"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place...like you'll not only miss the people you love, but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again."
[Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran]
It’s hard to believe this is the end.
Funny, because a few months ago, there were days I thought tonight would never come. But now here it is—the night before we leave Romania. I’m sitting on the floor of the hotel room I’m sharing with Kadie, listening to Romanian Christmas music and trying to gather my thoughts (and my stuff, but I don’t want to talk about packing. Grr, I hate packing).
When I think about the semester, my memories are scattered and too numerous to count. There are so many moments I don’t ever want to forget, scenes and places and people whose faces are imprinted in my mind, who already seem a life apart, in some ways, and who in other ways seem so alive and near that I can’t imagine not seeing them again.
Well, not seeing them again for a while. Maybe I’ll return to Romania.
Oh dear God, I hope so.
Right now, I don’t want to write about leaving. I’m going to write about this weekend in Bucharest (it’s Bucureşti in Romanian) instead. It’s been a memorable one, that’s for sure…
We left Friday at about noon from Lupeni. I went on one last run up Straja Road early Friday morning, which was good for my mental and spiritual health but bad for the state of my packing… it was pouring rain all morning, and I was absolutely drenched by the time I got back. (This also, by the way, resulted in the disapproving glares of many Romanian grandmothers, who shook their heads in frustration at my ignorance, walking outside in the rain without proper clothing… I might miss the over-protectiveness of the elderly population once I return to the States!) Anyway, I quickly had to try to dry my running clothes with fans and radiators so I could pack them, while in the meantime Julie hastily finished packing and Marit and I cleaned Apartment Lucy. (Which also was quite a fiasco, since when Marit tried to pull the trash bag out of the can, the bag broke and spilled all over the kitchen floor… ewwwwwwwww! Coffee grounds plus squash soup plus a moldy pomegranate plus an old pair of shoes plus clementine peels plus various other delights… mmm… we burst out laughing and cleaned it up. If we hadn’t laughed we might have cursed. It was gross.)
Eventually the Bates family arrived and we somehow dragged our enormous suitcases down Lucy’s dank stairwell and loaded up the vans. Tibi, Alice, and Lindsey came to see us off. (And the couple who own ‘Te Quiero,’ the little snack shack at the base of Lucy…) Goodbyes suck. But I’m not focusing on goodbyes yet, remember? So moving on. I rode with Brandi and her two kids, Briana and Gabe. It was really delightful, actually—I remember the same ride, the opposite direction, at the beginning of the semester, sitting in the car with Brandi and Briana and Gabe and Kadie, when Gabe was teething and crying the whole time… that one was pretty tiring. This one was great. Brandi and I talked for most of the trip to Bucureşti, and it was so lovely. Thank You, God, for gentle spirits and friendship!
Bucureşti is the capital of Romania, but it doesn’t really feel much like a capital city to me. Granted, in three days here we certainly haven’t seen it all, but I haven’t yet seen a really modern district of the city or anything. I kinda like it. The weather has been awful—rain on Friday while we drove, downpour all day Saturday, and cold and gloomy today… maybe Romania’s just mourning that we’re leaving. (Haha.) But it’s been fun to explore Bucureşti a bit—Kadie’s friend Graciela has been showing us around, which has been such a joy. And the time here has been a good way to say goodbye to Romania piece-by-piece—first by leaving the place and some of the people who we’ve come love; then gradually by leaving all the people we love here; then finally the country itself. Perhaps this gradual goodbye makes it easier.
Aaah, I’m talking about goodbyes again!
OK. Saturday. We went to the People’s Palace, which is this ridiculously large administrative building Ceauşescu constructed in the center of Bucureşti (the second largest in the world, in fact). It’s… enormous. There are 12 stories above ground, and are supposed to be 8 underground as well, but only four are completed. The building boasts a million cubic meters of Transylvanian marble, and it’s put to good use—the construction is absolutely gorgeous (albeit rather strange—700 different Romanian architects collaborated on the project, so the design is often criticized for having no real architectural style). But since I know nothing about architecture, I simply enjoyed the building in all its splendor. Because it really is spectacular.
The problem with the splendor, of course, is what’s behind it. To build the People’s Palace, Ceauşescu razed 1/5 of the historic city center to the ground. Bucureşti, once the “Paris of Eastern Europe,” had really fallen into disrepair after WWII, and Ceauşescu wanted to rebuild some of its former glory—but in his image. (He had visited North Korea in 1972 and came back enamored with the idea of a personality cult like Kim Il-Sung’s… it was bad news.) So, about 40,000 people were forced out of their homes, and huge parts of the city’s history and culture were destroyed. Construction started in 1983 on this massive project in the city center, which also included a huge boulevard meant to outshine the Champs-Elysees of Paris (by being a meter wider and six meters longer). The building wasn’t completed yet by the time of Ceauşescu’s execution in 1989, despite work crews laboring around the clock, seven days a week. Part of the reason for the delay might be Ceauşescu’s penchant for changing his mind—apparently he’d stop by the construction site and decide that he wanted the stairs a different height, etc., so all sorts of arbitrary changes were made over and over and over again. Obnoxious. The more troubling legacy of the building, however, is that at the same time as Ceauşescu was building the most extravagant project he could dream of, most of his people were starving. So much for the building’s original name—“House of the People” is the English translation. Yeah right.
Because it was still pouring rain when we left the People’s Palace, we changed plans a bit. We stopped at Revolution Square—the place where Ceauşescu gave his last speech in December of 1989—and then headed across the street to an amazing art museum, where we spent hours looking at art from all over Romania (I love the work of Nicolae Grigorescu, by the way… love, love, love). We got soaked again on the way to dinner, but were allowed into the restaurant anyway, even though we looked like drowned rats… and then on the way back to the hotel, were drenched yet again. It was definitely a memorable day.
This morning dawned dry, though still dark and gloomy. We went to an international church, which was wonderful, and after the service grabbed a quick lunch and headed over to the rock gym where Graciela’s brother works. (Her brother is the Balkans champion in bouldering, by the way… so I was rather nervous to meet him.) It was sweet. I’d never bouldered before, and I loved it. I’m not great at it, and I’m definitely not strong enough to be really good… but I loved it. Oh, good times. After a few hours at the gym, we headed back to the hotel to primp quickly before our goodbye dinner with Kadie, Graciela, and the Bates family at this gorgeous downtown restaurant (Caru’ cu Bere… check it out… crazy, huh?).
After dinner, we wandered around a park downtown for a while, enjoying the Christmas lights strung all over the city. Bucureşti is really beautiful at Christmas time—there’s no snow here right now, but the lights are spectacular. It was so festive—the park was filled with couples and friends strolling around, buying food and drink and crafts and Christmas gifts from lighted booths lining the path, the lights twinkling on a giant Christmas tree in the center… lovely. We stopped and began singing a Christmas carol together, just softly, because we were so filled with Christmas spirit (or something)… and suddenly, we were stopped by a reporter and a cameraman, who approached us and asked us to sing for them. We were shocked. So once we stopped laughing, we agreed, and sang a couple carols for the TV crew (and the rapidly-growing little crowd accumulating behind them), and then were briefly interviewed (we were sure to mention the Fundaţia, just in case we got air time… haha). It was hilarious. I never would have expected our last night in Romania to end up potentially getting us on the news… (We didn’t make the cut, by the way… we watched it at midnight. No Romanian fame for us.)
Funny. Altogether, a great weekend. And now? It’s after 2:30 AM, and I should have been in bed hours ago, but I can never sleep the night before traveling, so instead, you get a long and rambling blog post. Sorry to all who read this. It’s late. I’m a little drained.
But excited. Because although the words at the beginning of this post are true, so is the promise God has made to His people over and over again: that He is with us, so we need not be afraid. I’ve been listening incessantly to an Advent song that encapsulates all my emotions pretty perfectly right now: “Follow the Shepherd Home” by Mindy Smith. Look it up. For now, I cling to this promise: that the God who has been faithful to His people for thousands of years, and who has brought me faithfully to and from countries around the world this year, and who brought me through this semester, and who has promised to be faithful to his people forever… I cling desperately to the promise that God will also be faithful in this return to the States, and that I need not be afraid. And so? Hai să mergem. Onward. To new adventures. Through new open doors, to new blank pages. Because God is still writing this story.
When my paper heart’s in a frantic wind
And I feel I’m all alone
My whisper is heard when I call out to Him
And I follow the shepherd home
All the burdens weighing on my back
Aren’t so heavy after all
Faith is knowing, you need to only ask
You can follow the shepherd home
You can follow the shepherd home
When struggles come like they tend to do
I hope still I will not run
I will draw my strength from the well above
And I’ll follow the shepherd home
All the burdens weighing on my back
Aren’t so heavy after all
Faith is knowing, you need to only ask
You can follow the shepherd home
You can follow the shepherd home
When my bones are tired and I’m near the end
I will know I’m not alone
My whisper is heard when I call out to Him
And I’ll follow the shepherd home
All the burdens weighing on my back
Aren’t so heavy after all
Faith is knowing, you need to only ask
You can follow the shepherd home
You can follow the shepherd home
You can follow the shepherd home
You can follow the shepherd home.
[Mindy Smith]
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