Fall break, part four.

City number four: Pisa, Italy.

Honestly, we went to Pisa for the afternoon for only one purpose: to see the famous leaning tower.  Thus, I feel like a bit of a tourist in talking about it, and I hate feeling like a tourist... but the tower was pretty sweet...

City number five: Milan, Italy.

We spent Tuesday afternoon in Pisa (we walked around for a long time looking for the tower, finally spotted it, talked to some Kenyans who were convinced we were from Norway, and enjoyed the palm trees [!!] and sunshine and hoards of tourists...).  From there, we had a long drive up the western coast of Italy to get to Milan, where we were spending the night before our flight to Hungary left on Wednesday morning.  The drive along the sea was beautiful.  Every time we caught a glimpse of the swath of blue, we'd squeal "The sea! The sea!" and frantically try to take pictures before our view was obscured by the inevitable truck or fence or tree or tunnel... it never really worked.  But I loved seeing the water, stretching out into the horizon.  It was a great place to end the Great Italian Roadtrip (as I began calling this adventure in my head).  

 Some of Italy's countryside is magnificent.

When we got to Milan, however, our blissful seaside afternoon faded a bit.  We had no map and no directions to the hostel, and though wandering had worked in Timişoara, I wasn't optimistic about it working as well in a car... so we stopped at the airport and Julie and I ran in to grab one while Tad and Marit and Zach drove around trying to avoid paying for parking.  When we got back in, we still had no idea where the hostel was, so eventually we just called them.  I explained our situation--where I thought we were, basically--and he agreed to help give us directions.  But my conversation with the guy went something like this:

Hostel dude:  Do you see street 'something-muttered-quickly-in-Italian'?

Me:  Uhh... (frantically looking) ... no.

Hostel dude:  (Audible sigh.)  OK, do you see the street 'something-else-muttered-incomprehensibly'?

Me:  Uhh... (frantically looking) ... could you spell that?

This game lasted quite a while, until finally I found one of the streets he was naming--in the uppermost right corner of the map.  Everything else he'd said was off the map, which apparently only covered the city center and the closest neighborhoods--not far enough out for where we needed to be.  Oh well; we had him give us street-by-street directions and promised we'd be there pretty soon.

But then we realized that we didn't actually know where we were on the map.  We knew we were at one of the three regional airports, but suddenly I noticed that it wasn't actually on the map--the spot I'd been looking at was a bus station by the same name.  We'd started driving by this point, but Tad had pulled into a park.  As we drove slowly around the park, confusedly trying to orientate ourselves, an old man on a bicycle came up alongside us.  "Pull over!" I told Tad.  The poor guy did, confused, and I rolled down my window.  "Scuzi," I began, causing the old man on the bike to practically crash.  He recovered quickly, though, and turned to help us... but when I asked if he spoke Spanish or English or Romanian, his answers were all no.  Just Italian.  Cool.  Pretty soon, though, he was directing us back down towards the road, acting out an airplane with his arms outstretched, then as a train by making a "choo-choo" noise, then rapidly explaining directions, his hand jabbing right and left and right again... we were a bit confused, but so was he; he kept sticking his nose in the window, craning to see the map, asking if any of us had glasses he could borrow to read the small print.  Needless to say, it wasn't the most helpful advice we'd ever gotten, but it was certainly the friendliest, and definitely entertaining.  We did what he said, though, as best we could figure out.  And eventually we made it to the hostel!

Wednesday morning we left pretty early to make it to the airport on time (a different airport this time, a good 45 minutes away) and to return the rental car.  We had to fill it with gas first, though, and there were no gas stations close to the airport, so we spent a long time wandering around Bergamo.  Finally we found one, which was conveniently located next to a gelato shop... needless to say, we though that would be a fitting breakfast.  Then we drove off to the airport to hurry up and wait.

Soon I found myself sitting on the hard plastic chair of the Milano-Bergamo airport, waiting to check in for our flight to Budapest.  Next to me was a young couple with a cute blond-haired daughter who looked about two; they were speaking Hungarian and making faces at their little girl, who was squealing in delight at the game of peek-a-boo.  Soon she turned to me, curious, so I joined in.  (Duh, what else would I do?)  Soon she was shrieking in delight--I told her she'd be a soprano someday--turning her face from her mother to me, watching us smile and wink and generally look ridiculous for her amusement.  It was great fun.  Eventually, however, my two-year-old friend got bored and toddled off with her mother, so her dad turned to me to talk.  In perfect English, he asked me why I was flying to Budapest, and we started what ended up being a long conversation about all sorts of things.  (I really like talking to strangers.  Sorry, Mom and Dad...)  One thing he said was really interesting, though.  I mentioned that I was living in Romania; he asked where.  I answered that I was in southern Transylvania, in the Jiu Valley, and immediately his eyebrows furrowed.  "So you're in Hungarian territory," he replied.  "No, no, it's Romania," I explained.  "No, Transylvania used to be Hungarian land," he continued.  He went on to explain that Romania had stolen the territory from Hungary, that it was rightfully his country's, and then asked if there were any ethnic Hungarians living in the Jiu Valley.  "Only a few," I replied.  He scowled and shook his head and changed the subject.  

The topic's a touchy one, especially on this side of the border.  To Romanians, Transylvania has always been one of the three kingdom-regions of Romania, albeit a more independent one than Moldavia and Wallachia.  It switched from Hungarian to Romanian rule more than once in its history, including one time in which Hitler signed it away to Hungary (as if he had the right).  I suppose the topic's a bit more sensitive in Hungary because they came out on the losing side of the territory question.  In northwestern Romania it's a can of worms as well, but perhaps they can afford a bit more grace since the national boundary lines are now pretty firmly drawn.  Regardless, it's an interesting question.  Talking with the Calvin students in Budapest about it has been interesting, since they've only been fed the Hungarian perspective.  I have to admit my pro-Romanian bias, but still... interesting.

Fall break, part three.

City number three: Florence, Italy.

Florence is stunning.  Seriously.

So.  The rest of Monday... we drove south to Florence, passing through places I'd only imagined: vineyards in northern Italy, stretching out towards the horizons, wet under a dripping gray sky; the city of Bologna; yellow-green autumn mountains as we approached Florence, terraced into strips of green, punctuated by the occasional red-roofed stucco villa.  We arrived in Florence mid-afternoon.  Tad was driving; I was navigating.  Thankfully, we had picked up a city map at a rest stop--without it we probably would still be driving aimlessly around the city.  Honestly, I have probably never been so stressed out in my whole life (though Tad did a great job, and I was pretty proud of myself for keeping our bearings and staying calm--well, mostly calm; there were a few moments, but those will have to be discussed in person and not published online... yeah.  Don't worry, Mom and Dad.  We're all alive and in one piece.)  Florence is absolutely gorgeous.  Like, the architecture is breathtaking.  We found our hostel--it's a big, popular youth hostel right in the center of the city--and headed out exploring (after Tad and I collapsed for a little breather).  I'll put up some pictures so you can see--there's so much beauty here.

But perhaps the most poignant image I have of Florence is beautiful in a different way.  Or maybe beautiful isn't the right word at all, come to think of it.  We were walking down the street towards the city's central square, down this windy, narrow cobblestone street with huge beautiful buildings towering over us.  The buildings house expensive shops: Gucci, Louis Vitton, etc., etc. (I don't really know what I'm talking about when it comes to high fashion).  And at one corner, there was a man begging, prostrate on the ground as if praying, with a small cup in front of him.  There was one lonely euro in the cup.  Yet he was surrounded by wealth.  He was begging in front of a store where women buy extraneous purses for hundreds or thousands of dollars--no offense--yet his cup was empty.  I could have cried.  Or maybe gagged.  Commercialism and materialism have been eating at me this semester, as I find myself given a living stipend every two weeks to do what I want with.  I could just buy chocolate bars and pastries (I do, sometimes).  Or I could tithe it (though honestly, I don't know how to at some of the churches I've attended).  Or I could give it to the poor and the hungry who beg around Lupeni.  It's not a long-term solution, but since when does that excuse me from acts of mercy and charity?  It doesn't.  I have more to write about this, but now's not the time.  I'll try to remember.  If anyone has any wisdom to offer... please do.

One other vivid memory.  We were walking through the central square in the city (where there's a carousel!) when we passed by two easels with beautiful hand-drawn portraits displayed on them.  We stopped to admire them, and quickly were greeted by the artist, a ponytailed graying man from Albania wearing a yellow turtleneck, purple sweater, and grayish jacket.  He spoke great English, and seemed excited to talk... and talk and talk and talk.  We barely got a word in edgewise over the 20 minutes we stood there (though I really wanted to respond sometimes!) as he talked to us about art and anarchy and the idiots who run Florence and the idiots who run Washington, D.C., and how the Jews are wrecking America's economy and the Mexicans are destroying Los Angeles (what the heck?! that's when I really wanted to retort...) and so on... it was quite the blur of opinions and stories from this anti-communist, anarchist, Albanian artist man.  But at the end he said something really interesting.  I tried to extract ourselves by complimenting his art, and he looked at me and said, "Nah.  You are beautiful.  You are art.  I just sometimes get lucky capturing it."  I didn't know exactly what to make of his comment, but the sentiment struck me--how true it is, that people themselves, unadorned and honest, are art.  People are beautiful.  Their stories, no matter how tangled, are a form of art; their lives and hopes and dreams and personalities are individually creative and profound.  Humanity is art.  It makes sense: after all, we were sculpted, originally, by a pretty good Artist...

Later Tad and Julie and I ended up splitting from Zach and Marit and walking around other places, eventually finding a place to eat dinner (thanks to the ridiculous antics of a maitre'd outside of this outdoor restaurant, who flapped his arms and menus at us until we couldn't help but go talk to him, and then sweet-talked us into eating there with the promise of a meal and glass of wine for only 10 euros... it ended up being a really good choice, though).  We wandered around for a while longer, but by the time we got back to the hostel we were pretty much ready for bed. 

The next morning (Tuesday) we got up early to head to one of Florence’s many art museums.  We’d been told to avoid the biggest one if we only had a morning to stay, so instead of the super-enormous one, we went to the museum that has the original of Michelangelo’s statue of David.  Thankfully we got there early enough to only stand in line for a little while, and student tickets are pretty cheap… so there we were, touring an art museum in Florence, Italy, until we’d investigated every nook and cranny.  It was amazing, even for someone who knows next to nothing about art.  I wished Jack had been there… heck, I wish all of you had been there (whoever’s reading this blog, that is).  If you ever get the chance, Florence is wonderful… you should go.

When we finally left the museum, we headed to the city’s central market.  Mostly I bought fruit—including the best pears I’d ever eaten, seriously—but I actually found a couple gifts, too, which was exciting… I hate shopping.  Especially for souvenirs.  So I rarely bring stuff home, unless it strikes me as something a particular person would really love… and in this case it did.  Small victory.  The larger victory was getting out of Florence alive… I think we all breathed a sigh of relief once the rental car was safely outside city limits on the highway again.  So we were off... to Milano, with a slight detour on the way for an afternoon in Pisa!

Fall break, part two.

City number two: Treviso, Italy.

Canals in Treviso.

A lot of memorable moments in Treviso… such as renting a car.  But I’ll get to that story in a second.  First of all, we arrived in Treviso on Sunday afternoon, touching down in the rain.  It had been warm and sunny when we left Romania, so the change in weather was a little disappointing, but still… it was Italy!  Julie and I just about freaked when it suddenly hit us where we were.  We were picked up and brought to our hostel by the owner; the room we’d booked ended up being more of a little apartment for the five of us, which was nice.  We explored the city that evening (and ate pizza [mine had eggplant and mushrooms and tomatoes and zucchini and it was awesome] and gelato [welcome to Italy!]), and walked back in the rain, trying to avoid stepping on these huge, nasty slugs that suddenly appeared everywhere.  (I crunched one and squealed, I was so surprised…)

A rainy night leaving the city center.

Then at about 10 Monday morning, Julie and Marit and I were picked up at our hostel by a friend of the owner, and were brought to the airport so we could pick up the car Marit had reserved for our grand road trip around Italy.  It was pouring rain, and the woman driving us didn't speak anything but Italian, but if I spoke slowly in Spanish and she spoke slowly in Italian, we could communicate well enough to figure out where we were supposed to leave the keys to the room, etc.   So eventually the three of us arrived at the airport and headed to the Budget desk.  Our first issue was that Marit hadn't printed out the correct forms--well, she printed one copy of them, but it printed so small you had to use a magnifying glass to read it--but that was the only copy she had, so we sheepishly offered that to the lady.  Thankfully she was a good sport and took it anyway.  (Whew.)  Then, Marit didn't have enough money on her credit card to back up the purchase, so Julie had to pay, but Julie had left her passport at the hostel, and neither card would work, and technically only the person who made the reservation can pay, and on and on and on... so for a good half-hour the poor lady working at the desk had to bend rules and call people and bend over backwards to help us out.  But eventually everything was miraculously resolved (I stood there helplessly praying the whole time, so I'm really attributing it to the miraculous).  We got a key and a license plate number and walked out to the lot.  It was still pouring rain, and my umbrella is really small, so by the time we had walked the quarter-mile to the parking lot to find our car, we were all pretty wet.  We started looking... and looking... and looking... it wasn't in the lot.  Anywhere.  So there we stood, water dripping off us, slightly miserable and praying for a solution... ugh.  We had just decided to head back to the rental desk and ask the woman about it, when we looked up and saw a person arrive in the lot on bicycle.  It was the lady from the rental desk!  She asked us if we'd found it (uh, no) and helped us look; when she determined it wasn't there she loaded us all in her personal car and drove us a good few miles away to the place they clean out the cars once they're returned--nowhere near the airport.  It was there!  We almost kissed the car, we were so glad to see it--and I really would have given the woman a bear hug if I could have.  I think God chose to put an angel at the Budget desk this morning.

God kept showing up on this trip, providing for us in really tangible ways: our hostels working out, finding cheap and delicious places to eat, providing someone who speaks English at just the point where we really need help, etc.  I guess I had forgotten that God answers prayers really concretely--or I had forgotten until the rental car lady showed up on a bicycle in the pouring rain this morning.  I don't think I'll forget again soon.

Fall break, part one.

I’m having trouble figuring out a good way to summarize fall break.  I’ve been keeping track of some of the most memorable moments, hoping I can capture little stories in some way, but now that we’re finally home and I’m sitting in Apartment Lucy in Lupeni, the idea of writing out all that’s happened over the course of the week seems incredibly daunting.  So I’ll do it in chunks by city, I think, and eventually I’ll maybe get around to posting them all… that’s the hope anyway!  Hang with me.  Good stories are coming, I promise.  In installments.

City number one: Timişoara, Romania.

We left Lupeni early Saturday morning to catch a maxi-taxi to Petroşani and, from there, a bus to Timişoara.  Not super eventful. At the time we were all a little nervous, I think, about figuring out travel logistics, but once we were securely on the bus heading northwest, we all dozed off.  We were traveling light—just regular backpacks—but our first order of business when we arrived in Timişoara was still to find the hostel and try to drop off our stuff.  Unfortunately, we’d neglected to print out directions to the hostel we’d booked for the night, and we didn’t think to find a map of the city… so, on a few scant clues (namely the hostel’s promise that it was “five minutes from the student center”) we set off trekking.  We realized pretty quickly that Timişoara is rather, well, huge, and that this would be a long wild-goose change if we didn’t ask for directions.  That endeavor is always interesting—I’m not shy at all, but my Romanian isn’t very good, so I usually just nod and smile and piece together what’s going on well enough to get by.  With directions that doesn’t work so well.  Thankfully I know the words for ‘left’ and ‘right’ and ‘up’ and ‘down’… unfortunately, I also learned what people look like when they’re telling you you’re an idiot and going the wrong way.  Oh well.  Generally people were really nice.  Plus, my confidence in speaking and comprehension went way up as the afternoon progressed... and it was a nice way to explore the city.  Timişoara is really beautiful.  Of all the cities we’ve visited in Romania, it’s the one I can see myself living in most easily. 

Anyway, we walked for hours.  Literally.  I found it pleasant, actually (I thoroughly enjoy getting misplaced and exploring until I figure out where I am).  But it was a little ridiculous—after getting directions from at least seven different people, we had made a complete circle and found ourselves at the bus station again.  From there, it was a short walk to our hostel—in the opposite direction of the way we had started.  Whoops… oh well.  Like I said, Timişoara’s really pretty!  Plus, Zach found a McDonald’s while we were walking and got ridiculously excited, so eventually we headed back for dinner and ate surprisingly-delicious overpriced Western fast food.  And then we hung out by the river, and in a park that was technically probably closed.  Mm.  What a night.

 At the edge of the river in the park.

Sunday morning I woke up early to spend some time alone with God before our flight to Italy.  I was curled up under a blanket, reading on the patio outside our room, when I heard a door open and shut; I looked up to see a middle-aged man come out of one of the other rooms and walk furtively across the patio to another door.  He pounded on it enthusiastically, chortling to himself and berating whoever was inside in some language I didn’t really understand.  I sat there and watched, laughing, just waiting for him to turn around and realized he had an audience.  His friend yanked open the door and yelled at him, both of them dissolving into laughter, and then pulled his head back inside.  The other man, still chuckling, turned to sit and wait, and saw me watching them… and laughed.  Then, instead of sitting down across the patio, he came right over to me, crouched on the ground in front of me, and said hello… in Italian. 

I don’t speak Italian.

But I do speak Spanish, and English, and some Romanian… so between those three and his enthusiastic facial expressions and hand gestures, I was able to figure out most of what he was trying to say.  (I gotta say, the stereotype about expressive Italians?  Definitely true of this man.)  Anyway, he and his friend were from Sicily, and came to Timişoara to get dental work done.  Apparently it costs an arm and a leg in Italy and the quality’s no better, so they grab a cheap flight into Romania and make a trip of it instead.  (Flights from Romania to Italy are less than 20 US dollars, by the way, if you fly Wizz Air… that’s what we did.)  He went on and on, both of us laughing at the ridiculousness of our communication—we probably looked like failed mimes, both of us flapping around and using excessive facial expressions, speaking in a jumble of Italian-Spanish-Romanian-English… hilarious.  Eventually he invited me to come visit Sicily and stay in his home on the coast, but I declined, saying that my four friends were still sleeping and I couldn’t leave them.  (By now I think we’d woken them up with our antics, but that’s beside the point.)  It was great.  I realized that I've become an utter linguistic mess.  My brain is currently trying to sort through Romanian, English, Spanish (and pieces of Italian and Hungarian, now).  I usually end up accidentally mixing them all into some wild cocktail that probably makes no sense to anyone but me... sigh…

Eventually we all got up, got our act together, took taxis to the airport, and flew to Italy.  (I never thought I’d say that…)

A little game of catch-up.

OK, technically it’s not Friday anymore.  Technically it’s Saturday now, which is unfortunate because it means I’m up way too late to get a sufficient amount of sleep for a 5:45 alarm tomorrow morning.  But such is the life… I’m a major procrastinator when it comes to packing, and we’ve been gone all week and will be traveling all next week as well, so tonight has been the only real night to catch up on emails and logistical details that have been postponed for a long time.  And since I promised Hunter and Maria a new blog post, I’ll write a brief summary of the last week.  Maybe I’ll throw in a few good stories, and definitely some pictures… so here goes!

We left Lupeni last Friday to travel north to Cluj-Napoca, a large city in the northwest of the country that boasts a prestigious university and a lot of beautiful architecture and culture.  The drive was lovely—Romania’s forests catch fire in the autumn, with the leaves turning breathtaking shades of red and yellow and orange.  As we drove the switchbacks through mountain passes in Transylvania, it was all I could do to keep from drooling on the window next to me, I was so enthralled by the view.  At one point, we came off the summit of a mountain pass and the trees cleared out for a moment, opening up into the valley below and the mountains off in the distance.  It was foggy and evening was rolling in, so the trees on distant hills were silhouetted with an eerie backlight from the setting sun, while the trees closer to us in the valley below retained their vibrant color, half-hidden in shrouds of fog.  Transylvania is beautiful.  Absolutely beautiful.

 Scenery.

The time in Cluj was really wonderful.  We arrived Friday night in time for the IMPACT ball, an annual event celebrating what’s going on in the 40-plus IMPACT clubs in and around Cluj.  I knew there would be some kids from Viaţa there, but I wasn’t prepared to see two of my co-leaders and three of the girls from my group at the ball—they came rushing at me out of their seats, practically tackling me with hugs and exuberant kisses on the cheek, all of us talking at once in our excitement to see each other.  It was a beautiful moment; I didn’t want to say good-bye.  When I leave Romania in December, part of my heart will stay behind, I think.  I love the land and the mountains and the sky and the forests, but even more I love the people who have become part of my life here.  The week in Cluj with some old Viaţa folks was great for that.

Much of our time in Cluj was spent walking around, enjoying the sights of the big city.  (It’s amazing how awed we were at civilization after living in Lupeni for a while!  And it worries me a bit about returning to the States… I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle going to Meijer… I might faint from exhaustion at all the options!).  Cluj is a really beautiful city, and despite the clouds and rain, I really enjoyed getting to know it a bit.  Our very first night there we stopped at a fountain in the central town square, where there’s a statue of Avram Ioncu (the Romanian national hero who helped reclaim Transylvania from Hungarian rule) in a big fountain.  Lovely classical music plays continuously from speakers in the square, couples cuddle on benches, colored lights illuminate the gushing water, and it’s simply beautiful.  So of course, we decided to dance for a bit, spinning and twirling like ballerinas to the music.  And then, being with a bunch of Viaţa leaders, we decided to do some energizer games… so pretty soon we were playing Ninja and Samurai and Tarzan and Boom-chicka-boom at the top of our lungs, right in front of the fountain, as the music serenaded us and couples stared at us aghast.  I think Avram Ioncu looked down from the statue approvingly, though… and it was certainly a lot of fun.

 Me, Marit, and Julie admire the fountain...

 Cluj's National Theater.

Feeding pigeons in the square.

The other highlight of the time in Cluj, for me, was the time spent at Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai.  We had three guest lecturers present to us on various topics, all of them amazing social scientists, and I loved it.  One thing I’ve learned this semester—ironically enough, since one of my classes is on experiential and non-formal education—is that I really love traditional educational settings.  I really do like school.  And I really do love what I study—I miss Calvin international relations classes!  So being back in an academically-rigorous setting felt familiar and was really enjoyable, even if just for a couple days.  (I am really starting to embrace non-formal education, for sure… but still.  Nerdiness is a hard habit to break.)

After a few good days in Cluj, we headed even further north to Sighet, a smaller city in the far north of Romania which is the birthplace of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel!  I’ve always admired him, so visiting his birthplace was an awesome—albeit sobering—experience.  Sighet is also home to Romania’s best museum on communism, where we spent hours.  Unfortunately, Romania hasn’t done a great job preserving the truth about the legacy of communism, which is interesting—a recent poll revealed that a large majority of Romanians are nostalgic for the past.  I suppose that it makes some sense: if you live in a time of massive unemployment (like now), you’ll naturally long for the years when employment was guaranteed, as it was under communism.  But to gloss over all the systemic evils of the system would do a great disservice to the memories of the millions of people who died under communist rule around the world in the 20th century.  The museum in Sighet was a sobering reminder of that fact.  

Victims of Communism Museum.

From Sighet, we drove a bit farther north to Săpânţa, a small village only 2 ½ miles from the Ukrainian border (I really, really, really wanted to go to the Ukraine…).  Săpânţa is world-famous for the Merry Cemetery, this crazy collection of brightly-colored crosses that adorn all the graves around the town’s Orthodox church.  A local artist spent his life creating these monuments to the dead, each one bearing a poem (usually kinda tongue-in-cheek) and a painting commemorating a significant moment in the deceased’s life.  The cemetery is supposed to reveal a unique peasant attitude towards death: not so much as a loss to be mourned, but as a life to be celebrated.  Hmm… there’s some good food for thought there, but it’s too late at night for me to wax philosophical, so I’m gonna table that discussion for another time.

Merry Cemetery.

 Merry Cemetery.

All in all, it was a great week.  We arrived home last night and spent today in class, figuring out last-minute logistics for fall break, and having a reunion with our homestay families (hooray!).  Tomorrow we leave bright and early for eight days in Italy and Hungary, so I’ll be back after that.

Drum bun!  Şi noapte bună.

La mulţi ani.

Yesterday (Sunday) was an eventful day.  It was the birthday of my host father (Florin), which in Romania entails massive celebration—plus, it was the first time I’ve ever been to church in Hungarian, the first time I’ve climbed a tree in a dress, my first slumber party in Romania, and the first time I’ve been offered ţuica by my host grandpa.  Talk about a full day…

So first things first.  I think I may have found a church!  Yesterday morning Marit and I joined Tad and Julie and Julie’s host brother Mani at the Reformed church in Lupeni, which happens to be in Hungarian.  (It’s hard enough to go to church in Romanian, where I pick up about one in ten words, but in Hungarian?!  There is no language in the world that’s related to Hungarian!!!)  Hungarians are an ethnic minority in Romania—there’s an interesting story about their origins in the country, actually, as Transylvania has been swapped between the two nations for years and years (usually with fierce nationalistic anger on both sides).  There’s really no hope of me learning enough Hungarian this semester to understand anything at the Reformed church (ahem, there’s probably no hope of me learning any Hungarian this semester, really…).  But I might go there anyway.  The building itself is beautiful and simple, with big windows that let the October morning sunshine stream through.  The sides of the church are segregated by gender, something I’ve come to expect at Protestant churches here.  But we sat up in the balcony by the organ, where men and women are allowed to sit together (though there were only five other people up there).  From up high we had a good vantage point of the service and didn’t feel nearly as conspicuous as I have in all the other churches we’ve visited.  It was refreshing.  Plus, the service was much more orderly than in the Pentecostal church and the Orthodox church, where for two or three hours you’re practically doing calisthenics, what with all the kneeling and standing and sitting and kneeling… it’s unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable.  Not that I don’t think worship shouldn’t be uncomfortable—on the contrary, I know it’s important to do things in worship that push me outside of the place where I’m comfortably residing.  It’s the presence of the LORD, after all.  But honestly, in this place where everything is a bit unfamiliar (even if by now it doesn’t feel that way), to spend an hour in a familiar rhythm of singing hymns, rising for prayer, and sitting for the reading of Scripture and a sermon was truly soothing to my soul.  The organist played a hymn to the tune of “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” and I cried.  How Good and restoring it was to be able to sing along—even if I was singing in the wrong language.

When I got home from church, I was shocked: there was a jeep sitting in the yard outside my host family’s house, with five strangers standing around outside, chatting with Florin and my host grandpa (who was a bit happy from ţuica—Romanian plum brandy, basically moonshine—and gave me the most jovial welcome home I’ve probably ever received).  I know my host family has friends, and I remembered it was Florin’s birthday; I just didn’t think the festivities would have started yet.  But from that point on—so from noon until 7 pm—there was a steady stream of well-wishers at our house on the mountain, all of them bearing gifts and coming to wish Florin la mulţi ani (happy birthday)!  Andreea and I had made food until 11 pm the night before, and I was glad to see it being enjoyed—potato salad with carrots and pickles and chicken and peas, delicious mashed potatoes, broiled chicken, bread (of course), and a pretty amazing prajitura—this fantastic concoction of ladyfingers, peaches, pineapple, yogurt, and whipping cream, essentially.  It was great.  The ţuica and bere were flowing like mad, though, so eventually Marit and I decided to make an escape and get some fresh air (Marit’s host parents were invited because they’re good friends with Florin and Andreea, and it was really nice to have another American there).

I’d been wanting to go exploring up into the far reaches of my farm since I’d gotten here, but every attempt had been dissuaded.  When I asked Mădălina once, she just looked appalled and said, “Nu! Câine rau!” (which means, No!  Bad dog! … and was enough to persuade me to stay off the trails by myself).  But with Marit alongside, and with a beautiful October afternoon just begging me to go exploring, I could no longer resist.  So we climbed up, and up, and up… eventually crawling over the last fence onto a narrow trail, which is clearly used infrequently.  It opened up into the most beautiful scenery I could ever imagine—a clearing on a little plateau amidst the mountains, all of which are currently covered in orange and red and lime-green leaves.  The sun was shining, the sky was bright blue, the grass in the meadow was golden and basking in the sun… I was glad I was still wearing my dress from church, so I could frolic and skip with my hair and skirt breezing behind me.  It was pretty idyllic.  We decided to follow one of the trails into the woods, and came across a beautiful climbing tree that we promptly climbed.  (It required me taking off my dress to scale it, but don’t worry, I had a tank top and pants underneath!)  We sat up there enjoying the sunshine and the colors and the quiet for a while, then eventually headed back home.  We were afraid we’d miss the prajitura.

Sunday night, then, as soon as all the merrymakers had left our farm, Florin and Andreea both hustled off to work—they both had to work the night shift, from seven to seven.  That left Mădălina and I to clean up and wash dishes (which, now that we have hot water in the kitchen, Mădă didn’t mind at all).  After that we read Bambi in Romanian, listened to soothing music on my laptop, got skyped by my parents in Iowa (and found out from Grandma and Grandpa, who were visiting, that Maria reads this blog aloud to Aunt Kris every week… hi guys!).  Eventually we fell asleep, both of us snuggled into my couch-bed.  It was lovely to have a little sister again.  Kendra, I miss you.

And this morning we woke up at 6:40 to get ready for school—so I walked Mădă down the mountain, hand-in-hand in the freezing cold, brought her into her classroom in the school building which is constantly teeming with running Romanian children, and headed to class for the day.  We had class all morning, then spent the afternoon preparing to move into the apartment on Thursday (and got to skype with Jack, hooray), and then spent the evening at my IMPACT club.  And now I’m watching the internet light flash on and off, waiting for it to stabilize so I can send an email to the registrar at Calvin and so I can eventually post this novel.  I have a lot more I want to write—about begging, and individualism, and community, and theology, and all these other things on my mind… but this is long already, and it’s fast approaching 11 pm, so I’m wrapping up.  Noapte buna.  Voi iubesc.

Wisdom.

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.  Do justice, now.  Love mercy, now.  Walk humbly, now.  You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.       

[the Jewish Talmud]

A few pictures.

Since I haven't posted any pictures in a while, here are some shots from Horezu and Tirgu Jiu, where we went last Friday.  Enjoy.

Horezu is home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site: this monastery.

Horezu is also famous for its beautiful pottery:

Tirgu Jiu is the childhood home of Constantin Brâncuşi, a famous Romanian sculptor.

This is the Tower of Infinity.

And this was the view one morning as we walked to class!