Woa!
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Some weird things happened this week. First of all two friends came to visit me during the week, bringing their friends with them so we could meet and become friends (isn't it nice?) and moreover so they could crash and my apartment while visiting the local tourist sites, one of them being the Castelul Corvinilor or The Corvin Castel in Hunedoara about twenty minutes away by car.

The funny thing is both these friends came with me the first time I saw the castle the Saturday after my birthday. Jesse came over on Sunday night with his Romanian friend Dragos who had never been to Hunedoara and wanted to tourist it up at castle. So Monday, after my meeting at the office the tree of us visited the castle, took a lot of pictures, and noticed while we were there there were a lot of old-fashioned looking wooden carts around, quite a bit of hay and an abundance of ladders made of tree branches.

Jesse left on Tuesday and that day Micah called and said he was visiting with his friend-from-home who he wanted to take to the castle as well as the famous Deva citadel. I wasn't sure if I'd go back to the castle since I'd just been there Monday but I decided to go, because believe-it-or-not Micah and I actually have a project going on with said castle so going there together would give us a chance to discuss work while boring his friend to tears, as I did to Jesse's friend who is not involved in our project.

When we approached the driver of our taxi wasn't allowed in the gate. We'd noticed a lot of trucks and trailers in the street leading up to the castle as well as a few guys in medieval costume, and also horse crap everywhere. Someone at the gate told us if we wanted to go in to the castle we had to hike around to the back entrance.


Once inside we noticed about two dozen people dressed as medieval knights, knights on horseback, and flags and banners that hadn't been around when I was there on Monday. But they still allowed us to pay admission to enter and walk around inside the castle. It turns out the castle was being used to film an Italian movie called Barbarossa (or Red Beard). The castle courtyard was being used as a holding area where the knights with banners, the horse mounted knights, and the horse drawn covered wagons would line up and wait for a signal to come over walkie-talkie, march out of the castle and across the bridge, then turn around and do it again. We got to watch this process about eight times. I counted 22 knights on horseback. I was fascinated by the horses. Big, shiny, healthy, beautiful looking horses the likes of which I haven't seen in a while, neighing loudly in the echoing courtyard. It was so exciting to see! Even though I know nothing about this movie or the actors in it I was instantly star-struck by being surrounded by a production and also suddenly filled with a five-year-old girl desire to always watch the horses - whatever they were doing!




The guy guarding the gate when we crept around front to try and sneak a view of the castle's main entrance didn't understand the question when I said "does the castle pay an Italian castle in the movie?" What I meant was: Is the movie set in Romania? I doubt it, though I was happy to see so many Romanians working as medieval soldiers in the movie.

It was an exciting and unexpected treat. Too bad I left my camera at home because I thought, (shrug) I've seen the castle. I was there days ago and I have pictures of it already!

But if you happen to see the movie Barbarossa - the saddle blankets - totally not period, but I doubt you'll be able to see that in the "storming out of the castle on horseback and across the bridge" scene.

Me and my new friend, Dragos