romanian adventures with wendy - pt 1

1/21/07 - hey there folks...dani here...again...i am actually posting before two months passes...yahoo...i have realized as i sit here on a sunday that romania has truly entered the EU in noticeable ways...we have some more different groceries to choose from...there seems to be less crazy drivers for fear of the added police and new rules...flags are waving from many cars, taxis and buses - EU ones that is...and yet, prices haven't really changed and not much is visible as a change....so who really knows what is going on and where this country is headed :) but it will be interesting to watch over the next year or so i think....i'll keep ya posted.....anyway...i have explored more of this country since october, although i haven't posted those pictures...so i thought i would do that now....the pictures below are from when my good friend wendy was here visting for two weeks....romania was a stop on her tour around the world after being on ice for a year....sounds familiar doesn't it :) we seem to have lived similar lives a year apart....bummer we couldn't do it together....anyway...here are some of our romanian adventures together...enjoy :)

here is a shot of the black sea...we went there for a weekend...but it was off season...and in a huge way...there really wasn't much happening in constanta....i have been told its a rockin place in the summer...especially one town up...mamaia...but this place was shut tight for the winter....there are about 80 resorts in the area and all but 3 were closed...its worse than the jersey shore on the off season :)

here's a shot of me with the surf breakers along the sea...i guess they have done some research into what is the best shape and size for saving the beach and lessening the impact a body of water can have on land and this won...i kept thinking it would be cool if i had a huge bouncy ball and started playing jacks :) gotta love it....

in my opinion, this was one of the coolest buildings in constanta....as this is the casino that overlooks the water...but of course it was closed...well, actually the front door was open, but you could tell no business was happening....it was pretty freaky inside...dusty and dank are two words that spring to mind :)

this is the beautiful inside of an orthodox church in romania...it is a very old one that has been restored and is located in mamaia on the shore of a lake....in the picture the front section of the church is all wood with all of the idols/saints...wendy went to the peasant museum here in bucharest and was amazed by all of the idols/saints in romanian history and they are definitely seen in their churches...they are beautiful places generally, but have no seats...which i imagine is hard to deal with at a four hour sunday morning service, which is what they have...i am hoping to someday make one...i'll keep ya posted on that....i hope to get back to constanta when its season...but i am hoping i don't get freaked out by all of the crowds...

here's wendy having a leffe blonde...yummy beer from belgian...i have come to really appreciate those monks there and their ability to make some tasty beer....this was when we were having dinner in sibiu...after a long and twisty ride to get there...sibiu has been chosen as the european cultural capital for 2007...not really sure how it got that title...and it is a cute place...but i think i might have chosen a different town in romania...a lot of it was under construction, getting ready for 2007 we were told....

Sibiu is quite quaint though....here is a picture of one of its three town squares...the houses are really cute and many of them have curved windows on the top floor of them that look like eyes...the main squares also have some good color schemes as you can see from the above picture...
see...doesn't it look like they are eyes staring at you and a three toothed grin....very cool houses...and when you stood at the city wall and stared over the many roofs of the town it was just really neat....

here's a shot of wendy and i on the bridge of liars in sibiu...it was this cool little wrought iron bridge...i am not saying we are liars or anything...it was just a good place to take a picture....

this last shot form sibiu is of the enormous evangelical church in one of the town squares...it is a "center-piece" of sibiu....i am not sure how many worshippers there are...but the place is HUGE...and compared to the orthodox church, very cold and menacing...it seems like in this place god yells at you to pay attention, sit up straight and do things correctly....the orthodox churches just seem more welcoming and comfortable, even if they don't have chairs to sit on....its wild....okay...i will continue this blog in a moment with the other places we stopped by and visited...but this one is getting long winded...imagine :) more soon

One last set of budapest pictures

1/10/07 - hey there all...well...its been a while since i last updated...getting close to two months and i am sorry about that...i hope in the new year things will happen more frequently...as i look back on 2006 i smile to myself because once again it was "quite" a year...from getting a job in romania...to traveling all over the states...to catching up on people's lives...and even visiting hungary....just a great time overall in my opinion :) its a great life :) this will be my last set of pictures from budapest...now that they are close to three months old....oops....the picture above is the heroes monument in hungary....mostly to past rulers and conquerors...its an amazing site at night as you can see...we actually rented an apt close to here so catherine and i got to see it all lit up every night....

budapest has this amazing market...called the central market...close to the center of town...go figure...if you have never been to hungary they are known for garlic and PAPRIKA in their cooking...above is one of the stands that just made me smile with all the garlic and peppers...woo-hoo...a country that likes spice...it was a nice change from the blander styled romanian food...one of our favorite restaurants was called paprika and below is a shot of it :)

this restaurant had amazing garlic soup...my mouth starts watering just thinking of it...and they did mushrooms in many tasty ways....the waitresses laughed when they saw us a second time in less than five days...they knew we loved it :) and you have to love the candles in the chianti bottles on the tables...we knew we had picked a great place when we were some of the only tourists there....yummy!!!! we were told it done in the "traditional hungarian style"...i am not really sure what that means exactly, but it was comfortable and cute place that we really liked..

one of my favorite stops on this trip was the statue park...this is a spot outside of town, where hungarians have placed all of the statues left from the communist era....its a crazy place...russian music is playing, and the communist statues are all around a red star in the middle of the park...they also have a replica of the "communist" car most people had during that time...here you can see me with one of the larger statues...it reminds me a bit of the statue brought to fremont, seattle...i hear tht one is still for sale...if you have never seen it...you should look it up...its wild...a communist statue from russia, in seattle...anyway, i think it pretty amazing the way how the hungarians have "embraced" this portion of their history...and state they will never revert to what they once had to endure...

another aspect of hungary is their rememberance of aspects of the holocaust....the picture above is taken on the banks of the danube river...what you are looking at are pairs of metal shoes representing hungarians who were lined up and shot along the banks of the danube at the beginning of the holocaust...its a stunning monument, like the one at the huge jewish synagogue, to remember an awful part of history....what is most impressive is that history blends with contemporary throughout all of budapest...below you can see the holocaust memorial at the synagogue...

this memorial is a wonderful combination of honor and rememberance...it is breath-taking in person...i just loved it...the weeping willow is metal and on each of the leaves are names of the jews who were killed during the holocaust....just stunning...the synagogue itself is also stunning...and huge!!!! you can tour the building and the grounds...and there is a small museum attached to the site as well....the hstorical representation is amazing here...

another aspect of budapest i really liked was the metro system...actually all of their mass transit seemed quite impressive...and organized and as you can see above, really CLEAN!!! this was the metro stop we used everyday as it was right down the street from where we were renting the apt...it was called hosok tere...not really sure how to pronounce this as hungarian doesn't use the same basic sounds as the english language...so it was quite hard to follow...

the picture above is of the lady of freedom in budapest....she is located at the top of hill on the buda side - although all of the buda side seems to be a hill....she is located next to the citadel overlooking the city and provides a great shot of the danube...she towers over everything and is a great landmark...and as you can tell we had an amazing day to climb up and visit her....

the final shot from budapest i will leave you with is me smokin hookah....yes, you can find it everywhere these days :) it is from the last night we were in town....if you can't tell from my entries, i loved budapest, and i am hoping to get there again sometime in 2007...i would highly recommend staying in budapest to anyone...its an absolutely lovely, well planned city that will bring a smile to anyone's face....i hope the pictures here do it some justice....i will be continuing with pictures from bucharest and romania in the next update....i have fallen quite behind in things i have been doing in the country i am living in...i have now had two sets of visitors and have explored even further parts of romania....more on this in the next update...til then...have a good one :)