You might meet a bear and you could go by cable car.
But true to our tradition, we walked.
And when you’ve walked to the top, you don’t want to take the cable car down; you want to run, trip and tumble your way through the brown leaves, across the stony ground, zig-zagging twenty-two times to the bottom. The path criss-crossed the mountainside, making a much longer path than a direct one would have been. We observed that the hills we climbed in Thailand were no less steep – but there our guide just led us straight up!

Threats of Bears Who Should Be Hibernating (but just might not be) kept us on the paths. We had watched a video of bears scavenging through the dumpsters not ten metres from Leo and Lili’s apartment, we had heard of the young man mauled to death by a bear as recently as last summer on the very hill we were climbing, and today we saw his memorial at the edge of the path.
Perhaps understandably, Bear Conversation accompanied us up up up to the top.

Wouldn’t it be cool to meet one? What if we DO see one? Should we climb a tree? Where do they sleep? How long do they sleep? Can you wake them easily? Would they be hungry if they woke up now? How big are they? When do they have cubs? Wouldn’t it be great to come back here on a day that we had lots of time and there were bears around and we could watch them and if they didn’t come out we could come back the next day coz we wouldn’t be in a hurry and maybe then we could watch them and it wouldn’t be dangerous because we’d stay at the bottom of the hill and we could get away if they came near and don’t you think that would be fun?

You should try walking a hill with a five-year-old!!!! Thankfully she then raced forward to Jgirl15 and the last thing I heard before I slowed my pace to put a few more footsteps between us was, “I was just saying to mum that wouldn’t it be…..” At that point Mboy6 returned to my last-man-on-the-trail position with the loving declaration that, “I like walking with you coz time goes so much faster when there’s someone to talk to.” I think what he really meant was, “No-one else grunts back at me when I chatter on almost as endlessly as my little sister, and they certainly don’t even *attempt* to answer my questions, especially the one about do raisins help ulcers get better, and if they do, how?”  
When we returned home we decided a google search was in order to discover whether it’s an urban myth that bears can’t run fast downhill and that you shouldn’t climb a tree. We are none the wiser. We read four websites and discovered five opinions. Bears have poor smell. Bears have excellent smell and sight. Climb a tree if you have time to get higher than ten metres. Don’t ever climb a tree, unless of course you wish to be stuck up there with two cubs while the Mama waits at the bottom for you all to come down. Fight back a black bear, even with bare hands if you have to, but don’t play dead. Website three says play dead. They all agreed never to make direct eye contact. That’s a start I guess! Good thing we didn’t meet a bear.

Not that they were hibernating. We have now discovered that they simply enter a state of “winter lethargy” – they do not truly hibernate. Real hibernators (like squirrels and frogs) zip into dream land quickly and drop their body temperature significantly (frogs can freeze completely). Bears doze off slowly, cool down only a little and are EASILY aroused from their zzzzzz-ing.

But our knowledge all came later.
For the better part of the day, we climbed the hill (3km to get to the base, an hour and a half to get up the two-and-a-half-kms to 960m, lunch at the top in the biting wind, views appreciated – Brasov town is so pretty from atop the hill and there was snow on the distant mountains – forty minutes to get back down, and then another 3km back home again. Only two kids had the energy to manage the trek to market for food, and although the Father boasted he could walk for another week, he was discovered prostrate on the couch upon our return <wink> )

We didn’t take a picture of the Brasov Hollywood sign from a distance, but that’s where we walked up to, and we DID get a picture to prove *that* - lucky for us some other traveller took a pic that we have commandeered:

up up up

up and turning another corner

and up some more

“Looks like a 3-D map,” one of the kids said.

If you’d like to see the bears foraging for watermelon and other goodies right outside Leo and Lili’s apartment, you can watch this video – it was shot by their friends just a few months back.

…you end up with a lot of corn. A LOT!

Perhaps it all started last night.
Someone burnt the rice, but salvaged a fair portion of it.
En route to the table he dropped it.
Someone else put the oats on to soak for porridge in the morning. Being very chunky oats, they need to be soaked overnight – I don’t think even a whole day of boiling would soften them. That someone did not add enough milk or water and all was absorbed far too quickly, leaving over half the potful dry and tough.
So the mother decided to cook up the cornmeal she had bought. You see, she had noticed a phenomenal amount of the stuff at the market and in all the little supermarkets, and what’s more, people were buying it, so she assumed it was probably Very Romanian, and bought some herself. Besides, it was cheap! Mr Google confirmed her suspicion, provided some recipes and away she went. Only she misread the recipe and it did not occur to her until she was pouring in the two cups of cornmeal/cornflour (depending on where you live, you can choose which word to use – in any case, it’s the yellow gritty stuff) that six litres of boiling water was A LOT.
And two cups of ground corn did little to change the consistency of the water, let alone turn it into a thick bread-like substance. A quick re-search of yesterday’s computer pages revealed the magic water quantity to be six CUPS. Mother poured off three quarters of the water and added the rest of the packet of cornmeal, stirred like crazy, but not crazy enough and produced a barely palatable very bland lumpy porridge. Pouring over kefir and dolloping on jam improved the situation only slightly.
But we ate it. There’s a saying here about this dish (Mămăligă), which has long been considered the poor man’s dish:

He doesn’t even have a mămăliga on the table.

We did, and we will for a few more days yet! Leftovers from breakfast were turned into what is also apparently another Romanian dish – we took balls of the now cool mixture, stuffed them with cheese and baked in the oven. Crunchy on the outside and a bit like mashed potato on the inside, they were decidedly more of a hit than the breakfast gruel. They still lacked in flavour, but were promising enough that we decided Next Time (yes, there will be a next time!) we would fry up some onion, garlic, cumin and coriander, and mix that through before baking. A spicy tomato sauce on the side should do very well too! Here’s a pic, pre-baking:

But before we get to the next batch of corn-mush, we’ve got this lot to contend with. Upon our return from an afternoon stroll, we set to dealing with the remaining watery substance saved from the morning’s disaster. Waste not, want not.
Having learnt the lesson about adding the corn slowly, we added our newly-purchased bagful Very Slowly Indeed. I stirred, Jgirl15 sprinkled it over, one teaspoonful at a time. Painful, but effective – there was not one lump to be seen. And we also got it past the gruel stage, to a thick cake-like consistency. It was impossible to stir, but looked just like the pictures on our computer screen (which is not saying a lot – it really does appear none-too-appetising, but it’s cheap remember!) In fact, you can have a look if you like:

Now we need to decide what to do with it. Authentic local options include crumbling it into a bowlful of hot milk (we don’t have enough milk for that)….slicing and eating as is (we’d need at least butter and jam on top!)….eating with sour cream and cheese….slicing and frying with eggs and sausage. Ah yes, and we’ll drown it all in spicy chilli sauce. That sounds more like us.

But tomorrow morning we’ll be eating oat porridge – and it’s already nice-n-soft.

By the way, in the middle of tonight’s stirring, Mboy6 pleaded with us to look out the window. In spite of potentially condemning the corn to a final unceremonious death, and potentially more tragically, ruining our pot if it were to stick and burn, we took leave to follow the enthusiasm at the balcony window. And we grabbed the camera.

NOTE TO BE REMOVED LATER:
We have added a bunch of photos to this post. Feel free to click and look.

We arrived in Romania knowing how to say “Praise the Lord!” in Romanian and that we had once known how to say, “I love you”. Both have fairly limited contexts for use.

Quickly we learnt:  
yes
no
thank you
is
good/fine
a few numbers
Guten Appetit
hot (which sounds like *cold* just to confuse you)
cake
goodbye (it’s a pity we forgot how to say hello and therefore couldn’t say anything meaningful until *leaving* each stall at the market)
Having failed with the first form of hello, next we learnt how to say it in Transylvania – useful because that’s where we are. But maybe not so useful after all; turns out it’s just for use with good friends. Note to self: make more of an effort to learn *hello*

By today (and a morning spent at the market saying “da” to everything and having no idea what was being said, we decided it would be prudent to learn how to say, “I do not understand. I do not speak Romanian.” Leo and Lili and their four children came for dinner and we quizzed them. Thankfully it’s easy! In the course of trying out some phrases we even learnt our first conjugation. And we have started coming to terms with dots and squiggles put in funny places, the hard sh sound and more vowels than we realised existed. 

Picking up language in situ is easy. Just by listening to the Romanians we have been hanging out with (or eavesdropping on conversations at the market) you pick up so much (like BUT, REALLY!, CHURCH, BLACK, SCHOOL, BUS, TAXI). And by reading packets of food we’ve bought, we’ve learnt more. And by googling white cheese, we’ve learnt oodles – there are over a dozen sorts here! We have had the added advantage of having a television (never thought I’d say *that* was an advantage!) and with most of the programmes being subtitled, you learn. Reading song lyrics and following a written discussion outline have also added to our informal “lessons”!

I say it’s easy, but maybe that’s an oversimplification. For example, I have picked up some contexts in which to use a particular phrase/word (see I don’t even know if it’s one word, or two – and as for the spelling, who knows? – this is just what it sounds like to my untrained ear) “HEI-DE”. When your kids are standing in the way of someone on the street, you say it. When you are ready to leave someone’s house, you say it. I guess it means something like “Come here” or “Go now” or “Move”, but I’m not certain. I can, however, use it and make our Romanian friends smile!

I say it’s easy, but that’s not entirely true. Yes, you learn more Romanian living in Romania than you would living at home with no exposure to it. But it still takes effort. And I have to confess I think I might be suffering from end-of-trip-itis. When I compare my language acquisition in Laos to here, there’s definitely some enthusiasm lacking. Before heading out to the market tomorrow, I will forget to re-read the phrases jotted down tonight – oh, I’ll think about it as I trot down the stairs, but I won’t be bothered going back for the scrap of paper. Pity, coz it would have meant I could get half a kilo of cheese *easily* instead of causing the poor shop assistant to explain that I have to buy a block and she cannot slice it!
Perhaps motivation was higher in Laos, because we didn’t want to get ripped off and the language was so different that there was no way we could just guess. Romanian is a Romance language, which naturally means it has a lot in common with Italian (not that we’re experts with Italian either, after just one month there!), but it does provide a bit of wriggle-room for making slightly educated guesses. There was no chance of guessing in Laos!
Possibly we’re getting lazy. Tomorrow we’ll go in to a travel agent to find out about tickets to Istanbul. I still won’t have remembered, “Hello” (lazy), so I’ll just launch in with “Do you speak English?” (lazy) and when she replies, “Yes”, I’ll be relieved (lazy). She won’t be able to help, but will point us up the street to another agent. We will KNOW he can help, but he will not speak a word of English. Not One Word. With lots of gesticulation and pointing-at-map-and-calendar and throwing round a few random words from various languages, we will spend a good half hour just to find out the cost of a bus ticket, where the bus leaves from and how long the journey takes (19 hours aaagghh). I realise we’d do well to return with our phrasebook, but in the end, we decide to get Leo to ring and confirm the little we have learnt (lazy again).

Must say, though, that when you make an effort, it is richly rewarded here. Even saying one Romanian word brings broad grins onto withered old wrinkled faces, young make-up-ed faces and stubbly-bearded faces alike. People are eager to help you learn and willing to repeat things until you get it right. One small effort to learn one word today resulted in the lady at the next stall asking (I think) if all those children milling around were mine. You could just tell she would have launched into conversation if we had possessed the ability. Must be time to learn one of the phrases that we usually pick up very quickly in a country: eight children!

Or maybe the novelty of learning something that you’re only going to use for a short time has simply worn off. Hard to say.

New apartment.
New neighbourhood.
New market.
New prices (surprisingly more like Germany than Poland)

Leo and Lili organised an apartment for us to rent for our month here. We said we only needed a small one, but this was an impossibility. No-one was willing to rent a small apartment to someone with eight kids. So we have ended up in a very spacious two-storey, two-bathroom sprawling mansion!! Just the entrance hall alone is bigger than the living space in both our motorhomes put together! Then there’s another hallway (even larger) upstairs, not to mention three double bedrooms, a kitchen bigger than we have at home, an ENORMOUS lounge and dining area and a balcony.
To call it two-storey is perhaps a little misleading. We have two floors, but they are both within the context of a six-storey building – up near the top. The rest of the block is occupied by offices, which are a hive of activity during the day, but quiet at night. There’s a 24hour security man and a view across a busy main road (bus stop right at the door) to apartment blocks.

Right on our street are small supermarkets, kiosks, pizzeria, petrol station, hair dresser (who also does manicures, pedicures and something we don’t understand), travel agent, light shop, second-hand clothing store (there are five of these within ten minutes’ walk in one direction), and, of course, a gazillion apartments.
One block over is a big supermarket – no, let me rephrase that. It is not big by French Carrefour standards, neither is it big by even Kiwi standards, but it is bigger than the more frequent little mini-markets. There is also The Market. A huge high-roofed affair, it has small shops around the outside – butcher, baker, cheese-ery, random-goods-store, and in the middle are rows of high wooden tables. Mostly fresh fruit and vegetables are displayed on these, but there are also hand-hacked wooden spoons, baskets, a great stack of dark grey dinner-plates and other miscellaneous items. There are four shining milk dispensers – bring your own bottle and go home with fresh raw milk!

Generally speaking the produce lacks the finesse of the Polish market – most probably because far less of it is imported. There ARE grapes and bananas, but not pineapples or avocadoes or mangoes. In contrast, there is plenty of horseradish, bunches of dried herbs, jars of pickled everything – in fact there are metre-high tubs of pickled gherkins and whole pickled cabbages – and there are parsnips, beetroot, carrots, potatoes, turnips, garlic, beans. Soup will definitely be on the menu. In fact, it already has been. Our favourite pumpkin soup has turned all the tastier with the addition of Eastern European sausage and sweet peppers. YUMMO.

The bread is delish. It’s reminiscent of South Italian semolina bread – crunchy crust, doughy inside, fairly solid. White, but not fluffy. It comes in big loaves – two kilos worth, but you just buy as much as you want. There are other breads too (brown, plaited, plain fluffy white, batons, rolls), but this big round loaf seems to be the main bread of choice. It’s certainly become our favourite.
Our sweets-ectasy of Krakow, was always going to be hard to replicate. It would be difficult to do in New Zealand, and we get the feeling it will be impossible here. The Romanian range of cakes seems to be more closely related to that in Bulgaria than Poland. In the shops, that is. At Lili’s apartment we had a divine pumpkin cake, and tomorrow we’ll make  scrumptious cinnamon and apple rolls at our place – but, thankfully, we will be spared the temptation of putting on weight here!

New Recipes.

CINNAMON ROLLS
1/2 C warm water
1 packet yeast (about 1t, I guess)
   Dissolve

1/2C scalded milk
1/3C butter
1/4C sugar
1t salt
1 egg
   Add in that order, allowing the butter to melt before adding egg

2C flour
   Add to milk mixture and mix until smooth
   Then add yeast mixture

1 1/2-2C flour
   Add a little at a time, until not too sticky
   Knead
   Set aside in a warm place (yay for radiators!) until doubled in size (~1 1/2 hours)
   Roll out into a large rectangle
   Cover with any of the following:
      butter, sugar (brown is nice, but we could only buy white), cinnamon, grated
      apple, chopped nuts (it’s walnut season here), chocolate chips (we didn’t!)
   Roll up tightly from the long edge and slice into as many pieces as you’d like
   (maybe about a dozen)
   Place spirals in a greased oven dish and set aside to rise for another half hour

Ours rose so much that there was no room to pour over the syrup and we just had to add it when serving, but if there is space in your dish, it’s really yummy to pour over a syrup made with 1/4C sugar and 1C water – goes nice-n-gooey.
Bake for 30 minutes, probably at 180*C, but we had a temperamental gas oven!

2C milk
1 packet vanilla
zest from one lemon, grated
2C oil
   Add

1T baking soda
pinch of salt
flour
   Add until the dough is no longer pourable, but not too thick
   In a greased oven dish, spread out half the dough

~1kg fresh pumpkin, grated
1C sugar
   Combine and spread over top of dough

1t cinnamon
~1C chopped nuts
   Sprinkle over and top with remaining dough
   Bake at 200*C for one hour
For a big oven dish, use six eggs and change the cups to 200ml!!!

LILI’s CHILLIES
Take about a kilo of chillies, chop them up and pack them into (probably four) jars.
Heat 1/2l vinegar, 1/2l water, 2T sugar, 2T salt, 1t peppercorns and 4 bay leaves. Pour over the chillies and seal the jars.
Cover with a towel and blankets for 24 hours (really, truly)

We added these to the soup Lili served the day we arrived.
She thought it hilarious that Rob then also added them to his layered potatoes.
Lili offered more with his coffee. This time he declined.
But we did eat more the following morning on eggs.

Yesterday there were twelve children from two families, all shy-ish, the older ones managing to extend polite civilities. The adults enjoyed the peace, expecting it not to last. Two of our boys stayed the night with the other family, while the rest of us collapsed exhausted into beds in our temporary accommodation.

This morning we all met in the town centre, and as predicted, the dozen children chattered non-stop. All Day Long. We suspect this will not change for the rest of the month we are here. Already there are talks of child-swaps and plans have been hatched for the kids to spend as much time together as they can.
”It’s so nice to have friends here,” Kgirl10 commented.
We adults are enjoying stimulating conversation too, and pause only to contemplate how miraculous it is that we are here together.

Ten years ago Rob and I had a friend over for dinner. She had been living in Romania for years (actually she was there when we were in Poland and she came to visit us once – crazily, she carried two Big Macs from Vienna – I think it’s the only time McDonalds ever tasted good!)
Anyway, there she was on the couch telling us about a family in Romania, who she *just knew* we would get on with. Like us, they had had four children in very quick succession. According to our friend, we shared many interests and aspirations and even though they spoke next-to-no English, she assured us they would be encouraged if we wrote to them. Using this friend as a translator, we made contact. And she was right. We did seem to *click*
Five years ago, the same friend was to marry a guy she had met in Romania. The wedding was to be in New Zealand. And the Romanian couple we had been corresponding with was to be at the wedding. The time had come for us to meet face to face. They had been learning English, and in the three days they stayed with us, we learnt our first Romanian, exchanged recipes, compared families, shared our lives.
Now, here we are with them in *their* country, their town, their home.

We came in November, hoping for snow, but today all we got was drizzle-that-turned-into-rain. Not that it stopped us wandering around town together, seeing the pretty old buildings and in contrast, the bullet-hole-riddled building from the 1989 revolution, marvelling at the outdoor ice skating rink, stomping up the hill through puddles and admiring mountains rising above orange rooftops up into the cloud.

We nibbled on pizzas (topped with Liliana’s delicious and distinctly Romanian garlic sauce: lots of crushed garlic, some salt and thick fresh cream), the kids played board games, we all learnt some Romanian songs; we sat companionably, just enjoying being together.

As darkness fell, more friends arrived and the table was pushed to the middle of the room to make space for all. Church was about to begin.

We have been *in* plenty of churches this past six months, but not for an entire service. We didn’t intentionally set out to not go to church, but it’s what has happened. In Malaysia our itinerary was dictated by others. In Thailand, as I recall, we seemed to be travelling on Sundays. Once we got to Luang Prabang, and knew we had three weeks stationed there, we determined to find a church to visit. Only there wasn’t one. In fact, we didn’t find one anywhere in Laos. This naturally prompted lots of thought and discussion. By the time we got to Cambodia, we *could* have attended church services, but for various reasons (having friends over from NZ, child collapsing in the marketplace and other kids sick too, travelling again…..), we didn’t. After three months, a new habit has been formed and we stopped even looking for churches. We continued daily family devotions and listening to sermons on the Ipod (in fact, many a preacher would be envious of some of Mboy6’s reactions: “Can we listen to that again?” and “Can we listen to another one right now?”), we continued marvelling at God’s creation, talking with believers we came across and with others, who did not share our faith.
Of course, when we got to Europe there was no shortage of churches to visit. And we have been in a lot of them. We have sat in the pews and feasted on medieval artwork, we have gained an appreciation for Byzantinian art, which we did not previously possess, we have studied sculptures, we have wondered about icons, we have listened to the awesome majesty bellowing out of organ pipes, we have wandered under enormous domes and turned our eyes upwards.
And today we gathered with a small intergenerational group of believers in one of their homes and shared Scripture, song, discussion, prayer and fruit.
As someone, who struggles with the immense amount of time and effort that is often spent maintaining the practices of “Sunday”, I appreciated the simplicity and personability of this encounter. There was no cathedral, but there was authenticity. There was no set-up roster (indeed, there were not even enough chairs for everyone), but there was hospitality. There was no organised choir or multimedia presentation, but we made a joyful noise together. There was (shock, horror) no sermon, but there was grappling with ideas (and to be fair, the discussion was based on notes from a conference attended by some of the group, so there kinda was a sermon!) There was no creche or children’s ministry, but over a dozen children sat around listening and contributing (OK, so the baby didn’t say much, but she brought a smile to everyone’s face as she was passed around the group).

Soon a couple of hours had passed and we were donning raincoats and pulling on boots, hoping that the temperature might drop and the rain turn to snow.

We had specifically planned NOT to do a Budapest stopover, but being unable to get seats on the directly-connecting bus, forced us to spend two days in the Hungarian capital. As we pulled out of the bus station at 11:30pm, I contemplated what a perfect two days we had had - not because anything grand occurred, but because there were many small mercies to be thankful for.

We had arrived late at night and were pleasantly surprised to find the Metro entrance a mere ten metres from the bus stop. The train was easily negotiated and after only nine stops we emerged from the well-sign-posted underground, and a friendly local lad offered assistance. He was able to point us the right way up the street without consulting a map and our trudge-to-hostel was underway. It was over before we’d even got into a rhythm, being only 100 metres.
In the morning we would realise just what a fantastic location the hostel was in – smack bang in the middle of anywhere we wanted to walk to. (We would also look with some disbelief at streets we took the motorhomes along – we truly were insane, driving in the very centre of Budapest, through the impossibly narrow lanes!)
In the morning we would discover our room was not only enormous, but was graced with two balconies and a living room. Not only that, but the hostel staff urged us on our last day to bring the children back for an afternoon nap, allowing us free use of the room for a full twelve hours past check-out time. You could argue that the hostel was empty and so it did not matter to them, but they were under no compulsion to be so generous! For their kindness we were grateful.
Our time was also made enjoyable by the fact that it’s a magnificent city, the weather was wonderful for walking, we were aware that all too soon we will not be taking historical-city-strolls on a Thursday or Friday morning, and we found delicious food.
To top it all off, instead of being crammed on a full bus, there were only 15 people occupying the 61 seats on the bus we ended up having to take. This was a blessing in no way disguised, although we cannot say any of us had a good night’s sleep. At least we were comfortable, even if not rested.

Unfortunately our store of memories for the first few hours of Romania is more extensive than we would have liked; it would have been preferable to sleep through those first miles, but, as it happened, we were wide wide awake.
Being the middle of the night, it was dark. But not so black that you couldn’t gather an impression. The roads were surprisingly smooth, although morning light would reveal that anything OFF the main highway tended to be nothing more than wide dirt tracks. Piercing the darkness, lights glowing in occasional towns brightened the way. An enormous white cathedral(?) gleamed in Arad.  A young man rode his bicycle along the dirt path in front of the row of houses. An old lady hobbled along the edge of the road tucked under her headscarf. I wondered where they were going, and why at four in the morning. Houses seemed to be surrounded by high concrete fences, and looked army-barracks-like, positioned in straight rows perpendicular to the road. Sunrise would prove this observation to be true. Very few houses stand alone – most come complete with chicken-filled courtyards, all surrounded by a high fence, shared by two closely-set neighbours. The houses themselves tend to be more decorated than their Bulgarian cousins. Most have a strip the running horizontally around them at window height in a contrasting colour or concrete pattern. Different again. A new country, and yet again we find something we have not seen anywhere else.
Rectangular apartment blocks, also standing quite close together, reached up into the darkness. And in every village a huge array of banks, each with neon signage, heralding the east’s embracing of….of what? consumerism? capitalism? credit?

About midday we arrived in Brasov.

We found them! The Hungarian specialties a reader recommended. And we found a  few more too

We wandered over Chain Bridge to the funicular railway that takes unsuspecting tourists up to the palace and castle. We took one look at the price board and determined there MUST be a way to walk!!!! A very pleasant walk it turned out to be, too, winding up the hillside through the trees.
Our first find at the top was Hungarian Funnel Cake. The proprietor of the stall permitted only one photograph, so there you have him about to put the dough stick into the rotisserie-type oven. It will come out crunchy on the outside and supremely soft inside, and will be dipped in coconut or nuts or sugar or cocoa or cinnamon (which we tried) or just plain…apart it came in a long spiral….warm and delicious.

Along through the castle district, aware that this would probably not be the cheapest place to sample anything, but rejoicing that an upmarket Konditorei had the famed Drum Cake. Good thing that we are “the cup’s half full” people, coz we shared one piece between all of us! It was a delectable concoction – layers of a plain cake sandwiching layers of chocolate cream (and we decided that this much we will copy in our own kitchen). The real cake had a layer of crunchy toffee on top, which was all too sweet for us. Plain chocolate will top the one we make at home

We strolled around the famous sites, took photos, enjoyed the shining sun, listened to the bells tolling at midday (on top of a hill is a great place to be for the noontime bell ringing – we’ve done it on Palatino Hill in Rome, Wawel Hill in Krakow, and now in Budapest too – each time purely coincidentally).
At the bottom of the hill I donned my extrovert hat and approached a bunch of people waiting at the traffic lights to see if any of them could help me find LANGOS (more or less pronounced lah-ng-osh). All of them were using their mobile phones! Not to be deterred, I enquired in a pharmacy (probably the most ironical place you could ask about an unhealthy treat!) As it so happened we were only a block away from the main market and were pointed in that direction with instructions to go to the top floor. We would never have even stopped at the stall if someone had not told us this was worth eating! It really did look more like a grog store to us, complete with resident alcoholic hunched over the table outside:

(that’s not the drunk in the pic!)

But stop, we did and with the finger waving and pointing that we have not needed for quite some time now, we ordered two different sorts. One was stuffed with meat and too similar to the Mongolian horseshoes that made Every Single One Of Us sick that we failed to properly appreciate it. The other was well worth scrambling round town to find. It was a dinnerplate-sized piece of simultaneously soft and chewy and crunchy fried dough covered with lashings of sour cream, garlic and grated cheese.

We have commented before that one of the good things about travelling in a big group is that you get to taste a larger range of foods than you could manage on your own. These were a case in point. Four of them filled ten of us. Completely.

Although we did manage to find room for a handful of fresh grapes….and then a mouthful of waffle a bit later on!

It really was a delectable day.

Oh, and the sightseeing was fun too!

Last, but not least. Guess what we had for dinner. Yes, should have been goulash with lots of paprika, shouldn’t it? Or perhaps goose something (lots of goose options on restaurant menu boards around town). But we had the right amount of money for a Burger King super special <blush> (a rare enough event to be blog-worthy)

Krakow is supposedly the new Budapest. After our one day driving through the more famous city, we were impressed, but holding judgement as to which one we prefer. Leaving Krakow yesterday, we still hadn’t decided – we needed to spend at least one day walking the streets to get much more of a feel for the more famous spot. We’ve done it now, and while only a couple of days in a place doesn’t qualify you to say much, it is sufficient for a quick observation or two.

We can see how Budapest earned its reputation. It truly is a vast, grand, magnificent, majestic, beautiful, ornate city.

It is much bigger than Krakow, much more spread out, with far more attractions and fancier architecture. But that is not to say the Polish equivalent is a poor cousin. It’s just different. It’s smaller, cosier, more intimate, more easily walked around. Of particular interest to our pocket, is that Poland is cheaper than Hungary; transport-wise, accommodation-wise, food-wise and attractions-wise. And whereas Krakow has at least one bakery on every single street, we had to hunt for affordable food in Budapest. One reader had recommended two delicious things to sample on the street, but we were unable to find either. And we are now assuming “streetfood” is a generic term for food available in a cafe or restuarant – there were no sellers with food LITERALLY on the streets as in other places we’ve been. (Ah well, we have another day; we’ll track down that cheesey-garlicy-sourCreamy fried dough and those drum cakes yet!)

Budapest. Our little local guidebook informs us there are six pages worth of museums to visit. Almost as many churches. We can take any number of themed walking tours or a hop-on, hop-off bus tour or an amphibious vehicle tour on road and river, or go on a variety of pub crawls, or visit Europe’s largest functioning synagogue or largest parliament or one of many theatres and concert halls or one of the almost-a-hundred thermal springs or dozen medicinal baths (did you know that 19 million gallons of thermal water rise to the surface here every day? no, we didn’t either)…..there sure are sights to see in Budapest.

We do what we are familiar with. We take a walk. Time being short here, we make a note of “places not to be missed”, determine to get over the river to the castle on the Buda side tomorrow, and today to see as much as we can on the Pest side. If there’s time we’ll stop in the middle of the river – on Margaret Island, where apparently there is a UNESCO-protected water tower, a musical well, an open-air stage, a church, the ruins of a several centuries old nunnery, not to mention hotels, eateries, a beach and swimming pool (brrr, bit cold for that!)

Parliament buildings, the biggest in Europe.

 
(you get much better pictures from the other side of the river like we did last time we were here)

The Danube promenade.

Chain Bridge, the oldest in Budapest.

St Stephen’s Basilica
….relatively recently constructed (not even a couple-a hundred years ago)….before it was completed, the big dome collapsed inwards…..it’s a merging of western christianity and eastern king-saints….as ornate as anything in the Vatican City – not an inch unadorned, everywhere glittering with gold…..when the town planners designed the area, they designated a gigantic space for a cathedral (couldn’t imagine that happening in NZ)

Andrassy Avenue, under which the oldest underground train line in Europe hides (and still operates). The avenue, where there used to be a lane for the gentlemen to go riding. The avenue, which is filled with all sorts of famous buildings that we read about pre-walking and failed to observe once on the road. Oh, except for the Opera House. And in the brochures the avenue looked much more impressive – I think you need to see it in summer when the trees are green! Here are a couple of our officially poor photos, real “nothing shots”:

Taking this walk, we also happened upon stirring monuments:

What a grim reality – people executed at the edge of the Danube. Further up the road, people executed in the square outside parliament.
We contemplated that perhaps it is living through these and other similar experiences that gives people the boldness to plant such thoughts on public land (we can’t see this happening in NZ – far too emotive, far too strongly-worded, far too un-PC):

And we happened upon a lot of very big men sitting on very big chairs. Very Big.

Budapest or Krakow? We like them both, each for their own character.

Our final day in Krakow is Independence Day. Undoubtedly there will be a big parade. Patriotism runs rife here. There will be red and white flags flapping, national costumes, brass bands, pomp and circumstance.
But it’s pouring with rain, absolutely bucketing down, and we make the decision to remain hermits in the hostel; we’re going to get wet enough walking to the bus station this afternoon. In over thirteen months, this will be the first time we have been stuck unavoidably in pouring rain with packs on our backs. Can’t complain really.

And we were right. There *was* a big celebration. As we stumbled along the puddle-filled cobblestone streets for the last time, we were not alone. The parade-goers were all heading home, still clutching their flags. The police were still stationed near important monuments  - remember the horse monument we walked past on our first night? As we left, it had an enormous flame burning in front of it, and the metal barricades were in the process of being removed. We definitely missed something.

But we gained something else. Obviously that day it had started snowing in the mountains and the children got to see for the first time what it looks like when snow is just beginning to fall – how the green grass still pokes through, how there are big dark shadows underneath trees, how it sticks just a little to the road signs, how you can still see the different patterns of tiles on roofs, how the trees are gently outlined. Further on was the deeper storybook snow similar to what we saw coming across Russia. And, just like back then, everyone wished aloud that we could STOP. 

please excuse photo quality - through foggy window on moving bus with snow falling outside

But public busses don’t stop. Although sometimes they DEPART half an hour early, even without all the passengers. And sometimes they double-book seats. At least, those are the experiences of some other people, who had previously used the company we picked. Our budget dictated that we take the risk – and make it to the station with plenty of time to spare. Our decision was well-rewarded. What a surprise; here was the nicest (by far) bus we have been on. Airline-style seats and overhead lockers, free hot drinks, onboard toilet for urgent cases (heehee), DVDs with personal headsets, smooth driving and a half-hour early arrival.

Good-bye Poland, hello Hungary (albeit briefly).

Quote of the day: ”My bed’s got bones in it.” ~ ERgirl3, who clearly did not appreciate the luxury of an innersprung mattress.

She heard the whoosh of the car racing at breakneck speed through the puddle.
She turned to see who, on that busy street behind her, would wear the splash.
It turned out to be her!
The car had sounded as if it were further away, but no.
Funny really, coz at that exact moment she was traipsing up the street wondering about how to use a blog post written a few days earlier. She was contemplating saying that although it was written on a bright sunny day, ever since then it had been drizzling or down-pouring. She was considering commending the decision to bring wet weather gear, thankful that having needed to use it only a few times up til now, we were now feeling justified in bringing it. Rain jackets are the kind of the thing that take up a lot of space (a whole backpack’s worth for our family), are hopefully not used often, but are invaluable when needed. They’re not too dissimilar to an insurance policy; reassuring to have, but you hope you won’t need it. This week alone – in fact, this puddle-splashing episode alone – made lugging them through forty degrees plus for months on end, all totally worthwhile.

Today we watched/listened to the trumpeter play his stirring tune – twice! It is another one of those surreal experiences to realise you are witnessing a tradition, which has been performed for almost a thousand years with a break only during the second world war (or is that an urban legend? I’m not sure). Every hour since the early Middle Ages a golden trumpet has emerged at the west window of the dominating St Mary’s church on the square and played the famous-in-Poland piece of music, the Hejnal Mariacki. It is then played to the north, south and east as well, and at noon is now also played on national radio. But for the last seven hundred and fifty years it has never been completed; the final note has always been left off, allegedly in honour of the trumpeter, who was killed by a Tatar archer in 1241, shot through the throat by an arrow as he played. (Sad, as the story is from a Polish perspective, if you think of it from the Mongol’s point of view, their guy was a good shot!) There’s an irony in that – the trumpet call was used to warn the townspeople of attack by outsiders. It was also sounded at the opening and closing of the city gates, to inform of fire (such as the great fire that destroyed a large part of the town in the 1400s) and of course, as a timekeeper too. Whenever we are in the Rynek (market square) on the hour, we are compelled to stop and watch, and today, to wave. The trumpeter even waved back! And some of the children mulled over theories of why the trumpet call should sound so much clearer today than other time we have heard it (hint: first clear sunny day, no fog or mist or drizzle to muffle the call). It was a truly fascinating observation to the more scientifically-minded amongst us, a theory they tested on further (always dismal misty) occasions.

The next time we read “The Trumpeter of Krakow” aloud (excellent book – do get it!), the kids will have their own memories and experiences to bring to the book, instead of just my old-memory descriptions. Now they have walked down Pigeon Street themselves, they have heard horses hooves clip-clopping on the cobblestones, they have been to the Small Square and the university, and they have heard the tune, so integral to the plot of the book.

If you’d like to, you can click here to hear the bugle call for yourself too. I’d suggest you pour a glass of tea while you wait (just like in Poland, where tea is drunk from glasses sitting in special metal or wicker holders), because it will take a minute to load. Don’t worry – you won’t mistake the call for your whistling kettle.