Oltenia

Today we have a guest post by Gabriela. She forgot to tell you about two important words from her region: zaibar and praz. Maybe next time.

Oltenia. Olteni and oltence! So if I come from Olt County which is part of Oltenia region, then I’m what they call “olteanca”. And by “they” I mean Calin and the rest of the country. Oh wait! Even we call ourselves “olteni”. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Oltenia is located in the south of Romania, bordering Bulgaria. I just want to make sure that you have a clear picture of it… and also to show off a little: the village where the Americans received permission to set up their missiles defense shield is in Oltenia. And since then the other regions bear a grudge against us because everyone has been waiting for the Americans since WW2!

Brief historical info about Oltenia: it all starts with the “dacs that came from the tracs”. Then it continues with the Romans. I guess they didn’t like us much coz we ended up with the Ottomans. I do hope you know who the Ottomans were! Tough luck! They lost us in favor of the Habsburg Monarchy which we thought it was great back then but then we realized that the administration imposed by the Austrians was too rigid for our free spirits. Later, for some reason, the region became the promoter of some revolutions (check out Tudor Vladimirescu’s revolution! How cool is that??). And, finally, the “olteni” crossed the mountains in Transylvania and saved the Transylvanian people. Otherwise, nowadays the Transylvanian people would have had their capital in Vienna or even Budapest. And that would have made a lot of citizens, including Calin, so (un)happy.

The oltenians…oh my God…this is not even a word! Microsoft Word corrected me and made me choose from a bunch of other words including ‘ottomans’. I’ll be darn!! I guess even Word knows our story!!! But anyway, the oltenians are very fine people. Just look at me and you’ll see!

To be continued.

Sibiu

Also called Hermannstadt, my hometown Sibiu is located in the heart of Transylvania and it's a an old saxon city. You may wonder what were the saxons doing in Romania. The accepted theory is that they settled here around year 1500 because of the land but I think they came for the indigenous women, at least that's the only logical conclusion I can draw based on what I see daily in the tourist areas. 500 years later almost all saxons are gone, understandable since there is so much crappy communist beer a German can drink. Oh, I forgot to mention that between Second World War and the end of 1989 the country was under communist rule. No biggie, it's not like it left any huge scars or brought us to the brink of poverty. 

Sibiu is fashionably hip and covered in the newspapers around the globe. We were European Capital of Culture in 2007, a year that will be remembered dearly for centuries to come since nothing big will happen soon. If you come here you will hear stories about 2007 from the moment you step in your first taxi until you reach your destination and you are surprised by how big the fare was. Small town but not cheap, at least if you take a "pirate" taxi.

We were featured in the famous Michelin guide and got 3 stars. We also got 5 stars on the website of Michelin tires. Speaking of stars, we have very nice hotels: Ibis, Golden Tulip, Ramada, Hilton, there is something for each budget and you will find accommodation during the whole year, especially if there is no religious convention, rally, enduro race, hard rock festival, theater festival, jazz festival, medieval festival, porn convention (we wish) in town.

Being so fond of our germanic origin we elected in year 2000 a mayor of saxonic descent to make the city run like clockwork and we kept him since.  Some say that he transformed Sibiu in the nicest place in Romania, others like to remember the old tender Romanian saying that saxons are of four types: with glasses, with backpack, with bicycle or plain stupid. I just know that I've never seen him with glasses or backpacking, but on occasion he rides a bike.