A Month of Travel by Bullet Points, continued
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Part II: Romania
March 31st, Timişoara

• Friend in town: Cameron, a volunteer I met 1 time for 3 minutes who said we can keep our bags at his house
• Arrive in Timişoara at 7:30ish a.m after switching trains at 4:30 in the morning in Arad. It was not immediately apparent to me we would have to switch trains.
• Relived European Daylight Savings again by jumping ahead another hour in the time difference between Romania and Hungary which no one will tell you about.
• Miraculously I got all of our luggage aboard the second train by myself while mom was in the bathroom - thinking the train was about to pull out of the station. Memorable quotes: Mom -How did you get all the bags on the train? Me- I don't know.
• Walk to a coffee shop that is open for coffee and pastry, then cross the street with baggage and have coffee in another coffee shop this one with a bathroom. It is now time so that if we get a taxi now it will be a decent hour by the time we show up at Cameron's
• After taxi gets lost, then finds the apartment we haul baggage upstairs with Cameron's help while taxi driver continues to argue with a lady in front of the building who said she didn't know the name of the street she apparently lives on.
• Scenic walk at a brisk pace gives us the highlights and historical landmarks of Timişoara ending at Cameron's school
• Limp around the park
• Briefly shop the sparse Easter market because Easter is not for another 3 weeks in Romania
• Saw Piatia Victoriei where the Romanian Revolution began in 1989. Bullet riddled building is now a McDonald's. Guidebook said there was a plaque on McDonald's. Saw no plaque.
• Went to the church across from the Opera at Piata Victoriei and lit candles for those who died in the revolution
• Ate lunch at a cafeteria-style restaurant with Cameron. Mom's first experience with Romanian restaurants that don't have what's on the menu. Also, I order for her in Romanian.
• Cameron walks us to beautiful Piatia Unirii although it's too early for the terasas to be out yet. We see the pillar built as a memorial to the Plague and also the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church which stand across from each other
• Go to a coffee shop and order juices
• Buy postcards. I have a World Wise Schools Partnership Program classroom I write to once a month and I'm determined to send them as many postcards from my touristic ventures in Romania as possible despite the fact that I've never heard from them and don't know what grade they are in.
• Fret about how to find Cameron's apartment and retrieve baggage in time to meet him and give him back his keys. End up taking another taxi to his apartment, retrieving bags and having taxi take us to meet him at the McDonald's near his school
• Get yelled at by Cameron's neighbor in Romanian - Why are you throwing that suitcase down the stairs!? -I'm sorry! Excuse me! -Where are you from? -I'm from the United States but we lived in Budapest and now we're moving to Transylvania! -You're moving to Transylvania? -Yes, we live in Transylvania now. I think moving is the only acceptable explanation for the amount of baggage we have.
• Take yet another taxi from the meeting place with Cameron to the train station
• Meet Dan a volunteer from my group at the train station and chat with him for approximately 6 minutes.
• Board the 3:00 Rapid train for Deva. Yay! All goes well despite my temporarily misplacing the tickets while on the train. Made friends with two helpful Romanian young men eager to help us with the baggage but surprised by its mass and volume.
• 6:45 arrive in my city of DEVA! take a taxi to my apartment
• Duration of stay in Timişora: About 7 hours
• What we ate: Strudels, I had the vegetarian non pizza Romanian restaurant standby: fried cheese and french fries, and a very cheesy Greek salad on the side. Forget what mom had beside cabbage slaw. In Deva I prepared Mamaliga cu branza, the Romanian national dish - which is pollenta with cheese and fried eggs. Although we didn't eat until like 10:00 at night. It's a good thing mamaliga doesn't require much chewing because I was almost too tired to swallow and chewing was right out.

April 1 -2 Deva

• Mom slept for 13 hours
• Have coffee at best café in Deva, Café Amigo, while writing out postcards
• Repack baggage for the rest of the week - much smaller now.
• Visit the local piata and look at the flowers, fruits and vegetables for sale
• Walking tour of Deva - this is where I pay my electric bill, this is the vet's office. Walking tour includes paying the bills
• Visit my 2nd host mother in Romania. Watch and episode of Medium with her on TV in english with Romanian subtitles and have a long chat in Romanian. Mom intelge nimic.
• After visiting with my gazada I take mom to Presto for desert.
• Visited my office and met the ladies from Fundatie Mara, presented them with Austrian chocolate and gave them the update on the trip so far but had to breeze through to catch the train to Sibiu
• Duration of our stay in Deva: 2 nights and 1 day
• What we ate: Strudels, and papanasi, a desert which is a fried donut filled with apricot jam and drizzled with sour cream and berry sauce.

April 2-3 Sibiu

• Friend in town: Dan, an American who lives in Sibiu who is not a Peace Corps volunteer. Had lunch with him at an Italian place, chat him up about life, Romania, girls who've broken our hearts...just kidding
• Checked into a nice Pension
• Somehow get back to the old city center and climb the famous bell tower which seems to go upward infinitely but is a great place to take pictures of the beatiful city despite the fact that it was rainy and cloudy
• Looked at the old church
• Went out for coffee
• Walked back to the pension looking for a restaurant - found a church and asked a passing couple in Romanian where we could find a restaurant in the area. They responded - Do you speak German? -No. (Continuing in Romanian) Go back the way you came across the intersection with the roundabout to a hotel on the other side of the stadium
• Have a nice dinner at the hotel with the waiter who tries to impress us with his english
• What we ate: Fried cauliflower which I've been craving since Christmas, Romanian dumpling soup and rosemary potatoes. Mom had the same but with Chicken Kiev instead of cauliflower. We ate a lot of bread. This marks the first chicken for mom in a long time.
• Duration of our stay in Sibiu: 1 night

April 3, Cluj

• Friend in town: Iulia, a Romanian college student studying American Literature
• Travel to Cluj by bus. Bus arrives half an hour early so we get off at some random place not knowing where the bus station is. Luckily I recognize the National Theatre and we are a short walk to the center of town and then our hostel
• Check in to hostel
• Stop at University bookstore famed for large selection of books in English
• Walk to Marty's a restaurant and bar I know from the only other time I've been to Cluj
• Find the Romanian Folk Art Gallery, a store which preserves and educates about the authentic and traditional crafts. Mom breaks a dish there. We both buy a bunch of stuff - I buy a surpriza for someone....
• Meet up with Iulia and Micah, who came to Cluj just for the evening to hang out with us, have a beer
• Hike to the Cluj botanical gardens even though it's an hour before closing
• Mom has the typically Peace Corps experience of Where the hell is the bathroom?
• Pop into St Michael's church in time to catch the end of a concert going on there
• Eat traditional Romanian cabbage dinner at a little known restaurant I don't know the name of, but Iulia referred to it as the Cabbage Shop - though that's the name of it.
• Walked to the Romanian Orthodox church and insisted mom take pictures of it as well as the Catholic church
• Visited another bar in Cluj, Micah and I catch up on business
• Next morning: continue shopping for a book about Romania in english for mom. Don't find it. Take more money out of an ATM. I freak out about time and take a taxi to the bus station so we don't miss our bus. Get to the station in time but the bus is sold out so we have to wait for 1 hour
• What we ate: Salads, at Marty's - not very Romanian. Sort of expensive strudels and coffee at a bare bones café right next to Breakfast and Coffee a very swanky looking café with a GAP inside of it, Sarmale - traditional cabbage rolls served without me for me because it's Lent - first time I've ever had it at a restaurant. Mom has Varza La Cluj - a kind of Lasagna with cabbage instead of noodles and stewed tomatoes instead of red sauce, and pork. Also wicked awesome baked potatoes with cheese and cream. And gogosi - Romanian donuts which are like a chocolate, fruit or cheese filled elephant ear at Gogosa Infuriata (the angry donut - a chain)
• Duration of our stay in Cluj: 1 day and 1 night

April 4-6 Baia Mare

• Friend in town: Todd, volunteer in my group who was busy and we didn't originally plan on spending so many days in Baia Mare but he was very helpful in finding us a pension with an all purple room
• Slept hardily on the three hour bus ride, my mom tells me I missed beautiful scenery but I may be back in Mara Mures county sometime...
• Walked around to Piatia Revolutiei, did a little second hand shopping during a spontaneous power failure
• Walked through the large park. Saw a guy that was at least 7 feet tall. Todd tells us he's an American who plays basket ball in Baia Mare
• Ate at a very slow restaurant in Piatai Liberatti
• Photographed churches around St. Stephen's tower
• Walked through the piata, by which I mean the one where they sell vegetables
• Visited the Village Museum with old buildings from around the Mara Mures region preserved on display including the wooden church from 1630 which we didn't get to see right away because it was Sunday and services were going on inside but it was full so people were standing around outside following the service
• Visited the Ethnographic Museum which typically displays traditional folk art and crafts from the rural area surrounding Baia Mare but is now under new management and temporarily closed except for a visiting exhibit of wax figures of celebrities ranging from Christ to Osama bin Laden and Bill Gates. We were planning on seeing the ethnographic museum for its typical offerings but were particularly encouraged to go to the Special Exhibit by the proprietor of the Village Museum as we didn't have correct change to pay our entrance to the Village Museum until we saw the Wax Exhibit first.
• Bought a coffee and an apple from McDonald's so we could use the bathroom then realized their bathroom wasn't actually locked
• Visited the unique Baia Mare art museum with its particularly interesting textile exhibit and also paintings of the city of Baia Mare during every season
• Got on the train to Deva at 5:00 - arrived in Deva at 1:30a.m. with a two hour Layover in Dej. Hiked to a truck stop where I ate french fries and mom tried Mici - little sausages - for the first time.
• What we ate: Omelets at our piata with french fries in them - what great idea! I had mamaliga with sour cream and cheese, mom had a salad made mostly out of ham, at a Medieval themed Romanian restaurant she had a kepbob and fries while I had onion soup and natural potatoes and fried cheese - thank goodness I didn't also order the corn! Beer, and a desert I can remember the name of that was like a plum paste with sand in it.
• Duration of our stay in Baia Mare: 3 days, two nights

April 5, Sighet - Day Trip -

• Took a bus to Sighet for the day Saturday, worried about getting the last bus back to Baia Mare at the end of the day
• Toured the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and the Resistance which is in a former prison from the Communist period. A very unique museum which offers a lot of resources in english, but it is a lot of reading. I'm told its the closest thing Romania has to a Museum of Communism at the moment.
• Toured the Sighet Ethnographic museum where the masks for the Winter Festival Dec.27th our stored when it's not festival time. Also an impressive display of traditional weaving and embroidery done on leather
• Photographed a Romanian Holocaust Memorial - a rare display
• Debated visiting Elie Weisel's childhood house, Although it was supposed to be closed according to guidebook, the woman at the museum told us it was open and wouldn't sell us the two page english booklet about it when we could just go there.
• Instead we hiked to the River Izei which is the northern boarder between Romania and Ukraine
• Bought way too many snacks for the bus on the way back to Baia Mare - no time to eat in Sighet!

April 7-8 Deva

• Walked through the old city center where the prettier buildings are like the Mayor's office and the post office, visited the large park
• Had breakfast at the place I've been told has the best "pancakes" in town - really they're crepes
• Had dinner at the insanely popular traditional Romanian food restaurant in town that's in a converted garage and has only 4 tables
• Took the maxi taxi to the nearby town of Hunedoara and photographed their castle even though they wouldn't let us in the castle because it's closed
• Had a beer at a bar that appeared next to the castle since I was last there in December
• Went back to café Amigo for coffee and wrote out postcards again. Brought our own strudel in again only this time it was from the good strudel place that was closed the last time.
• Searched out some Hunedoara postcards
• Went Romania souvenier shopping at the grocery store
• Repacked all the baggage that was going home to the USA
• Climbed up to the Deva Citadel, built in 1269. Didn't even die on the hike up, and took the telecabina down
• Ate a desert and coffee at the good desert place at the bottom of the hill
• Immediately left the desert place and walked to the sandwich place and ate lunch because mom wanted a sandwich
• Hurried to get the train to the village of Baru Mare because I'm always nervous we're going to miss the train. had time to buy drinks before getting on the train. Managed to wrestle all the baggage on to the Personel train. Unfortnately was trapped on the hot sunny side of the train.
• What we ate in Deva: Mamaliga at La Biatul for me, Pork Cutlet with French fries for mom, At the Sandwich place: chicken wings with sauce and cabbage slaw and french fries and lipie (flat bread so you can make you own sandwiches, but mom for some reason doesn't like sandwiches with cabbage and french fries) a personal pizza for me. Mom had a cheese and apple crepe at the pancake place, I had a spinach and mushroom crepe which would have been great if it wasn't drowned in garlic mayo. I had a desert that was like rasberry fluff on a pie crust, and mom had some kind of pie cookie thing that are usually purchased by the kilo because the woman kind of freaked out when I ordered 1. Coffees. Strudel.
• Duration of stay in Deva this time: 1 night and almost 2 days, leaving on Tuesday at 3:40

April 8-10 Baru Mare

• Friends in town: Dru, another volunteer in my group and her roommate Sara. Volunteers in closest proximity to me and the babysitters of my cat
• Jumped off the personel train at the Halta - where the train stops when there's no train station at the little villages, and it doesn't stop long - and dragged the baggage down the rocky hill with the dirt road. Enlisted the help of the neighbor to carry the baggae up the three flights of stairs to the apartment.
• Visited my precious kitten, Bella, who'd been with Dru and Sara since March 15th
• Hiked to the hotel with Sara's counterpart Miss Anna a teacher at the school
• Patronized both of Baru's two restaruants the hotel, and the cafe which serves mici and fries
• Memorable quotes: Mom- Do they have something normal like spaghetti? I want spaghetti. And I want a sandwhich. I want a spaghetti sandwich. Also: Mom- I need air! Me- You can't have any air, it's Romania. There's no air on trains.
• Visited both Casas (orphanages) House of Hope, and House of Joy where Dru works
• Visited Sara's school and did a day of activities (games) with the 5a and 8a classes (the higher classes of 5th and 8th graders)
• Slept on the floor - totally Peace Corps though my cat slept on my mom
• Took a nature hike to the hill but not all the way up
• Hiked toward the Strei valley in the dark. Met a very accomodating woman shepard who wanted to do everything possible to help us get a good picture of the sheep when mom showed in a in interest in photographing them
• Encountered a lot of people in the village who wanted to know who we were, where we were going and why
• Mom napped while I went to adult excercise class - but I didn't try to hard
• Dragged luggage back up the rocky hill on the dirt road and wrestled it on to the Personel train. This took 3 of us.
• What we ate: Mici. Fries. Mom tried ciorba de burta (tripe soup - insanely popular Romanian dish), I had sarmale de post (for Lent) again and bread, and bean ciorba. Don't remember what else...
• Duration of stay in Baru Mare: 2 and 3/4 days

April 10 Petrosani

• Friend in town: Karla, a very busy volunteer in my group who has 3 organizations. I was hoping we'd get to do more in Petrosani like job-shadow Karla, but because she was busy with donors and we were tired we decided not to come to Petrosani until 6:30pm
• Mom saw the Petrosani bridge over the train tracks and refused to try to get the baggage up the stairs so we got a taxi to Karla's
• Taxi driver didn't understand Karla's address so he asked me to call her and put her on the phone
• Went out for dinner and desert at Bella's in Petrosani
• Hung out with Karla in her Peace Corps famous apartment for 1 person. It's famous because it's little more than 1 room and a married couple of Peace Corps volunteers once lived there for two years.
• Demonstrated that volunteers can talk about anything openly no matter how disgusting...
• Got on the midnight train first class to Bucuresti
• What we ate: ice cream, pizza with anchovies, four cheese pizza and cake. At some point on the trip my mom started drinking Coke which I'd never known her to do before. it was always strictly Pepsi...
• Duration of stay in Petrosani: Sadly only 6 hours

April 11 Bucuresti, Romania's Capital. Home to 4 million people and 2.5 million registered cars

• Friends in town: Carol from my group is in Bucuresti at the moment, and Silvana a friend from another group - as well as all the Peace Corps staff at the office.
• It's not that I slept on the overnight train to Bucuresti, it's more like I just lost time
• Bought a ridiculously expensive muffin at the McDonald's at the train station so we could use the bathroom because this bathroom is locked and where else are you going to find muffin in Romania?
• Wrestled all the freaking luggage throught the Bucuresti metro system to Flowers B&B then checked in to the Peace Corps office for coffee and couch
• Chatted briefly with Ken Goodson, Peace Corps Romania Country director - also known as "everybody's boss" after arriving sweaty and tired and some would crabby at PC office around 8 a.m.
• Mom gets some well-deserved sleep on the couch in the Volunteer lounge while I go on a two hour walk to pick up an order of postcards placed by the GAD committee. This is my BL leave for the day
• But I shouldn't have race-walked for two hours worrying we wouldn't have time to be tourists in Bucuresti because after that walking experience I couldn't walk right for about two days
• Went back to the B&B to check in where the luggage was carried upstairs to the second floor by two adult men under duress, although one sang "Hi Ho" from Disney's Snow White while doing so
• Had lunch at the nice place I discovered close to the PC office which is not too expensive for Bucuresti
• Bought mom her book about Romania in english on my way back from my walk
• Went to the Museum of the Romanian pesant and left after about 45 minutes for my dentist appointment - made arrangements to meet mom in the park after the museum closed
• Took the metro then walked to my dentist appointment, had teeth cleaned while I sat in a chair and I'm sure fell asleep a few times for seconds at a time
• Met back up with mom and took metro to Piata Unirii to look for the People's Palace - 2nd largest building used for administrative purposes in the world. Built by Ceausescu - well, he didn't build it personally
• Mememorable quotes: Mom-Oh there it is. Do we have to go up to it? Me- Yes, we have to go up and take a picture. How else are you going to know you've been to Bucuresti?
• Went back to the little restaraunt close to the Peace Corps office and to our Bed and Breakfast for dinner
• Made it back to the B&B in time to watch Brokeback Mountain on Romanian TV but once I smelled myself, decided it was more important to shower
• Packed mom's suitcase and carried it down the stairs with the help of B&B staff the night before so that we wouldn't have to drag it down the steps at 4:45 am.
• What we ate: baked vegetables with garlic and oil, bread, tomatoe soup, creamy vegetable rice, baked potatoe with cheese and sour cream, mom had a salad and chicken schnitzel? And imported German beer.

April 12 Homeward bound

• 5am taxi to the airport
• Mom's luggage officially weighs 44 kilos
• I have to say goodbye and grab a taxi at 5:45 so I can get my 6:30 am train back to Deva
• Arrive in Deva around 2:15 in the afternoon after drooling a big pool of drool on my sleeve and sleeping with my mouth open on the train
• Mom travels on three planes and a bus for 24 hours arriving at home at 11:30 pm local time - 5am sunday Romania time.

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