour winter hike up the hill. We had to be satisfied with a sneeze-filled stroll down to the end of the village and back. So that's another thing I missed out on and am lamenting.

However, as we went about on our mucus-filled stroll, there was comfort in seeing that things haven't changed much. Yes, you still need to make sure your tetanus shots are current before you go down the slide in the schoolyard. Yes, drivers still use our little road like the Daytona Grand Prix.

So in that respect, Tomas Wolfe is wrong. You can go home again but you've just got to give yourself sufficient time in order to absorb the experience.

Unrelated to emotional angst, another problem with cutting things short is that when you go home and only leave yourself a few days for picture taking, you run the risk of having nothing but a string of overcast skies as your backdrop. This does not make for very appealing photos. But not every photo from a wedding is frame-worthy, right? Yet you keep them all because in each of them there is some moment caught, a memory that is evoked and for me, when I'm back in the States and looking at these images, it will remind me what it feels like to be home again.

Maru and his children

Foanta. We came across him repairing a neighbor's wall. Working as always.

Christy's grandmother

Irina, our faithful hiking companion. Growing up to be a stunning young woman.

Gigil, Nicolina, Alex (the other two you know)

The high schoolers (formerly known as the kids from the gradinita)

Bar-b-que and loafing on a Sunday.

Last but not least: Silvia.
Yes I know that after waiting so long I should have given you something other than a distant side shot but you know how I have no skill at photographing people. Must be an Italian thing.

*It has been brought to my attention by new readers that this Italian business appears to make little sense. I would refer you to this post: Village Life Part 2: Natural from 2011 April for an explanation.

http://zikebikediaries.blogspot.com/2011/04/village-life-part-2.html

Hello and Good-bye

It takes about 27 hours of traveling to get from our house in Santa Cruz to our house in Obedin. Car, plane, plane, car, train and car, these modes of transportation are needed, in that order. Now you know.

In case anyone needs the obvious to be expounded upon, it's an exhausting journey with little to no sleep under the best conditions. This time around was free of delays and lost luggage but it felt exceedingly tiresome. Maybe I've just done it too many times and the thrill is really gone. Could it be that I'm getting older and just don't bounce back like I used to? Say it ain't so.
In any case, we arrived somewhere near midnight local time, the weather was balmy and the house cool and maybe I was numb from exhaustion but we paid no heed to our surroundings, we simply staggered in, dropped our suitcases and crawled into bed. I was vaguely though pleasantly aware of how clean everything seemed but at midnight the state of the house was utterly irrelevant, I could think of nothing but sleep.

Then it was morning. Once I was coherent and caffeinated I began to notice how mercifully, miraculously and meticulously clean and organized everything was. Fresh sheets on the beds, bathrooms that sparkled and soap in the soap dispensers. No cat hair, no dust, no piles of furniture to maneuver around, bare surfaces on which we could place our things.  I wondered if, in our exhausted stupor, we had stumbled into the wrong house last night. Then it hit me: this is what it's like when someone is trying to impress you.

As many of you long-time faithful readers know, Pia passed away over 2 years ago. And now Silviu has a lady friend. Oh yes.

Her name is Silvia. No, that's not a type-o, it's Silviu and Silvia. Although for a 24 hour period it seemed like it was only going to be Silviu and his cats. It seems Silvia was caught up in a combo of nerves and fatigue over all of the preparations for our arrival and a lover's spat occurred a few hours before we arrived. I don't judge. There was clearly a lot of work that went into getting things ready for our arrival. A lot. I probably would have snapped too. (Who's kidding who, I totally would have snapped, we all know it). So as of the moment of this writing, we have yet to meet Silvia which is why there will be no photos of her in this post. I am sorry, I can think of several people (Lisa, Linda and Jenese) who will be cross with me but since the reconciliation has occurred, it's fairly safe to say that she will be showing up in a future post. So stay tuned.

So what will be in this post? Not much. Did I fail to mention that we're tired? It's difficult to take meaningful photos or write meaningful text when you're this knackered. (Some may point out that I never write meaningful text but I'll pretend I didn't notice). We did manage to make to trips into the city for things like toothpaste, the meeting, the boys' ID cards but that's only because we absolutely had to. Only because we're leaving tomorrow. Oh yes. The luggage tags are still on our suitcases, the smell of airplane still on our clothes, we've not yet unpacked and yet we're taking off.
Budapest here we come.

In the meantime I leave you with some photos of a Craiova which we almost did not recognize. A Craiova in which we only saw 1 stray dog. One. A Craiova with clean(ish) streets, with crosswalks and people using them. A Craiova, in short, in which it was pleasant to walk around for a few hours. At least I hope it really was that nice. Maybe it was all an exhaustion-induced hallucination. Did I mention we are tired?

Just so that you don't think we're trying to pull a fast one on you and pretend we're in Romania when we're not, here are some sights that might be more familiar to you long-time readers.

And of course a few shots around the house and garden just to show you that although the inside is clean, the garden gives the evidence that Pia is gone. It's strange to see the pathways choked with weeds and a lack of flowers blooming in the late fall. The garden was where her heart was and it misses her. We all do.
(and yes that is me walking around at 2 in the afternoon in my nightgown. Keeping it real as ever)

Did I mention we are tired?