Biertan

Today's guest post comes from Cristina and it makes you wonder... 

Copyright: Cristina Voicu

No doubt about it, Biertan has one of my favorite fortified churches in Transylvania. It was the Evangelic Episcopal Seat for 300 years (1572 – 1867), and the religious center for the Saxons in Transylvania. In 1993 it was included in the UNESCO world patrimony.

I first saw it while being in the university, maybe in 1996, to show it to some French friends that visited me. The first comparison that came to mind when seen from the distance was that it looked like Mont Saint Michel. I absolutely loved it and the stories discovered there with the help of the local guide. Especially the one of the Prison Tower, where they locked the couples that wanted to divorce, with one spoon, one plate, one chair, one of everything, till the subjects became "one" again. If I understood right, the solution was very efficient, they didn't succeed in putting back together but one couple in 300 years. Then, they have this absolutely ingenious locking system for the door of the vestry, which has 19 bolts and was awarded at the World Exhibition of Paris in 1900.

Copyright: Cristina Voicu

My story today will be about my second visit to Biertan, an epic one. You take one car (relatively small one - Mitsubishi Colt) with two adults in front (my husband and Gianfranco, our italian friend), in the back seats, two adults (me and my mother) one child and an infant, plus the upper part of the baby's pram. I guess you can picture us stuffed in there. Plus a hot summer day, plus a car without air conditioning. And, the most important: plus... a stubborn-thought to be geographically orientated person aka myself! Instead of taking the main road to Sighişoara and then turn right from Saroş pe Târnave, I was so sure that I knew a shortcut... through Buia. So, I convinced the rest of the expedition to take that road... I don't remember if we had a map or not, the truth is we kind of got lost after Buia. The roads became more and more impracticable, the indications we got from the locals were confusing, the last kilometers were on an earth-carriage-road, boiling in the afternoon sun, baby included! Guess, after all, he was the most fortunate one since he had food and drink supplies at hand... or should I say, mouth? I was still breastfeeding him at that time so, at least he was lucky! The trip took us three long hours, from 12:00 to 15:00, the best hours to enjoy the heat! The good part of this "discover your county" journey was that I still had the power to appreciate the rough beauty of the small, almost deserted villages in the region. I don't know if I am crazy or not but I loved the image of the poverty, it has its poetry that speaks to me!

Eight years later, I look back and think it was the right thing to take the wrong way and I encourage you to take the time and discover the small roads, I guess they must be better by now!

Copyright: Cristina Voicu

Danube Delta

(Source: Wikipedia)

I've never been to Danube Delta. It's supposed to be magnificent. And full of mosquitos, especially at sunset. Until somebody with actual knowledge of the place writes here, I'll share some hearsay. 

Danube Delta is a giant natural reservation where many foreigner come for bird watching or fishing. We don't actually care much for those birds as we do our bird watching in clubs. Needles to say, the inventive locals and Romanian tourists use the miracle place they were gifted with for other purposes: illegal fishing of endangered species with electrical power, sport boat races on channels to see how quick the damn pelicans take off or ripping water lilies for souvenirs. All these really happened in the past and we can only hope that stricter rules will enforce some good behavior. 

If you go there on a trip you must know that the most effective currency is "rachiul" - a local brandy - and everything will taste like fish (including fish itself, of course). Even pork tastes like fish, because that's what it's fed with. Try the fish soup, it's... fishy!

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.

Welcome!

Or wellcome, how our locals like to greet foreigners when they pretend to know English. This is a blog about Romania, well, mostly Sibiu, because I live there. The goal is to make you like and understand my country but also to have some fun reading my stories. The facts here are based on reality - loosely and with a twist.

Let's begin with a comprehensive primer about Romania: it is situated in Central-Eastern Europe and has around 22 million people. The currency is Leu/Lion, who doesn't actually bite anything, he gets kicked in the ass most of the time and we had to cut four zeros from its tail to make it look decent. You have a funny story right there: a country that has and always had lions only at zoo defines its currency in a flamboyantly stupid manner. It could have been called zebra, apache or quasihemidemisemiquaver for the same logical reasons. But, to make the situation even more funny, we could trade names with Botswana because we have plenty of its national currency and they have plenty of lions.

If you've traveled to Italy or Spain, chances are that you've already met some Romanians there, some statistics say that we have around 2 million compatriots living in each of these countries. If you misplaced, lost or got your property stolen it might have ended up here, in Romania. Heck, for all I know my iPod could be yours, especially if your name is Travis. Also, do you remember that online transaction for that cheap, cheap Mustang you made a while ago? Yep, that was us, you never got your car but somebody here bought a nice BMW with your money. Thanks, bro!

You may have heard of Dracula and Transylvania, one of our provinces. Yes, Transylvania is in Romania, I'm positive, certain and firm about this, even if you think of Pennsylvania, they are neither related nor bordering. 

That's all for today, the only hour when we have electric power is about to expire and I have to go back to my cave. One more time: Bienvenue en Roumanie! Yeah, we have Latin ancestors and we like to brag about it. I'll tell you the story about the dacs that came from the tracs later.