open doors and blank pages: Friends, birthdays, travel, and skiing.

Jack and I have been traveling a bit lately, so sorry for the neglect of the blog. We'll try to play a bit of catch-up in the next few days, as a number of interesting things have happened and made us ponder. But for now, a few pictures and tales from our latest adventure!

On Valentine's Day, we took the bus from Târgu Mureș to Cluj, Romania's second-largest city which is about two hours west. Cluj is a gorgeous city with a well-maintained historic center, a hub for higher education and fine arts in the country. FNO has an office there, because there are dozens and dozens of IMPACT clubs in the Cluj area, and they typically send a lot of kids to the Viața camp in the summer, too -- so we'd been wanting to visit, meet the FNO staff, and do a bit of exploring. Plus, my dear friend Alyssa was coming in to Cluj by train on the night of the 14th so we could spend a long weekend together before she flew back home to the States. So many good reasons to go!

Look at what we found in Cluj!

We picked Alyssa up at the train station late on the night of the 14th, wandered back to our cool hostel in the old city wall (yeah!), and then left early on the morning of the 15th to take the bus down to Lupeni for the rest of the weekend. Traveling by bus in Romania is easy, and for us has thus far proved to be faster, cheaper, and more convenient than train -- so we were happy to throw our bags under the bus and settle into its comfortable seats for the six-hour journey south to the mountains.

And what a lovely weekend we had. It was my 23rd birthday on the 18th, so our time in Lupeni was full of fun surprises from Jack and Alyssa and the dear friends we have in Lupeni: a day of skiing on Straja, the mountain which towers over Lupeni; an evening of making crafts to make our home cozy (Jack knew exactly what I wanted!); an afternoon at the Bates' with not one but two surprise birthday desserts; and on our last night together before Alyssa flew out (in Cluj again), a fabulous Indian dinner at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant at which we and a food reviewer were the only patrons. We got to meet Felipe and Janelle, the other young couple who have just moved to Lupeni and are also committed to at least three years with FNO, and a number of other wonderful people -- we are so excited to move back to the Jiu Valley in April and be a part of that community! But more on that later.

Alyssa and Kelly and a lot of tasty Indian food.

Brandi, Briana, and Gabe's fabulous birthday creations: carob cake with apple and quince

and berry muffins -- all from Lupeni's summer bounty.

Skiing deserves a bit more attention than the passing mention in the previous paragraph. I grew up cross-country skiing with my family in Iowa, but habitually fell down when I attempted to go down hills, which didn't seem to bode well for picking up the downhill version of the sport. I'd only downhill skiied once in my life, and that was three and a half years ago, in Michigan, where there aren't very imposing mountains. Jack had never skiied in his life. But Alyssa's really good, so we decided to go -- and it was, well, entertaining.

We took this picture before we started, hence the not-covered-in-snow thing.

I should preface this by saying that Alyssa was a fabulous and patient teacher. She would nicely wait and watch from behind as Jack and I gingerly snowplowed our way down the slope, then swoop up gracefully when we nosedived into the snow and only laugh a little bit as she helped pull us back upright. At least at first. Eventually she decided to meet us at the bottom and then stood there taking video of us while we tottered and toppled our way to the end... what a good friend. (I've thought about posting that video here, because it's actually really hilarious, but I think the internet is too slow here for that to work. Thankfully.) But in our defense, the bottom of the slope we were on (and yes, we were too chicken to ski any more than just the one same hill over and over) was icy and steep and there was a huge line of skiers standing at the bottom waiting to get on the lift, and I was terrified of crashing into them. Alyssa promised I'd be able to stop before I hit anyone, but I wasn't willing to take the chance... so I fell down with 100 meters to go, just to be safe.

Jack and Kelly learn to snowplow...

The bottom of the hill = huge line of skiers waiting for the lift.

I've never skied in Colorado or the Alps or anywhere fancy, but I can presume it's different in Romania. For one thing, Straja is a crowded little village where the roads aren't plowed and the sidewalks (if they exist) aren't shoveled -- which means that everyone is tromping awkwardly in their ski boots through six-inch-deep brown slush, carrying skis and poles and trying not to fall down. It's crowded, and loud techno music is constantly booming from the cabanas, and there are stray dogs all over (who sometimes chase the skiers as they approach the bottom of the hill, joyfully leaping alongside and barking and nipping at their poles). On the Saturday we visited, the lines were long and the hills were packed. There had been a children's ski competition that morning, which had as its logo and mascot Baloo the Bear, an old bear who lives in a cage just behind the ski cabanas on Straja. You can go visit him -- I think the ski competition was supposed to be in celebration of his birthday, so it involved all the children trooping down to his cage, singing happy birthday, and then feeding the bear a cake. Strange.

This is the village of Straja. When it's cloudy, you can't even see the valley below.

But for all the chaos and confusion of trying to rent skis and buy lift tickets and negotiate the crowds and learn to master (ha) a new winter sport, we had a wonderful, wonderful time. At the end of the afternoon we happily sipped mulled wine and ate giant, delicious Hungarian pastries (basically pastry dough wrapped around a giant broomstick, roasted over a fire until baked, then rolled in sugar and walnuts or cinnamon or coconut and eaten warm). Then we took the gondola back down to the valley, walked fifteen minutes, and were home in Apartment Lucy, counting our blessings to live in such an amazing and beautiful place with such dear and wonderful people.