Romania

Every other night or so I completely lose myself to dreams of Romania and the people I love and miss.

Sometimes in my dream I am showing my family around the country for the first time, sometimes just my sisters, sometimes it's just Ryan and I, and sometimes it's just me, back there, like the old days. 

They're the kind of dreams that are hard to wake up from and stay with you for most of the day.

The kind that you wish you could just roll over and fall back into. 

The really happy good kind.

So being back there last year was bizarrely awesome!

I left blood, sweat, and tears on these old familiar streets of Romania.

But besides all that nostalgia, how could you not fall deeply in love with a country that looks like this?

People of Romania

Going back to Romania after all these years was like a dream. 

It was so much the same and so different all at once. 

And every second of it felt surreal. 

But the people were always my favorite part.

And that hadn't changed.  

So even though our two week trip felt way too short, I tried to capture as much of them as possible. 

Gypsy superstitions about cameras and photography made it a little bit of a challenge. 

I only wish I had been better at getting a portrait of all of our hosts in front of their respective homes. 

Oh well, another reason to go back. 

Mititei - Romanian street food. Always served with mustard and a thick slice of bread.

One of the smiliest and happiest Romanians I have ever met.
He cut open this squash to show us the inside. Using only the finest kitchen tools of course. 

Vendors set up shop on the sidewalk for your convenience. 
It's always the worst when you can't get garlic right outside your front door.

Gypsies love having their pictures taken. 

Luckily I couldn't hear what she was yelling at me through the bustle of the marketplace. 

 

The view from behind.

He stopped to help these metro performers by volunteering as their conductor. 

Clearly they needed one.

Parks are always packed with chess players. It's all very serious business.

Also, those are books hanging on lines in the background serving as an outdoor bookstore. Oh the convenience!

And it's not just players. There are crowds of men watching all the action. Chess spectators.

Incidentally I have never once seen a woman playing chess in Romania. 

 

Putting away his wallet after he just gave money to a beggar. I liked him immediately. 

The best way to photograph gypsies without being yelled at or having a finger waved in your face.

Side-note: I wore a bright colored skirt while we were there and got so many double-takes from people. 

Earning his keep.

Tending her flowers.

 

Manning the train station.

Keeping up with his peeps.

Talking to herself. 

Talking to somebody else.

Helping dad drive the truck - we stayed with Mihai and his adorable family out in the country

This is his grandma.

And this is his grandma's reaction after spotting him in the truck.

The double handed wave.

This is his grandpa.

And this is him with his dad and uncles.

Some people would yell at you for taking their picture. Others flat out ask you to take theirs. 

Can you guess which he was?

I was happy to believe his palm reading when he said I looked like an angel, had the beauty of the earth shining out of my eyes, and would find love wherever I went in my long and happy life. Then this fortune telling took a turn for the worse when he looked at Ryan's palm, got this above look on his face, and started spouting out things about death, heart disease, and six months to live. 

  Some little old ladies exiting the monastery in Hungary where we spent a cold afternoon. 

The people are lovely (wouldn't you agree?) and the scenery is insane!

More photos of the countryside coming soon.

Weeks Passing Like Days

photos found here & here

Today is Thursday.

More with-it people may already be aware of this fact.

Me, I am perplexed and bewildered by time's ability to accelerate at will.

By all my accounts it should be nowhere past Monday afternoon.

It should be monday and I should be unpacking and putting laundry through.

Instead, nearly four days have lapsed and left me without having done any of my daily cleanings.

Not a thing. All week.

I have this routine, you see.

Monday is for laundry, Tuesday for bedrooms, Wednesday for kitchen and dining room, and Thursday - today, according to my calendar - is for living room and study cleaning.

But I haven't touched any of it. Not a single days worth of cleaning.

I still feel like today should be monday and so does the house.

All week long I have been thoroughly and consistently distracted with thoughts of Switzerland and Italy, and Romania.

I wake up and begin the day with a mental checklist of things to do before leaving.

Photocopy paperwork, call credit card companies, get travel insurance, pick up ear plugs, you know, those sorts of things.

And there seem to be hundreds of them.

Just when I knock one thing off my list ten more seem to pop up out of nowhere.

And that's just the practical side of things.

The things I try to focus on and accomplish while there is still daylight left to accomplish them.

But soon enough the sun is setting and I am making packing lists, and filling out address labels, and writing blog posts like this one.

And after the sun sets, at that dusky time of night, I'll be unloading flashlights and first aid kits and advil from our emergency kit, and downloading reading material and music, the sorts of little things one can easily forget if one leaves them until the last minute.

And if I am in bed by 11:00 I will congratulate myself on getting there so early.

But sleep is not to be had so easily.

Laying in bed my mind fills up with thoughts of what shoes to take and how many pairs and how comfortable they'll be and for how long and will I need to buy a new pair, because I really don't want to spend the money or be breaking in new shoes my first week in Switzerland, maybe an insert will do the trick?

So I'll fly out of bed and pull out all of my shoes, try each pair on one at a time trying to gauge for comfort and longevity and functionality and prettiness - because at all costs one must feel pretty while traveling through Europe!

And I'll pace the halls to really make up my mind on comfort, and stop in front of the hall mirror to make up my mind on prettiness.

And then I'll wonder how well each pair will go with both pants and dresses.

But I can't know for sure without seeing them together.

So out come the pants and dresses and on continues the parade of madness.

Pretty soon it will be 2:00am and Ryan will be rolling over, scrunching his eyes to shut out the light, glaring first at the bright lamp then at me asking what in heavens name I am doing as I attempt a nothing unusual going on here look back.

This disguises nothing as the dress, skirt, tights, hat, and shoes I am simultaneously wearing immediately give me away as being anything but innocent and nowhere close to sleepy.

But I'll dutifully remove the layers, turn out the light, and tuck myself gently under the covers, partly as a courtesy to my ever indulgent husband, and partly in the hopes that this ruse may in fact actually convince myself that I am tired and it is indeed time for bed.

These ploys almost never work, and instead I am left lying awake in the dark with my mind going a mile a minute even if my body isn't.

Now it's all excitement and giddiness and thinking about which routes we will take and how long we will stay in each city once we finally make it back to Romania.

It has been 10 years since last I was there, and I can hardly believe that much time has passed.

So it's quite laughing and smiling in the dark as I daydream away the very early morning hours with thoughts of the country that I love and miss more than anything.

As I think of the reunions, and the people, and the sites, and smells and tastes of her.

And I try to distract myself with something more mundane, something that will bore me to sleep, you have to believe I really try.

But the desire to return has been held back too long and will be held back no longer.

It's unavoidable, and so if I can be soundly sleeping by 4:00am it's a good day.

And tomorrow begins all too soon and all too early.

Welcome December!

It's the first day of the month.

The first day of our advent calendar.

And the National Holiday of one of my favorite countries.

A pretty great day!

I spent a great deal of it hunched over our coffee table working on this...

(In fulfillment of both our daily advent calendar event and a last minute project I was recruited for)

While thinking a lot about this place...