Wildlife.

The other evening, Jack and I were walking back home at about 10:30pm from meeting with some new European volunteers (and talking animatedly about Berlusconi and Italian politics, Spanish unemployment and corruption, and the American Congress and President Obama -- it was quite the evening.)  Anyway.  As we were walking back along the main street, we heard the street dogs start to bark.  We looked over at the source of the commotion and saw, to our great astonishment, about 10 unbridled horses, walking slowly out of the dark and mist along the train tracks, grazing on the grass along the city streets.  The horses seemed unfazed by the street dogs, who quickly gave up barking at this strange sight and returned to their slumber on shop stoops and under dumpsters.  But Jack and I stood there in awe, watching these ghostly horses just wander around Lupeni's main street, nibbling delicately at the grass that grows in the cracked sidewalk.  Strange.  So strange.  We have no idea where they came from, whose they are, and where they went.  We had never seen them before, and haven't seen them since.  Strange.

But that's not the only mildly-amusing wildlife we see here in Lupeni.  Our five-minute walk to work from our apartment brings us past a small pasture where there are usually at least 3 or 4 cows (this is in the middle of town, I might remind you), and about twice a week we also pass an elderly man who is tending his flock of goats, which are grazing on the grass behind the flower shop and next to the bridge.  Daily we hear the jingle-and-clap of a horse-drawn cart making its way down the main street, loaded with farmers and their products, cars and trucks weaving around it.  And when we go running, we often have to stop to make way for a flock of sheep which are trundling their way noisily down the road or path, guided by a shepherd, baaing and mewing loudly.  The other day while running we scared a pig wandering down the road, which snorted and sprinted back into its fence when it saw us.  And of course, there are the street dogs.  Enough said.

In other words... we love living here.