http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily ~ a long way to go ~ Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:06:30 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Brasov, Romania 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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/if-you-go-up-in-the-woods-today.html Brasov, Romania …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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/when-everything-goes-wrong.html Brasov, Romania 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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/17-nov-hard-to-say.html Brasov, Romania 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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/16-nov-new.html Brasov, Romania 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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/15-no-snow-its-raining.html Brasov, Romania 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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/14-november.html night bus from Budapest, Hungary to Brasov, Transylvania (Romania) 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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/success-in-budapest.html Budapest, Hungary 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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/a-tale-of-two-cities.html Budapest, Hungary 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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/moving-again.html Krakow, Poland 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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/kiwifamily/dooo-do-do-doo.html