year-of-adventure

Touring Romania

It was good to have Kathryn come for a visit - an incentive to show her the country other than through the blog.  We were lucky to have Leo from Projects Abroad pick her up at the airport and bring us both back to Brasov, the start for my touring.  Touring a country in a week can be very hectic, and so my plan was to spend several days in two major cities to minimize unpacking, so I chose Brasov (bigger city) and Sighisoara (small town).  My initial thought had been to rent a car to see smaller villages, but the driving challenges in Romania convinced me to use train travel.

Brasov is a nice city with good eateries and an open square and the sunny days and the closeness of Elvis to Romania made it a great few days. I arranged a day trip to see local fortresses, and 8 people (2 australians, 2 irish, and 2 italians and us and the guide set out for the trip in a nice van.  The first stop was the Rasnov fortress ((http://stronghold2.heavengames.com/history/cw/cw110, a nicely restored castle fortress with a LONG uphill walk.  The web link shows the photos better than I could, and it was much less touristy than the more touristy Bran castle that followed (billed by tour people as dracula's original castle) - actually Dracula spent a mere 3 days here and it has been a private residence of the family of Archduke Dominic of Austria, Prince of Tuscany.  A nice castle as castles go with more of a living history, and less of the fortress feel I'd seen before and certainly none of the Dracula tourist hype .   After this we stopped at the great ski resorts in the area for some lunch.  The Australian and Irish guys decided to be "guyish" and ordered palinca with lunch - as you recall from previous posts, very potent!  They each threw down a large glass of palinca to our cheers and became more talkative afterwards.  However, about 30 minutes later, Pat (Irish guy), started to have grand mal seizures while we'd stopped for a photo op.   His wife said he'd had the last one in January as a result of a head injury, but pretty obviously, the palinca had prompted not one, but continuous seizures.  I did what i could  to protect him from injuring himself, but we decided to call the ambulance to haul him to the local hospital  (sorry, no photos of Pat in the midst of his seizures!).  Interesting look at Romanian emergency medical techs and we left Pat in the ambulance speeding to the hospital 50 miles away in Brasov (romanian law prohibits anyone riding with the patient).

Next stop was Sighisoara and a dinner with PIF and his family - it is a great little town and a scenic little family-run Casa with walks to anything important and a much slower pace.  A palinca buy at PIF's suggestion from the "palinca man", with some Kick-#$%$  award-winning palinca .

Back on the train to the bustle of  Bucharest - a great city that I wish we had more time to see. In transition between the old and the new, communist influences being overridden by Western influence, the "Paris of the East", super museums and cheap eating (for now) . 

 Then the flight home and this phase of my Year-of-Adventure closes.

Did I enjoy it - of course....  Hope you felt that through this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Dennis

Communism in Romania

I had an interest in Romania because of its previous communist history.,  I've never been to a communist country and even more importantly, have never been to a former communist country to be able to talk with the people who were living under communism to see the influences on their lives.  For those interested in more history, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Romania.

During my time in romania, I tried to talk to all sorts of people about their lives during the "time of Ceauşescu".  The people were usually in their late 40's and were students or teens during the time of the revolution that overthrew Ceauşescu in 1989.  From web searches:

" After World War II, the Soviet Union pressed for inclusion of Romania's formerly illegal Communist Party in the post-war government, while non-communist political leaders were steadily eliminated from political life. King Michael abdicated under pressure and went into exile in December 1947, and the Romanian People's Republic was declared.

During the early years, Romania's scarce resources after World War II were drained by the "SovRom" agreements: mixed Soviet-Romanian companies established in the aftermath of World War II to mask the looting of Romania by the Soviet Union, in addition to excessive war reparations paid to the USSR. A large number of people were executed or died in custody; estimates vary from 137 to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands. Many more were imprisoned for political, economical or other reasons. There were a large number of abuses, deaths and incidents of torture against a large range of people."

Things I noticed or people pointed out:

- There are MANY more cars in romania after the revolution, but the road infrastructure on the narrow 2 lane highways has had minimal work, so the traffic is thick and drivers are aggressive

- Stories of pre-revolution: 2 eggs/month, 10 liters of gas/month, power outages for 8 hrs/day 3-5x/week.  You had to know someone and give them a bribe to survive - the "plus" as it was called - to get extra rations.  Photo is of lines of people waiting for their ration of cooking oil late 1980's.   An example: visiting a physician required a bribe to the receptionist, and then another bribe to the physician above the usual charge, similar for bread, groceries, fuel, anything really.  Romanian people had money although salaries were low, but there was just nothing to buy.  From web searches:

"In the early 1960s, Romania's communist government began to assert some independence from the Soviet Union. Nicolae Ceauşescu became head of the Communist Party in 1965 and head of state in 1967. Ceauşescu's denunciation of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and a brief relaxation in internal repression helped give him a positive image both at home and in the West. Rapid economic growth fueled by foreign credits gradually gave way to austerity and political repression that led to the fall of the communist regime in December 1989".  The local folks believed that he was somewhat well-intentioned in the early days in trying to reduce the huge national debt of romania, by exporting virtually everything that could be sold, leaving nothing to stock the shelves at home.  Power, corruption, a highly aggressive wife and family were said to add to the people's difficulties.  Timisoara in the western part of the country, is famous as the stating place of the revolution with an outspoken priest critical of the government placed under house arrest, then public protests, and 10 days later, Ceausescu was quickly tried and executed along wiht his wife.

- Buildings throughout the country show the communist influence with blocks of drab highrises, now very expensive to rent because of enterprising landlords who bought the buildings after the revolution and can charge any rent they want.

- Buchrest residents are especially mad as Ceausescu demolished entire histioric neighborhoods to replace them with drab goverment buildings.  His famous palace:

"The centre piece of Ceausescu's new Romania was built on the rubble of Bucharest's old quarter; 26 churches, and over 7000 homes were destroyed to make way for the Civic centre known as the Ceausima. At its centre looms the infamous Palatul Parliamentului, the Palace of Parliament, the third biggest building on earth after the Pentagon and the Tibetan Potala. Over 20,000 labourers and 600 architects toiled to build the Palace to Ceausescu's exacting standards. On one occasion they were required to rebuild a staircase three times because Ceausescu himself was not satisfied.

The palace stands 12 storeys high with over 1000 halls and rooms and massive underground basements. There is a nuclear bunker, underground parking that could accommodate Buckingham Palace and a lobby stretching for 300ft. The rooms are lavishly decorated in gold leaf and marble and over 4500 chandeliers (of 11,000 originally planned) hang in the Palace. This enormous building was originally known as the Casa Popularii, The House of The People, but the people instead coined it Casa Nebunului - the Madman's House."

Now, Romania is working diligently to enter the age of tourism, improve infrastructure.  My stay was during election time with a much more passionate approach to politics than in the USA.

A good time to visit...

New Photos

posted new photos of people, food, and flowers - don't know enough about flowers to comment on them - the photos are pretty high resolution, so if you have a slow loading, that's the issue.

as i mentioned, download any of them you like and you can make prints from the downloads at walmart or similar places

I plan 3 more posts in the next few days to finish off this portion of my year-of adventure

thanks for yoru comments!

d

Train travel

Electric powered trains seem so common in europe and the fast one I was on yesterday made it a great journey.  I was lucky that the compartment of my reservation had no-one in it for the 5 hr or so ride, and so i was able to stretch out (shoes off/conductors are very strict about that) and nap while the scenery went by.  Train travel makes food taste better and even my dry sandwiches (cheese,fresh bread, and some nice ham from the deva grocery) were wonderful.  The lack of electric poles and infrastructure during the heyday of train travel apparently limited the development of a significant electric rail component for the american system, but the lack of pollution and less dependence on diesel have made it great for european travel.  all you want and more about electric rail travel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_locomotive.

June 1 is a celebration day in Romania, and a sunny sunday just enhances that with a rock band playing on the square, kid face painting and free snacks for the kids (I did not stand in that line) . These two girls 10 seconds before this was shot were playing a great game of "poke your sister with the flag" and were led away by their mom.  In the background is a group of about 30 people vigorously signing - they did not pay much attention to the music (no PC intent meant!)

Was looking back on these posts to be sure I'd covered all the things i wanted to say and came across one of the earlier ones where i was curious about the crusades and their links to Vlad Tepes times and his battles with sultan Mehmed II during about 1450 or so. Well, the history knowers among you will know that the crusades took place about 150 years before that time (guess i had a gap in my history knowledge) and were felt to be a military failure, but a cultural windfall  http://www.medieval-castle.com/castle_attack_defence/medieval_crusades.htm.  Anyway, the link with Mehmed II was interesting because of his overwhelming power and military strategy allowing him to march over the christians and sack the "inconquerable" heart of the byzantine empire,  constantinople in 1453 - the website gives an interesting perspective on the battle and preparations for the battle with some knowledge of the warfare tactics of the time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople#Ottoman_dispositions.  My link with all of this is the large number of cannon balls found at the deva site that were felt to be small ones used in the 1450 timeframe, and not nearly of the size the sultan would have used against constantinople .

Roses are in bloom everywhere, so excuse me for posting another one from the homestay mom's garden .

Another post waiting for me to get motivated on romania under communism - have not had the inspiration, but have the information

Winding down in deva

Last day at the dig yesterday was HOT and sticky.  I have not been able to do a wash, so.... Gathering together my clean(est) clothes so the train people do not think badly of americans  (and of course I stand out as a tourist!).  Leaving on train today for 5 hr trip back to brasov and my homestay mom -   Hope she will let me do a wash with her washing machine.  Took the opportunity for a stroll around deva as it is waking up on saturday morning.  The city is well organized and has nice public green spaces where families come with their children and teens hang out with rollerblades (very big here).   Kids are creative with their chalk drawings.  The election is coming up and every billboard and store front is plastered with political ads - wonder what goes on those boards when there is not an election? I like this guys board - he seems thoughtful, considerate, responsibile from his photo.

Josef has gone home for the weekend and so we have to get the place together because I'm leaving today and Paul and Elly are leaving sunday for their new dig assignment.  Had not posted a photo of Josef.  In case you do not know, if you want to download any of the photos from here, just click on the photo to get the enlarged version, then right click to save it to your destination.  Elly, Paul and Josef have been busy with documenting - in my experience the most time-consuming process I've found on the dig. After the workes finish the pick and shovel and sweeping part, someone has to document the exact measurements of the area on a line drawing that requires incredible patience.  Here is the result of a week's work from them - all perfectly to scale and every rock documented. 

Normally the internet cafe is packed with kid/adult gamers, but this morning at almost 8 am I have it all to myself.  This one is "nonstop" which means it's open 24 hrs, and the guy's girlfriend is here this am, sitting patiently waiting for him to get off work so they can do something on a saturday morning.  Everyone smokes in romania, but there is no smoking in this space, so they have to go outside,

The workers dug up a skull from a wild boar of sorts from deep in the layers  (they are about 36 feet deep now and looking for the base of a residence tower. Normally they do not get skulls, mostly eating bones - this one from probably 1300 or so based on other layer data.    

 How many romanian street workers does it take to fill a hole....

Hunedoara

We were lucky - a perfect day and an expert guide.  Dehlia, an archeologist assigned to this castle is working part time assigned to "our" dig.  She was nice enough to accompany us through her castle as our personal guide. The bus there was an efficient group-thing that goes regularly from deva train station to Hunedoara, but the castle is about 45 min walk from the bus drop (good to have a local).  We took a cab, then stopped for lunch (we'd been given "clearance" from projects abroad to buy lunch for Dehlia as a treat).  We decided to have a local dessert ("papanash") and photo - fried donuts with sour cream and a blueberry topping .  With this, a wonderful chicken soup, and i had a greek salad, we were ready for the 10 minute hike to the castle.  When we got there, the castle was closed for filming a midieval war epic - Barbarrosa - http://www.geocities.com/pirates_hold/roster/barbarrosa.html  (not sure if this is the theme of the film, but it's correct enough for this blog.  Dehlia is a determined woman and we went in the back way and she talked her way through the guards.  The horses going across the front drawbridge are only shadows in this photo, but a sense of history none-the-less . This castle is a combination of royal residence and defensive fortress for Janis Hunyadi, a famous hungarian hero/warrior/king in Vlad Tepes time (1430's). The castle has been through the usual fires, lightning, botched restoration and is now in it's form as a great tourist attraction and movie film set. The center courtyard was set up as a peasant village with a bunch of warriors llounging between takes.

Lots of waiting in the heat . The church in this photo was present before the castle and this part of the castle is not changed, so this might be the view of the royal chambermaid as she walked across the courtyard with the royal chamberpot.  Another legend. The king captured 3 turkish prisoners and did not want to execute them, so he tossed them into a  hole and told them that if they dug and reached water, he would free them. They dug really deep and eventually reached water (dehlia says 15 years!), but the king had died and his wife did not honor the agreement and beheaded them.  Their sad plight was recorded by them on this stone taken from the bottom of the well .   I loved this view down to the sarcophagus of one of the knights of the castle in the royal chapel

Paul and Elly overlooking the balcony (for their parents!)

A final castle shot before we start our combined bus/taxi trip back home.

More Castle Lore

The more you ask, the more you learn.  As I've gotten to talk to the archeologists, I've gotten more good information about this particular fortress and Romanian castles in general.

The story of the stone mason's wife is an old one and apparently circulates around several castles in romania (and perhaps the world). Liked this variation though:  during the building of the castle, each day was a problem - whatever they built fell down and it was determined that there was a curse that needed to be broken and the way to break a curse as anyone knows, is to sacrifice something.  In this case, the decision was made that the next woman who came into the castle would be the sacrifice. As luck would have it, the stone mason's wife was bringing food to the workers, and appeared, so he had to place her into the wall. After the stones were sealed, the curse was broken - he was so distraught, that he threw himself from the highest point to his death on the rocks below.  It's a Balkan tradition to bury something in the wall fo a house (usually a hen, rabbit) for luck.   

I've looked from various angles to show the challenges of archeology in this fortress and this photo is a good example . The stone to the left is original, but has been replaced toward the right and around the window with different stone in a different density. The bricks are from an 18th century arch added to the main entrance. In this photo of an archer's window , the window would have been used to shoot down on attackers coming up the gate road, but the rest has been filled in.  The architects who will be in the reconstruction phase said that castles were built using scaffolds with the first layer of stone, then a wooden core that may/may not be replaced with stone to add density and defense  (BTW: stone count over 1.1 million stones!)

More on vipers. Peef was all excited monday morning to show a picture of viper sunning himself in one of the holes of the inside walls - I'd been poking in that very hole on friday  (MUCH more cautious now!).  Apparently withe the summer heat, more vipers are expected and all staff are to get desensitized with antivenom to lessen the risks of a bite (still need intensive treatment) - I'll be gone by then.

The most valuable thing found here, brass pen nibs and ornaments.  There have been gold dacian bracelets in other fortresses and there is an active business searching the hills with metal detectors by poachers for gold pieces that get sold into private collections.

Plans for the castle - make money for the community of Deva from tourist dollars!  This photo from one of the areas we've been working will be converted into a conference center with slide shows, office meetings, weddings, etc and the parts below will be a food service/catering area, a small museum will be in the crypts to the right of this.  The tower in the center will be rebuilt with a winding stair up to a walkway overlooking the views from the top of the walls. The roses are in bloom and i love this color.

Tomorrow: off to Hunedoara - a fairy-tale castle south of us with one of the archeologists from this site who works there as a guide there - expect it to be much different from this military fortress as that was a residence.

Out of the Doldrums - Timisoara

A fair day yesterday, but the post did not reflect it - lazed a bit in the local park and took some kid photos.  There is peculiar red hair color in Romanian women and it must be a style thing because about 1:3 women have variations - same color, just different amounts of hair streaked.  Looks a bit like clarabell from howdy doody (now that is dating myself - how many remember that one!).

Had planned to go to Sibiu to explore that city a bit to the south and in my good railroad ticket manners, I wrote the train, the cities, departures, class, etc on a paper and handed it to one of the nice ladies at the train station because only a people few speak conversational english.  She laughed, and handed it back to me with the comment "I can't read your handwriting", then she proceeded to tell me how i could get to sibiu, but it would involved multiple changes and slow local trains, so i thanked her and left.  Came back after regrouping and she asked if it still wanted to go to sibiu - nope, going to timisoara, the cultural capital of romania (with a tag line like that, how can i pass it up; just a short 3 hr train ride to the west, on the hungarian border). The pastries at the station looked especially good this am at 7:18 - that tall chocolate one was about $1.10.  The train was a "fast train", clean, good seats, and not too crowded - timisoara is a university town, so a fair number of students.  First thing i came across was a clinic of GI docs in the hospital district .  The city is lovely and has multiple things to be proud of - the first city in europe to have electric ligths - the start of the revolution that overthrew communism in 1989 a long history if independent newspaper publishing, even during communism, great trolleys, a wonderful set of open air squares - on and on.  A beautiful romnan catholic church (I got there for the middle of the service and stayed and heard the choir practice - in catholic churches, thre are "singing churches" where music is important, and nonsinging churches - the organ and choir provided an excellent backdrop to the service. The squares were great in the sunshine with locals out and about driking coffee on the terraces.  I include this floral clock for my sister and brother - haven't see one like this since mom and dad took us ot niagra falls so many years ago

The city has a feel of european capitals without the crowds or dirt - monuments to the virgin mary and to god for sparing the city from plague at the end of the 18th century.  Of course, the MacDonalds at the left does take some of this ambience from the scene.  Had an exceptional lunch at a place on this square.  Traditional beef soup and fried sausages served with mashed potatos and a wonderful mustard sauce (can't seem to kick the sausage thing in romania).  They even gave me a free small appetizer of a super curry risotto,

My goals for my last week here:

- get to Hunedoara - an already restored fortress not as classy as "ours"

- finish the stuff for the stone project so Peef and Josef can publish it

- Talk to the general (see romanian people photos) and see if I can get architectural plans for the envisioned finished project

Travel challenges

Just a text post this morning to share some of the challenges of travelling. 

The monestary we're staying has 3 doors that we lock religiously (no pun intended) - Paul and Elly as young people like to play computer games late at the internet cafe and Josef has gone back to his home town of Cluj for some exams for the weekend.  Imagine my surprise when I got up for a bathroom stop at 2:30 and poor paul and allie were tapping on the window to get in - Paul had broken the key in the last door and they could not get in and had been on the outdoor porch since midnight.  I tried the door from the inside, but it would not open, so after a few minutes we decided the only way in was through a bathroom window.  They came in and promptly went to bed.

This morning, the maintenance guy changed the lock, but there is still only 1 key, so we'll see how that works until monday when we can get new keys made.

Had planned to go to sibiu on the train today, but when i got to the station and gave the lady my itinerary, the train that i needed only runs starting june 1 (the internet schedule say May1), and later trains and return would not get me back tonight, sooooo.  Here at the internet cafe to find another possible weekend day trip and the romanian train website is down.

The meeting with Peef about the rock count went well and he was impressed with the detail of the calculations. He wants to know if he and josef can publish the final report in the romanian archeology journal.

Weather great today though and expected to be hot next week.

More about vampires

The vampire legend is everywhere in romania and I've been asking around to see what romanians feel about it. Vlad Tepes (Dracula) seemed to have bad PR while his cousin stefen the great, had good PR.  Both were equally ruthless feudal lords at the time, yet one is considered a vampire and the other a national hero.  I got another perspective on the blood-sucking aspect from one of the visiting archeologists. Apparently the "truth" for ruthlessness in this area was Elizabeth Bathory, http://www.abacom.com/~jkrause/bathory.html)  a medieval princess who was accused of murdering 600 virgins and bathing in their blood to maintain her youth (this peculiar night-time facial ritual wa suggested to Ms. Bathory by her witch advisor The punishment was to have her bricked in to her room where she died 4 years later.  Hungarians have had a tradition of vampires long before the 470's vlad stories and their legends are of sort of a poltergeist or bad spirit that comes during full moons or misty nights and steals cows milk, or makes frightening sounds.  Anyway, Vlad makes money.

Say what you want bad about Mcdonald's, but the one here in deva is new, has the best lawn in the city, and is open all night.  Granted, a big mac is about $3.50 and fries are $1.00, both expensive for the local folks, but kids pack the place next to the train station, and the bathroom is clean, toilet paper is there, and it's on a keycode (if you look like a tourist, the macdonalds person will let you in.

Remember in a previous pst I was talking about the castle lore of the stone mason who bricked his wife in the wall to protect the castle?  well, I think I found her - actually, a peculiar hole that is only visible from high on the outside walls (the scaffold is there now).  I stuck my camera in and took the photo to show you her likely space - her bones are just below the sand - OOOOOOOOOOOO - more creepy stuff from romania.

I have been asking a good bit about castle life, and found a site that describes living in a castle (a british castle) and you may find it interesting.  (http://www.castlewales.com/life.html)

In my castle, the workers got some neat gun stuff from the cannon batteries.  The first photo is of a 14th century cannon that exploded. The cannon in those time, called bombards, were more like mortars and hurled a ball on an arc with a maximum range of about 1/2 mile (depending on the amunt of gunpowder used).  This type of weapon was used by Sultan Mehmed to break the "indestructible" walls of Constantinople and conquer that city for the Ottoman empire. This sultan was the one who Vlad battled for his entire lifetime.  The bombard exploded if there was even a trace of powder left in the hot barrel - the fate of this one. The second photo is of a Harqebus  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebus, a large thick rifle held by 3 men and used in this fortress from about 1400 onward.  The link shows some photos. This barrel had exploded, but it was Heavy!  The rifle ball Peef gave me on my first day matches the diameter of this weapon - pretty cool.  The last photo for today is taken from the most forward cannon position in the castle to show the impressive scan of the town below that a set of cannon could command.  The structure being built is the romanian gymnasts new training center.

Dig News

Was going to write about the communist revolution in Romania - have been collecting informaation about that from the regular people that i contact, but another time. Great days on the dig - my calculations are coming together and I'm getting great feedback from Josef and Peef. Josef thinks that he would like to continue this method at another castle dig that he, allie and Paul are going on the day i'm leaving and thinks it would be a great publication for him. He and Peef discussed that the calculation will be useful in archeology restorations to allow planners to estimate rocks needed and mortar. I've found a way to extend the information so that I can calcuate the weight of the structure (rocks, mortar),and working on how to estimate how many rocks an average stonemason can lay in a day, so can calculate possible manhours used in the construction. I love that creative part, and with the plans, I can avoid the more tedious stuff of trowel digging and sweeping and still feel as if i'm contibuting. Was in a pit today doing measurements when one of the workmen found a nice piece of Dacian pottery from a bowl used to hold fruit.  This type of pottery is common at this dig, so no-body gets excited about it, but for me it's pretty impressive to hold a piece of stuff that is over 2000 years old, and just came out of the ground after that time.

There are the usual crop of tourists that come up the cable car to view the castle, but they are excluded by wooden gates from the workers - one of the guys yelled if anyone spoke english, so a worker came over and got me, peef opened the gate for them, and i gave my simplistic "tour" to a young couple from seattle.  Then in the spirit of discovery, Peef came over with a turkish hashish pipe bowl (missing the pipe stem) that he gave me - 17th century, so a sense of history today. 

I keep talking about these "plans" I got, so including one of the overview ones w/o the detail topographic or measurements - the plan is the best projection of what the fortress looked like in the 17th century with the hillsides and bastions for cannon/defensive roads, etc.  The roses are spectacular and I lvoed hte color of this red one . 

As you can may be able to tell, the folks at typepad have come up wiht a new interface that I'm using today for the first time - much more intuitive and allows sizing of photos (thik it even has spell check!).  Last photo today is of the "big eaters" at the bottom of one of the excavations - we had been getting puny little chicken bones, but the bones coming out of here are from serious meat.  I keep looking for the human bones - they found skeletons from 3 turkish soldiers killed in the blast of the powder magazine in 1840's a few weeks ago. in this approximate area 

WEEKEND OUTING - SIGHASOARA

The trip was excellent - as i mentioned yesterday, the train was a bit late, but clean and uncrowded on the way up, PACKED on the way back.  Romanian railways does not make announcements of stations coming, so you sort of have to keep[ track of the time, or know your stations - I was bit panicked coming back because the train started for the first hour with me going backwards, then turned around and i was going frontwards - they just took a different route and had to turn the train at a junction point.  Sighasoara is a tourist town in the northern part of transylvania with a midevil fortress and the birthplace of vlad dracula - they make all they can of it with tee shorts and coffee cups with vlad's mug plastered eveywhere. The flowers are out in full bloom and the town is clean and ready to receive all those tourist dollars.

Runners preparing for the transylvania 15k on a sunday morning- looks like a lot of uphill stuff. The clocktower in the center of town is the focus for tourists to climb and on the hour see the mechanics of the great german-built moving figures.  I skipped the midevil armor and the torture museum on this visit and will visit with kathryn when she comes in early june (I know she will not want to miss the "spanish boot" for extracting information from resistent folks). Nice looking authentic romanian clothes that seemd stylish - just costly for the tourist. A great quiet coffee/pastry place off the beaten track with lovely vines covering the eating area - an outrageous 5 lei ($2.00) for an expresso (twice what it is in the city), but i had an hour to kill and it was good to get out of the sun and watch the hot tourists wander by on the side streets.   A pretty cat at the cafe who seems to have it all figured out. 

A cold beer at the youth hostel in town (fair rates, no youth that I saw - all the drinkers and residents appeared to be elderly german couples (maybe i should not be so glib in the use of "elderly").

Excited because i got my set of plans for the fortress today and started with the rock calculation project.  Takes a bit of time to orient to the detailed scale drawings, but they are a huge help, and i don't have to risk vipers after all!  I plan to finish the draft by friday of this week so i can review the results with peef and his henchmen, make the changes he suggests, do the new calculations and measurements and then give it to Josef (our projects-abroad archeologist) for him to translate into romanian and burn my photos to cd before i leave.

Have not provided a food photo in a bit - lunch today was out at the workers' restaurant - a cabbage salad, a great tasting soup of chicken hearts and livers and vegs (I loved the broth, passed on the innards), and a big mess of beans and a huge hunk of sausage - all for about $4.00.

Politics and "the guys"

Interesting friday - the prime minister of romania came to the site (I missed his visit) - the general thought is that all of these visits are all carefully arranged for political elections coming up in june, anyway, Peef told me there would be free food - sure enough, as i wandered out about 7:30 ish there was a large tent in the parking lot and a VERY sweaty lady cooking sausages and guy passing out draft beer - there were abotu 6 dark-suited politicos and many kids - forgot to tell you that this is the premier school to train romanian gymnasts (nadia comenic) from previous olympics and the mayor/prime minister came to cut the ribbon on the memorial to them with busts and all - not sure if nadia approved the bust; looks a bit stern.  Anyway.... there were about 30 kids in line, pushing, and about 10 adults - all kept pushing and jockying for position, but i held my ground for my place in line to get 2 nice thick sausages, 2 slices of bread, a tall cold draft beer and some hot mustard (do not have photos because i did not want to look too touristy).  I sat on the side because all the tables were full, and a table of the workers from the site saw me and one of them invited me over (they are intensely curious about this "americaner").  More beer flowed, they pulled out their brandy, then some palinca (potent romanian drink - 50% alcohol) came out, and one thing led to another... I held it in check while maintaining a delicate oral and sign language balance while drinking just a sociable amount even though their bravado wanted me to keep up with them.  A great evening of fun - i was glad they asked me and they think better of me i hope - at least they smile a lot and wave.  Had a day of GI upset (the sausages were not entirely cooked I suspect), but all back to normal.  Strolled around downtown Deva and send you these photos of what the best dressed man and woman is wearing in deva

Apparently my rock-counting project has generated some interest because today , they offered me a complete set of plans and wanted to know when i could have the draft to them - before i left or after i got to america - they see a publication and some good-old fashioned PR. This is a local postcard of the fortress from about 1980 or so without the scaffolds or viper signs.

Had a Great trip by train to Sighasora in the north (about 3 hrs) and will cover that visit tomorrow.  The train was clean, fast, moderately cheap (3 hr there and back for $30.00 with reserved seats) My train travelling companions .  Cars are expensive here, the photo was of a car in the local parking lot - judge the condition for yourself - price 1400 euros - about $2000.00!

Met a young hungarian woman today at the church lunch - she is from cleveland ohio (about 26 miles from my home town, elyria ohio- " the star of the north, and exit 8 on the Ohio turnpike".  She teaches kindergarden here and her kids all wanted their picture taken 

Romanian People

Just added photo album of romanian people - Enjoy!

Walking around the fortress and fortress lore

There are signs around the fortress asking people to be aware of vipers - well, we have some poisonous snakes in North Carolina, so i thought how bad can this be.  The wikipedia link is here Vipers in Romania.  I was impressed with the toxicity of the venom, the location of the snakes on rocky hillsides, and the long fangs.  Peef noted that 2 had been seen around the castle walls by workmen last week.

I am starting a self-imposed project - I asked one of the archeologists (peef in closeup on the right - the crusty-looking guy, but very nice) how many stones there were in the castle - "no idea" - so i thought that would be a good creative project for me and i started out on it today  and the photo shows a sample of the outer wall defences - part of the stones i wanted to include.  Note the thick vegetation and hence the viper reference.  More to follow on that project.  The archeologists seemed genuinely interested in this nugget of tourist information.

The guidebooks say the fortress was started in 1250 on the site of previous Dacian fort and legend has it that the wife of the mason was buried alive in the walls to ensure "it's" safekeeping - unclear if it's the wife or the fortress they are referring to....The fort was expanded in 1453 during the time of Vlad Darcula because of the strategic location in the defense of Transylvania.  In 1784 there was a peasant uprising, the fortress was a stronghold for frightened nobles fleeing enraged peasants (the peasants overran it and killed the nobles).  In 1849 Hungarian nationals attacked austrian generals holed up here and the powder magazine explosion occurred (? lightning, sabotage) and half the castle was destroyed.  There have been 3 major restoration attempts, so the walls have mortar and brick from at least 3 periods.  My quest for the number of stones will use samples from the base foundations and some of the walls that are interior and may be less influenced by explosions or restorations.

This would have been the view from inside the fortress of the defenders with folks coming up the hill, and this would have been the view of the attackers coming up (minus the arrows, cannon and rifle bullets coming toward you along with hot oil .

This is the oldest and likely original window in the castle dating they think to the original construction (1250) - I have a feeling the mason's wife is somewhere close.

Photo of the dining hall with the quiet orderliness of many children well behaved and organized in a task - some get plates and silverware, some get sweet hot tea (herbal, no caffeine), and some get bread - they pray before, talk quietly, cleanup and sweep their areas, then off to school.  The breakfast - bread and boiled pig fat with pepper for seasoning - fat is boiled till it melts, seasoning added, the mixture cools, and is like a thick jelly - you spread it on bread, thicker-the-better.  I passed on this one, but had a few extra slices of bread to hold me through till lunch

More digging stuff

A great day between storms. From this height, you are able to get a new perspective on storm movements.    A break in the clouds and sunshine radiating to a lucky part of the countryside.

The castle continues to be fun. The work we're about is not all that history-changing -  but then we're just volunteers - but it is good in showing archeology principles of layer digging, documentation, and measurement.  We've been working in an area of an oven (likely in the 1800's sometime) and we're sorting through the black charred remains of what was in there as we go down a few millimeters at a time.  It feels a bit like working in the back of a KFC because of the small chicken bones and rodent bones we're recovering along with the shattered pots and pieces of iron (of course, nothing of that left but rust at this time). Next to it is an oven that we've been cleaning and removing a small dirt wall in prep for the artist to do final drawings of the area. Everything is documented with photos, measurements and collection of as many intact things as possible - several coins have been found at the base of the foundation, but they are only from the early 1800's - the intial hope is that they would be "prehistoric" during the era of the Dacians Dacians as a people in 1100 BC or so.  The archeologists believe that this fortress was intially occupied by the Dacians as a crucial defense in the mountain routes across Romania.  According to the archeologists, the romans, who conquered this entire area, had only 2 religions they did not tolerate - the dacians and the druids (of stonehenge).

This photo is of the foundation walls along one edge to show how they are built on bedrock of the mountain. The project involves constructing a fancy walkway for tourists to come up to the castle in much the same way a head of state would enter from the main gate and drawbridge - this is the basic stuff for that walkway to come later in the summer.  Peef, the head archeologist and the one who gave me the rifle ball on the first day, is in his mid 40's, has a continual worried look, and constantly is moving around checking, thinking, planning - his private company won the bid and they are about 5% done with the project with all the digging that's been done even since i've been here - they still have major work on the exterior defensive walls down the hill which will keep the workers busy as they have to move dirt up and down the hills.  This photo is of peef (back to camera - I don't know him well enough yet to ask for a front on photo, he's not that kind of guy!) is directing shoring up a wall between the chapel and the master bedroom next to it - as they dig deeper, the walls become more unstable and collapsing a wall would be an archeologic no-no.  Paul, a new volunteer joined us tonight from England and we decided to go to dinner in the "big city" of Deva. This is my order, a pizza "o-solo-mia" - delicious and plenty to take home from me for breakfast.

DIGGING

The fortress is a great experience!  It is an active dig in what's called the consolidation phase - the archologists and engineers are piled all over the place and digging is going on - that's different from the castle project i did in provence that was in the restoration phase (to follow here in several years) where the structure is put back together.  This one is much more alive and active.  The cable car ride up is great and have not made .  The head archologist and his hunchmen have been very instructive and answered all my many questions patiently. Theyull out all kinds of stuff from the fortress and he gave me nice round iron bullet from the "middle ages" - he says about 1450 or so.  There was lots of bigwigs wandering around and the mayor of Deva  and some minor american rock star (allie knows the band and says they are a 1-hit wonder) coming tomorrow for a tour.  Cable car ride up on a misty morning yesterday that cleared quickly to glorious sunshine yesterday and today.

Great views above the clouds and a comparison of the super clear views from the fortess walls.  In Romania, fortresses are built on HIGH hills and this one has been occupied since 1100BC with one of another tribe. It was conquered last after a 4 week seige in 1450 or so (the bullet above) and impressive to see the cannon blasts on the outer walls and the pwoer from the distance of the valley floor.  The castle is ofter hit by l;ightnigh and a lightning strike in 1840 caused an explosion of the powder magazine and destroyed half the structure. This one is of one wall being worked and a gathering strom yesterday (that did not come) but had lightning and everyone was ready to get off the hill.

The castle has a long history and one of the goals is to dig down to the bedrock of the mountain that was the foundation for the strength. This is a sample of a layering that allows them to date the ages of work. They say that the numbers between 12-13 are about 1400 ad and the ones at the lowest level on this shot are from about 20BC - pretty impressive span of history.  Our normal work hours are get up at 6, have some instant coffee in the room, go to breakfast at the church orphanage (food shots coming of that experience), work from 8 till 1, then lunch, same place, work till 6, the dinner at 7-7:30, then make it about 20 minute walk to the internet cafe to post the days adventures, then to bed - have been sleeping well - the walk up the hill to the fortress is a heck of an uphill hike!!!! 

  Last one for the day - I feel SOOOOO like Indiana Jones - the new movie comes out may 22 and will have to wait till i get home

Travel to the dig

Catching up from seveal days ago - they consider a "volunteer vacation" one that involves work, so difficult to find the leisure time to go to internet cafe (they are fewer now than in the past due to high penetrance of wireless and low rates (here in romania it is about $1.00/hr!

This is Allie, a very nice 20ish year old Irish woman who is going with a guy from south carolina.  She has a level head and a spirit of independence.  We got on the train together in Brasov and took the 5 hr train ride in the rain to Deva (see map on photos).  Nice train, on time, and the ticket cost was about $25.00 - no frills on the train however. Very nice dining car, but Alex convinced me it was about 5x more expensive than in city and frowned on me going - even for a coffee. The train arrived on time, and we were met by Josep, our projects archeologist - always make all the difference to have local contacts. The next series of photos goes through the place (onestary building) where we're staying, my lower bunk with Josep and the fortress we're wotrking on with ,the cable car up - we have unlimited rides up and down and as the weather improves, great sunrises and sunsets from the very top.  It is a major restoration project for the romanian govt with a bevy of workers digging. tomorrow - castle photos and history.

Food: hearty - we eat with the orphan kids from the town cared for by the Fransiscans with strict meal times (7 breakfast, 1 lunch, 7:30 dinner and you better be on time or no food!  Food photos coming in the series of romanian food photos.

Overall, a good experience, just have to adapt to the local customs and give up a bit of your independence.  According tot he ehad archeologist, the weather should be getting nicer and warmer - we'll see,

Tomorrow, a foggy cold morning and the first castle day (after all this travel, finally getting to do some real work!)

Vlad Tepes (dracula)

The romanian countryside was divided, conquered, reconquered, redivided and in summary, rarely has had a free time in its history. My sources say that's because of the strategic position on edge of eastern europe.  The romans wanted it for gold and removed several billions dollars worth of gold (todays prices) during their 165 year occupation. Vlad Tepes, a feudal prince in the 1430-1470 time period was considered a great conquerer, but had ruthless tendencies, and is remembered for those, even though his mthods were not terrbily different from other conqueres of the time.  My source is "Vlad Dracula, The Dragon Prince"  by Micheal Augustyn.   Vlad was influenced by his capture by and being hostage of the turkish sultan, and it is said, developed his love of impaling there. He is remembered for impaling entire towns, merchants, prisoners, scouts, and effectively killing 40-50,000 people during his reign of terror either on the throne of Wallechia or seeking it.  Impalement for those interested involves placing a thick sharpened stake into the anus of the prisoner and slowly advancing it into their body.  When about 2 feet are in, the stake is lifted upright and the person left to die a slow death. His exploits are in every tourist eatery, visitors information center, and he is likely the most famous person in this part of romania.  Acutally a minor historical figure according to records, his ruthlessness marked him for history and made Bram Stoke use the character (adding literary license) for the famous dracula of the 50's with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karlof as the lead character.  It is said he was a vampire because the Orthodox catholic church excommunicated him and forbid the earth to accept his body after death - one legend led to another, the bats, the blood sucking, the undead, and a historical personality was born.  It's been interestng to use the book above as a reasonably an accurate historical record with some fiction added to get a flavor for the person each tourist encounters at some time in this part of romania.

Enough about that aspect of romania.  This area is also considered one of the last natural environments for bears  (those of you who read my alaska blog know my interest in bears) - check out this website for an interesting vacation idea bears in romania.  The photo is of the cable car up the mountain said to pass through the largest bear reserve in the world.  Alex notes that you frequently see bears wandering around from the vantage point of the cable car

A nice sunny day (gosh, 2 in a row!), so out and about to see the city in holiday mood - will be going to museums tomorrow and posting again I hope before my monday morning trip to Deva in the western part of the country to start a real dig (up to now have been minimally active in archeology).

A nice exerience this morning as I followed a few dressed up  folks into the beautiful Greek orthodox church for a baptism.  I was not dressed TOO differently than the family and smiled and shook hands withe the happy mom and dad and wished them well.

Two street sweeper ladies finished with their shift and waiting for a bus home. I asked if I could take their photo and the one on the left was ll into it - the one on the right was not so sure, but the lady on the left jabbed her with her elbow and motioned me to shoot away. Last one on this tour is of Deane's - Deane is an irish internist who decided to pitch it all and start a band (the front ad says big band style), and then a pub - I plan to ry that tonight after dinner to see if i can hear some good irish music

Challenges in Romanian History

When I started at projects, they asked " why did you choose romania"?  well.....  I remember grade school history (catholic school) and my fascintation with the "crusades" of the middle ages - heroic knights from western europe who travelled to eastern europe with their armies to fight the turkism empire threatening to impose eastern religion on those good catholics of western europe. Also, there was a TV series on robin hood where robin was robbing and stealing to fight the evil king john while the good king richard was off at the crusades.  My simplistic view of the crusades has maured a bit while studying romanian history and romania was often the front line of crusdae battles with the ottoman (turkish) empire in the 1400-1500 time period.  So, I wanted to explore this border between eastern/western europe and between the christian and muslim empires.  Obviously that is not something that's going to jump out at you as you walk the streets of brasov, so i wanted to challenge myself a bit to find some of it.  Also, as I got into my prep, I was impressed with the balancing act that princes of that period and since have had in maintaining stability in this region of the world.  Hence you'll hear about vlad dracula because lots was written about him, and romania under communism.  Any REAL historians may cringe at my fragmentation of the facts.

My second reason was that romania has passed through the revolution of 1989 and is on full-speed to move itself into a viable modern economy.  I assume that in 5 years romania will change dramatically as a destination for tourists and a lot of the native charm will be "touristized", so I thought that this time may be a good one to see a country in transition.  Projects-abroad has an active presence here and their archeology program is well established providing volunteers to projects throughout the country.  I loved the connectedness with history from my provence castle restoration project several years ago and thought a more intense experience may be fun.

Third, my family seems to have come from the "old country" at some time in history. I've been unable to track down a country or village of origination and the family names have changed as they passed through ellis island multi-generations ago, but i believe that at least some of my stock came from this "type" of people, land-based workers and i wanted to get a chance to see them in remote villages.

Is all that going to turn out be a bunch of hooey?  perhaps, but the adventure is in trying it and challenging your ideas.

My challenges:

- find out enough of old romanian culture (pre-revolution) from folks who speak minimal english in a country that has minimal tourist resources in english, and only rare books on the subject tha i have access to

- observe, smile

- talk with the younger generations and get their take on the situation; hence i rely on Leo, alex, and projects staff for their opinions, so like in previous blog posts, you may hear a lot about the few people i can talk with and some of the impressisons about those i can't

- journal enough of this in text and photos for my later reference and your reading.

I welcome your comments and suggestions

A sunny day

A nice walk around town with my Projects contact, alex several days ago.  Not many days are this sunny, so wanted to get these photos and post them with comments.

A look down a typical cobblestoned romanian street close to the project office - Alex, a 19 y/o cameraman and recent projects coordinator on his cell talking to a contact in Bran to see if we should go to see the castle bran (Dracula's castle) - as it turned out, it was pouring rain there and i decided to postpone the trip till later in the spring when the weather MAY be better.  On this stretch of street, we see lots of older folks in traditional romanian dress and a gathering storm in the background.

The downtown area is nice, seems prosperous, and shops have nice things for sale and people are moving in an out of them buying things.  The trouble as it turns out with the internet cafe's is that most have closed due to financial issues - we've located one that we could find only on a sunny day (about a 20 minute walk from my homestay) and will be trying that over this weekend. This is a statue in honor of romulus and remus, the founders of rome, raised by a mother wolf and in the city center square.  You know my love of food photos, and we stopped at a great traditional romanian eatery - a former wineceller converted into the business-class eatery. Alex recommended a traditional romanian favorite - (of course i wish i had the romanian name) - a beef-stew with a sour cream sauce, sausage, and a form of potatoes on the side - prior to that a sour romanian soup eaten after biting into a moderately-hot green pepper, surprisingly tasty!!!

Lots of walking and as long as it's not raining, walking is  great.

Alex: working 2 jobs (cameraman and projects abroad), living with mom and younger sister, attending first year university in tourism (3 more years), and frustrated that he can't afford a car, or any form of transportation. My question about why are the streets being paved and the parks being cleaned, flowers pruned - his reply: elections are coming and the mayor wants to be sure she shows that progress is happening.  A public bus ride is expensive (about $1.30) and most locals chance it and ride w/o a ticket - the fine is 45 lei, but it is easy to get out of it by bribing the bus driver and inspector with 10 lei each, and all is forgotten.

A shot of flowers in my homestay's garden - with springtime and all the rain, tulips are everywhere (and those politicians just planted them to show the public that the city is being beautified!).  Can't believe what a difference the sunny day makes after all the rain and projected to get to 71 over the weekend with rain.   The rain should let up soon.

ROMANIA IMPRESSIONS #1

Sorry it's been a while getting this blog entry out - had to find an internet cafe that had a fast(er) USB connection for photos.  Let me know if the photos come across well as I reduced the resolution to speed transmission.

Thanks to Kate and Interim for hooking me up with Projects Abroad - the airport meeting was efficient To have a friendly driver waiting after a long flight is incredibly comforting in a new country.  The first impressions of romania were very positive - it is clearly a country in change.  Coming from the airport everywhere there are signs in english promoting business development and investment. The country is working very hard to come into the modern world.  As these blog entries continue, I hope to give you an impression of how close the romanian people are to the USA, and yet how different.  The defining things to my first impressions are the revolution of 1989 overthrowing N. Ceausescu's dictatorship and communism and Vlad Tepes (Vlad Dracula as the major tourist draw in this country because of the legends from hollywood) - more on both.

This first photo is after the long flight with my heavy rick steves bag packed with clothes for digging and warmth in a country changing from winter to spring balanced by an equally heavy carry-on with the essentials (camera, medications, snacks, and general "stuff". The happy face is from a long trip ended - I was met by the projects-abroad driver, leo (shown below).  Had to shoot a photo of the airport supermarket with the best looking fresh fruits shy of a farmer's market - all at prices roughly comparable to the  USA. Leo gave me some estimates for my economic meter "the MAC-meter" - the cost of a big mac, fries, and a large coke would be about $4.00 in Romania and he and his young son eat at macdonald's often.  Although not as common as in USA, they are placed in the large cities - as I explore Brasov this weekend, I'll look for the starbucks that is on every street corner at home.

We stopped for a snack on the 4 hr drive from Bucharest to Brasov and the snack is typical of the US.  Met my homestay mom and she was surprised because she was told a college-age boy was coming - imagine her surprise when someone her age arrived.  She was diplomatic about it though.  She and Leo are pictured. She does not speak any english, but as usual, we communicate in gestures and sign language.  My room is comfy, toasty warm at night for the 30-40 degree temps at night in these mountains and quiet.  Last photo on this blog was of a typical breakfast.  Good protein and good sausages