Ion, the relative of a parishioner at my father's church, drove, interpreted, ordered and took very good care of us for an entire week while we walked and hiked and talked our way through the Romanian countryside. He was a great guy to have along for an authentic Romanian perspective and I am very grateful that he stayed with us for the entire wee, we really couldn't have done it without him.
Arc de Triumphe in Bucharest
Silhouettes at the Village Museum in Bucharest
Reflecting on Bucharest
Sam regarding the thatch-work
Spring in the Village Museum
Ion with a large cask of bitter
The Bucharest Parliament Building
Strolling the streets of Bucharest
At the Patriarchate
My absolute favorite part about Romania was the clouds. Throughout the entire week we were gifted with great looking clouds. The Romanian skies were always covered with some sort of cloud, big and fluffy, small and wispy, gray and full of rain, light streaming in around, color dancing off of, and the wind pushing and pulling them in different directions. In the pictures below take a peak at the sky and notice how consistently wonderful it is.
Tiny chapel on a hill with the first of many beautiful Romanian Cloudscapes
The muddy dirt road leading to an Orphanage-like Village. The village would take in single mothers and/or abandoned children and provide them with an education and a place to stay.
Building new houses in the village
Ion, walking and pondering
Deep thinker
A view from above
Sunlight streaming down
Behind the scenes
Pops with the pigs
Two children of the village
Romanian Cloudscape
Full Romanian breakfast in Sinaia
The Monastery in Sinaia
The Royal family's Palace in Sinaia
Statues in the Garden
Ion scored us some polinka, ridiculously strong, paint-melting, shudder inducing, Romanian liqour, near the top of a very very tall mountain while we huddled together sheltered from the high winds. Shortly thereafter I saw Ion slip on a huge patch of mud and then try to wash himself off in the snow.
Ion on top of the mountain
Level with the clouds
Pops in the clouds
Ion, regarding the fate of a few less fortunate adventurers
Ion, post unlucky mudslide slip-up, attempting a snow-bath
Which way? Ion and I took the road less traveled
Sunset cloudscape in Sinaia
Very soft and lovely
Waterfall en route to a monastery built into the rocks
Built straight into the rock
A hilltop proclamation of faith
Can you spot my head? I'm rock climbing!
There I am
Focus
Boys love throwing rocks and making big splashes
Pops, waiting....
Dracula's Castle in Bran
By nighttime
Ion the next morning at the entrance to Dracula's Castle
Dracula's Rooftop
Beware, Dracula's Castle is quite Scari!
Some more minor rock climbing
A cross, overlooking Transylvania
Pops watch out! Please please don't step OVER the grass, anything but that!
Mossy roof, Dracula's Castle
Transylvania Green
A couple of bickering women
Snow capped Transylvania Mountains
The intersection of George and Suzanne, that's me!
Raindrops on Lake Rosu
Pops posing before Lake Rosu
Through the windshield
In the side-view, great clouds again!
Out the front, a potent downpour
Loitering roadblocking cow
Yet another cloudscape
And an approaching storm
Petro Voda, I will never forget you and your racist monks.
At Petro Voda, a monastery in the North-Eastish of Romania I remember getting the incredible privilidge of visiting an old holy monk who had been imprisoned by the communists. With the help of an interpreter the conversation went something like this:
Dad - “We are from America.”
Monk - “Technology is not our savior.”
Dad – “We are from the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese.”
Monk – “God loves us all.”
Dad – “….”
Monk – “The Jews are everywhere.”
Dad – “….um…thank you for the blessing father.”
Monk – “Aufwerdersen!”
It was a very uncomfortable meeting for me. In the father’s defense he is in his nineties and has been through a lot. Still….
At the same monastery, where they were passing out leaflets warning against the implementation of metal chips in ID cards as a sign of the Antichrist, a book of mine found an unusual fate. I was reading “The Pilgrimage” by Paulo Cuelo, author of “The Alchemist,” telling of his experience hiking the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain. Some monks that I was eating lunch with inquired about the book and picked it up and showed it around and then went back into the kitchen with it. I didn’t think too much of this and so when I finished eating I inquired the whereabouts of my book only to be told, “Don’t worry about it, let’s go.” I was rather enjoying the book and was, despite their efforts, now slightly worried about it. I walked back into the kitchen and asked the monk there where it was. He told me that it was gone. I refused to believe this and asked him again. “It is gone,” he told me again. I asked again where it was and he walked over to the fireplace stove and opened it up to show me a pile of ashes. “It is gone.” A shy monk, apparently peeved by this dishonest monk opened up the back of the stove and pulled out a very hot to the touch ash covered but so far undamaged book. I breathed a sigh of relief, grabbed the book and gave the first monk a dirty look and turned to leave. “This is a bad book,” he told me. “It is full of magic and bad things, you should be reading the Bible, the Bible is the only thing you need to read.” I told him that the main character is staying at Christian monasteries along his pilgrimage. “Yes, Catholic monasteries, right?” Yes, I told him, Catholic monasteries, Catholics ARE Christians too. “No, they say that they are but they worship a different God.” I told him I didn’t agree with this and that Orthodoxy was not the only right way. “Yes it is. Do you know what Orthodoxy means?” Yes, I said, thinking of the definition that I had heard long ago, Orthodoxy means traditional. He laughed. I did not like this. “No, Orthodoxy literally means ‘the right way.’ So it is the ONE way.” Oh ya? I said, well then can I call you Hitler because you are burning books and hate Jews? (I didn’t actually say that but I would have loved to.) After the monk gave the “Orthodoxy=Right Way” logic as divine proof that he has found truth I decided that he wasn’t going to be reasoned with and just let it go. I took my book, grateful just to have it in one piece and walked out of there. He followed me and continued to tell me that I was wrong and that orthodoxy was right. What an interesting method of evangelizing.
I understand that this was an isolated incident at a very fundamental monastery. I hold nothing against Orthodoxy or their monks, just that guy who found it appropriate to burn a book and hate Jewish people. Two strikes buddy, be careful!
The hilltop shack outside of Petro Voda
Closer...
And closer still
Pops in the misty morning
Fr. George the Shepherd
Just a new friend that we made on our morning hike
Another friend
Giving her a piggy-back ride
Radical Romanian Cloudscape
Beautiful Romanian Skies
Clouds with my favorite shack in the world
And again
Painted Church at Petro Voda
A siege
Some brutal depictions
A sunset hike beginning in a churchyard cemetery
There was a wonderful fresh post-rain smell in the air
The hills are alive with the sound of Ion
The group of trees which became our destination
Inside the trees
Silhouette of Pops in the trees
Incredible Romanian Sunset Cloudscape Extravaganza Complete with Distant Rain Shower, Mountaintops, Sweeping Hills, Open Pastures, Tiny Villages, and Good Company
Goodbye Sun
Cluj-Napoca Orthodox Church
Irises in the Cluj Botanical Gardens
Blossoms in Cluj
Romanian Folk National Music
I remember bowling with Ion and his younger brother, fueled by wine, polinka, and beer, and then taking a cab ride across town for the garlickiest pizza of my life. I tasted it for the next two days.
Bowling in Bran, the home of Dracula, was much different yet sort of the same on the night of a full moon, glancing over my shoulder for werewolves, my imagination enhance by polinka.
My memory of the best pizza in Cluj
The Communist block apartments of Cluj
