Sunday, October 31, 2010

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…)

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