Highway Meanderings (guest post)

We have a treat for you dear readers:
The opportunity has presented itself for you to be able to hear directly from the perspective of a first-time Romanian tourist.  I've decided to take a break from my usual mutterings and ramblings and give the floor to Linda Haas, Mihai's former EMU/work colleague and long-time friend who will provide Zike-Bike Diaries with its first ever guest post!

Take it away Linda:

After ten days touring Italy, pretending to understand my various hosts’ Italian better than I really did, Mihai, Leigha, Mircea, and Lucian were indeed a welcome sight…and sound. We set off directly from the Bucharest airport north, on a 3-day, 2-night tour of the Transylvania region and parts beyond.  It was delightful in every way, especially my four travel companions. I have never enjoyed such luxurious accommodations as our first night in snow-dusted Busteni, after my challenging stay in Bologna, Italy where I had been a “guest of a guest” in an ancient, charming-from-the-outside flat that proved disarmingly ancient and nothing else on the inside.  After residing for two nights with my host and friend from 32 years ago, along with his dog and related smells, the flat capo, plus one other temporary flatmate, and a bathroom that, well…let’s just say I welcomed a long hot shower.

Along with soaking in the rich sights and sounds and tastes of Romania, (papanasi being my favorite taste so far), we spent a lot of time in the van, traveling the highways.

As an avid follower and fan of Leigha’s blog, I thought I was well prepared for travel through Romania. But honestly, I must simply say to all you blog readers out there, you’ve got to see it to believe it. And even then, you can’t believe it. Outside of the major cities, which are few and far between, the roads here are all two undivided lanes, narrow and poorly maintained, that have been patched and then patched again over the years.  There are no shoulders – just dirt and weeds and ditches abutting the edge of the passable pavement.  The roads pass directly through one small village after another, with homes right on either side of the road and feral dogs running amok just off the roadway.

I call them roads, but they actually serve as the main highways connecting the major cities. As such, they are truly an extravaganza of mixed-use foot, animal, and vehicular traffic unlike anything you can imagine. Cars and trucks of all sizes, even massive semi’s, of course all traveling at highway speeds. Or sometimes even faster, when someone passes in the oncoming traffic lane with insufficient room to do so safely, or insufficient sight lines to even know if it’s advisable to pass or not.  Many do not slow down as they pass through the villages.  Then along the sides of the road, you throw into the mix all of what follows, and then some. Children with backpacks walking to school.  Old, hunched over people shuffling along with canes. People of all ages slowly pedaling dilapidated bicycles. Elderly villagers selling fruits and vegetables grown on patches of land behind their homes. Shepherds asleep with their heads just inches from the roadway, while their flocks graze in a nearby field. A nursing mother cradling her baby, again sitting just inches from the roadway and moving traffic. Feral dogs running about haphazardly, darting into the roadway with no warning. Fires burning field debris left over from crops just harvested, the fires sometimes monitored, sometimes not, sending plumes of hazy, obscuring smoke across the roadway.

Then comes the real capper -- the handmade wooden carts drawn by one or two horses, or cows, or even the occasional donkey. These carts crawl along IN THE LANE OF TRAFFIC at medieval speeds, carrying anything and everything – obviously as evidenced by Leigha’s previous post. (We turned around for the wrecked car chassis photo op, and stalked the cart down the highway, stopping several times to point our multiple cameras, much to the amusement of the cart driver.) These carts are bulky and wide, and are truly a road hazard. And you never know if you will find one over the next rise, or around the next corner, greeting you smack dab in the middle of the road.

Driving in Romania – it takes your breath away, again and again.  Just look again...

Cicerone

Your guide to daily falderal.

One more time (because once was not enough for us either)

You're welcome

Tales of the Old West (from the Old Eastern Bloc)

There's an Old Western saying: "Wide open spaces don't breed no chatterboxes."
I love those old pithy sayings.  Were people really more witty in the past or does it only seem that way to me because I'm aging and out of touch and don't always get young humor?
In any case, I bring up the Old West because often life in Obedin makes me think of it. The old ways. Ways people have lived for centuries and found it utterly unremarkable until modern Westerners come and stand around taking photographs while speaking some brand of Italian.  
It's really easy to romanticize rural life.  I've been guilty of it a time or two myself.  But the reality is that it's tough. Well, it's not tough if you don't like to bathe or are indifferent to the possession of a full set of teeth in your mouth. In that case I suppose its like life in any other setting.  But if you like to bathe and have all of your teeth (heaven knows we modern Americans are obsessed with both bathing and dentistry) then it's tough.
When we came in '99 Mircea was a baby and we had to get all of our water out of this well:

Take home lesson: when faced with the prospect of hauling water this way it's remarkable how quickly you can decide that your own stench isn't really rank enough that it can't last another day or so.  Or how soon you decide that shaving your legs is a highly overrated task.  Or even that your infant is pretty okay without a diaper on because it's sure easier wiping off a bare bottom than scrubbing out a bucket full of nappies.  I only had to endure the water-from-the-well thing for a short time.  I'd really like to think that if it were a permanent situation I would have learned to buck up and get with the program of weekly bathing and properly diapering my child.
Another thing: as much as I hate cars (and I hate them) it's funny how you find you don't mind them so much when it's 4 degrees outside, you have a 15 km journey ahead and realize you left the house without your gloves.  Cause riding in an uncovered horse-drawn wagon under those circumstances is nothing like watching Henry Fonda driving Linda Darnell around in one, no ma'am.  It kind of blows actually.
Our next door neighbor has a horse-drawn wagon.  As a treat when Sharon, Kelly and Todd were here he took them for a ride in it.
Happily it was a sunny day: no gloves required.

What was it like? There were moments wherein someone discovered that lo and behold, their hemhrroids had not in fact gone away and someone else thought maybe they would invest in a sports bra the next time they decide to take a turn in Nonu's wagon.  But there were moments of delight and total gratification such as when Luci grabbed the reigns (that is to say, Nonu allowed him to grab the reins) and yelled "yee-haw!" and took off down the road like a bat out of hell and left us all in the dust.  It wasn't the fact that he likes to go fast (he's a boy) or the dust he kicked up that was so awesome, it was the sheer joy in his face and the fact that for the first time he's taken an interest in horses as opposed to Lambroghinis and BMWs.

For us, these were just day excursions; little diversions to amuse ourselves and our guests. The fact is I got to jump out of his wagon and go inside to use my indoor plumbing.  And later that day I could go to the store in my Volkswagen.  These facts alone disqualify me from making too many more generalizations about what rural life is really like as a day to day existence or how desireable it would be to permanently live that way.  I don't really live a rural life, I just live in a rural area.  And as the old Western saying goes:  Polishing your pants on saddle leather don't make you a rider.

From there to here...

From there to here and here to there, funny things are everywhere...
-Dr. Seuss

When we left Santa Cruz a lot of people said they would really like to come and visit us and probably just as many thought, (but did not say aloud) "Why in the world would I want to go to Romania?"
I get it.
For those in both camps, I offer the following post:

What does it take to get here exactly?  

There are no direct flights from the States into Romania.  Don't waste your time trying to find one.  So you have to fly into one major European city and from there catch another short flight into Bucharest.  Flying overseas (particularly if you start from the west coast of the North American continent) is no small feat. That alone will leave you fuzzy-headed and dehydrated at best.  But plenty of people do it for the joy of seeing Paris or London so I've not got much sympathy.  Suck it up, folks, that's life.

But here's an idea: don't pick a city in Europe that you have any interest in whatsoever.  Cause then you'll be tempted to make your lay over long enough to "go out and explore".  This will be about as successful as arriving at a Japanese opera half way through the performance while you are drunk and recovering from a bout of dysentery. You will enjoy the experience even less than you will comprehend it.  Just sit and doze at the gate until its time to board.
Wherever you chose, however, just know that the flight will be faster than the drive from the airport to our house. Think of us as living among a remote tribe in the Amazon basin, you know, those places where anthropologists go and National Geographic photographers follow.  Well...think of it more like a remote tribe where they're all dressed in t-shirts with English slogans or ads for American corporations and where plastic soda bottles litter the roadways. In any case, you'll feel like you're driving into the middle of nowhere.

And just when you think the drive can't possibly be any longer or more torturous, there will be another hour to go. But eventually it will end.  It will.  And then you'll be in Obedin and you can sleep.  Or you'll be in Transylvania and you can sleep.  Either way, you'll be too tired to pay much attention to anything until the morning.  And then the experience can begin.

You might wake up in Buşteni, Transylvania

with this view from your hotel window

We might bring you coffee in bed (or we might just take this photo from what appears to be a Folgers commercial)

 One thing will be certain: you will be wiped out. (although my son did not just travel across the Atlantic so I have no idea what his excuse is.)

But we will provide you with plenty of caffeinated drinks (or decaf if you are so inclined)

 You will drive (a lot).  On windy roads.  (You might even vomit when you arrive at a certain castle of a certain famous person belonging to the undead but don't worry, if you buy a souvenier from the vomited-on vendor, they will forgive you anything.)
But you'll get to see the Carpathian Mountains

You will see lots of horses and wagons.  Some appropriately located off the road like this:

others, not so much:
(and yes, these are our highways)

(he's off the road now but he'll be pulling on in just a minute and probably right in front of an 18-wheeler)

You will see random old stuff

and gypsies selling copper stills on the side of the road...

or just walking around town

you will see other Romanians selling stuff on the side of the road...

we might even stop to buy some ingredients for dinner and you can be proud of buying "locally grown and sourced" without having to wait in lines at Staff of Life (see Toamna post for up close photos of the produce)

and we will be happy that you came.

Hopefully by the end, you will too

Thanks, Sharon, Kelly and Todd for being brave enough to come!