Pilgrims' Progress

Brasov, Romania

Church again. This time at our apartment – makes sense – it’s the biggest one!
Almost everyone from the walk yesterday is here and a few more too.
We sing, predominantly in Romanian, but also in German and English. We pray. We open the Bible. And we consider *worship*.

We (Rob and I, not the whole group) have put together a slideshow. It plays….

(and a whole bunch more – this is just a small selection)

(and lots more…)

(and and and….)

We discuss. Someone reads some more Scripture. We pray. We eat together. We talk and listen. Most people leave, but some of the children stay to play. Their parents come back and we sit chatting for another hour.

We answer emails home. Grandpa wonders how we did the slideshow. He confirms that the questions we are being asked here are the same as the ones he’s being asked at home. We are all wondering which pictures to drag out into a short presentation – there are thousands, with a story behind each one!
So we ask you…..if you came round one night and could chat over dinner and then see a few pics, which ones would you like to see? We don’t – and most probably will not – have them in an album to flick through, so you won’t be able to pass quickly over the ones that don’t capture your interest. You’ll have to suffer through all that we pick out! What would interest you? What questions would you want to ask us? (maybe we can answer them in pictures). Also, would you want to know where every shot was taken? (Our Romanian audience surprised us by wanting to know). If you answer, consider yourself invited for a meal and slideshow on our return <wink>

Brasov, Romania

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt, it’s that each country – and in some countries, each city – has its own etiquette for getting from one side of the road to the other.
On our first day in Brasov, one of the first things we needed to do was cross the road. Leo, who had come to pick us up, led the way. We were all standing at the side of the road, backpacks on backs, two big pots on trolley, little children’s hands held tightly. To us, the road appeared to be full of traffic. We were prepared to wait for it to pass. Not Leo. He strode out into the middle of it and it all stopped.
“Come on,” he called back over his fast disappearing shoulder.
Tentatively, we too stepped out.

When we were on our own we were still not as confident as our host. At least, not until we had observed the traffic patterns for a bit. It would seem to us that while a pedestrian can step out and expect the traffic to halt, there is also an underlying etiquette at work. If the traffic is already backed up for people crossing the road when you appear at the curb, it is polite to wait. We find ourselves erring on the side of being too polite, resulting in cars stopping for us and drivers having to urge us across!

We still find ourselves looking the wrong way up the street Just To Make Sure – there have been plenty of countries where it was quite acceptable for vehicles to use any lane in any direction, instilling in us a sense of over-precaution. But until you are familiar with a new place, is it not a matter of better safe than sorry?
Looking the wrong way is completely unnecessary here. People both travel the right way, and as already mentioned, display a propensity to stop if you advance.

One thing that is peculiar to Romania is carparking. Take a look at the contraptions, which line residential streets:

If you want to park there, you’ll need the key to release the lock. Ingenious really.

And while we are talking about parking, would you like to take a look at what’s parked around our area?

Brasov, Romania

“Imitation is the highest form of praise.” Is that sufficient comment to release us from copyright laws regarding one of our favourite books? Hope so….here goes….

We’re going on a bear hunt
We’re going to catch a big one
It’s a beautiful day
We’re not scared (except for ERgirl3, that is)

Uh-oh, a river
A deep wide not-much-more-than-a-stream river
Can’t go over it
Can’t go under it
Oh no, we’ll have to go through it

(well, some of us managed to get OVER, others splashed through!)
splash splosh splash splosh

We’re going on a bear hunt
We’re going to catch a big one
It’s a beautiful day
We’re not scared (although ER keeps checking nothing is following us)

Uh-oh, a mountain
A straight up steep climb mountain
Can’t go under it
Can’t go round it
Oh no, we’ve got to go OVER it

Climb gasp climb gasp
Stop to admire the view
Climb gasp climb gasp

We’re going on a bear hunt
We’re going to catch a big one
It’s a beautiful day
We’re not scared (even ER is having fun, and manages to walk about 8 of the 17km)

Uh-oh, we’re at the top of the mountain and we need to get down to the valley
(…and we’re aware we’ve taken four hours to get this far….and we can see the sun is beginning to set…..)

So we go….
Straight down
Slipping
Straight down
Sliding
Straight down
Concentrating
Straight down
Warning others below us about falling rocks
Straight down
Helping each other
Straight down

If you look really hard, you can see Rob at the bottom of the hill – although actually it’s only about halfway.

At the bottom of the drop we are still above the pine trees
And we haven’t found our bear

We’re going on a bear hunt
We’re going to catch a big one
It’s a beautiful day
We’re not scared (not even ER)

Uh-oh, a forest
A dark green forest
Can’t go over it
Can’t go under it
Oh no, we’ve got to go through it

Stumble trip stumble trip

We’re going on a bear hunt
We’re going to catch a big one
It’s a beautiful day
We’re not scared (although darkenss is beginning to fall and even the big kids ask about bears coming out at dusk)

Uh-oh, a canyon
A deep steep-walled canyon
Can’t go over it
Can’t go under it
Oh no, we’ve got to go through it

Plod plod
As fast as we can
Plod plod

We’re going on a bear hunt
We’re going to catch a big one
It’s a beautiful day
We’re not scared (even though we’ve now realised we will not be back before dark)

Uh-oh, bear country
Possibly real live bear country
Can’t go over it
Can’t go under it
Oh no, we’ve got to go through it

And we even see a bear cave!

Kids’ comments:
Mboy7
It was really funny when I was hiding in the pine trees and rubbing a stick aginst a branch and Dad thought I was a bear – he REALLY did.

Tgirl5
The hardest thing was to get down the slippery bit of hill where the man had to help us. It was quite funny, but we were told to stop laughing and concentrate.

Lboy9
(Mother, wanting someone to mention the whey cheese purchased from a farmer en route, prompts: what was the yummiest part of the day?)
The lollies we were given at the top.

Jgirl15
The thing that surprised me was the houses on the hillside didn’t look adequate for the weather extremes they get there. That, and all the tree-branch fencing made me think of the Hmong villages in Thailand.
We met an old lady (82 years old), who looked quite frail, but there she was, herding a cow. She looked too spindly to stop it, had it chosen to ignore her commands or her stick.

Jboy13
Is there anything to say other than mentioning the climb where you think you’ve reached the top, but it’s only halfway? It was so steep, and it tires me out just thinking about it a day later (new family drama queen in the making!) Actually, the canyon was good cool nice (the linguistic police do not allow these adjectives!) big (that’s hardly any better!), amazing, massive, oh-I’m-lost-for-words, what surprised me is that in some parts of it the stream was running really fast and then in other parts it died down to absolutely no water at all, and then a little further on there would be water again. (Satisfied with this response, mother allows the cinderella to continue sweeping up after dinner – he’s a multi-tasker you know, dictating and sweeping at the same time – and moves on to the smallest family member, hoping for some meaningful contribution to her question, “What can you remember about yesterday’s walk?)

ERgirl3
Didn’t like to walk. Wif da mountains. I can’t rember da….can’t rember it. Dere were chickens and cows and sheep and I heard da cowbells. Da bear was a monster. (Well, that got all the listeners gathered around the table giggling – no wonder she was worried!)

Kgirl10
It was hard going up the very steep hill, but it was fun sliding down the other side. The river water that we drank was very cold and tasted delicious. At the end it was eerie as the rock towered above our heads while we were walking along the dark path. It was one hard climb.

Kboy12
No comment as he is out on the town with Rob while we are writing. (When they get back, they’ll disappointedly tell us they walked 9km and could not find the exhibition they went in search of!)

(And judging by his comments throughout the day and into the evening, Rob would be bound to remark what a man he was! <wink> He might even raise his shirt to display his rippling muscles! But not on the blog, of course.)

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 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:

pic removed due to copyright – we’ll pop out and get our own today

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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)