Visit to Romania 2010 cont.

We also headed to the mountains to spend a day eating and hanging out with family friends.  We travelled through small towns as we drove up.  Keena and I also noticed throughout my trip that the streets were missing the horse carts that we have seen in the past.  Grigore said that there were very few of them left in the area of Sibiu.  Kinda sad.

It was too early in the season for the shepherds to bring the herds down, so the meadows were bare.  But it was still so beautiful.

We headed to Nicholae's place in the mountains.  Here is a picture of his backyard.
 

We spent all of our time sitting outside eating and hanging out.  Here is Lia enjoying the day with Keena.

When she decided she didn't like her first hat, she got to wear Rica's.

Most of the day was watching the kids play.  Here is Rica, Lia, and Zephn.

We also ate extreme amounts of food.  This is a picture of our first meal.  Notice the huge piece of lard on the left of the photo.  More fat please....

We had great weather for most of the day.

After lunch, we headed out to look for wild mushrooms.  Here is Grigore with Rica.  It was really thick terrain.

We were a little early for the season.  But we did find a few mushrooms.

Nicholae definitely found the biggest.  Too bad we could not eat it!

As we walked along, you could also pick wild strawberries and blueberries.  Here is Rica getting her share.

Here is Keena and Rica on the hunt.

In the end, we only found two mushrooms worth eating.  But it was a nice trip out, even if we did come back empty-handed.

More to follow...yes, I take lots of photos! :)

Visit to Romania 2010 cont.

During the visit, I also got to spend quality time with family and friends. At the beginning of July, Renate celebrated her birthday. The whole family got dressed up for the party. We took lots of family photos. Here is Keena with Lia.


Here is Renate with both her granddaughters, but as you can see, Lia did not want to participate.

It was a little easier with just Rica.

During the party, one of Renate's friends brought a huge bucket of cherries for us all to share. She pulled out the connected cherries and hung them on Rica's ears. As you can see, another "smile" photo from Rica.

During the trip, I also got to spend quality time with the girls in the strangest place......Rica really like to read her Economist during her breaks!

I also got a little wet in the evenings.

Besides hanging out with the family, we also visited with friends. We spent time with Sonda and her family hanging out in her wonderful backyard.

We spent most of the time playing with the girls. Here is Lia practicing walking.

Sonda also had some fun toys to play with. Here is Lia playing in a long flexible tube (note Grigo in the background).

Sonda also had a trampoline which Rica and Lia really liked.

Of course, Lia got hungry from all her exercise. I love this photo of her eating Pufuleti. It is basically like a cheeto. Lets just say it was like crack for Lia. Too funny.

More to follow...

Visit to Romania 2010 cont.

Besides walking around Sibiu, we also visited some museums. Here is Rica outside the Brukenthal art museum. We walked through a really nice gallery of Romania art. Rica has decided that she no longer likes her photo taken (since she is photographed all the time). Thus, she has taken to making funny faces when you ask her to smile.

We also visited the Natural History Museum. The two-story building is filled with stuffed animals. It has just enough animals to entertain a 3 year old.

Here is Rica looking at a crocodile eating a bird. Kinda funny.

They had animals from all over the world. I liked this set up of animals that lived in the cold.

Besides visiting museums, we also visited Buna's apartment (Grigo's grandmother). The family was getting the apartment ready for a visit from a cousin.

We also did some shopping. We stopped into this bookstore and I thought it was funny to see all the Jamie Oliver books in Romanian!

We also went to the local mall. I was able to find two dresses for £6 a piece! So cheap.

Surprisingly, the weather in Sibiu was not that great for a few days. It rained and it was very cold. On those days, we had to find other things to do. Here is a picture of Rica after I built her a house!

On a special occasion, Rica got to watch a movie. She likes Lady and the Tramp.

Rica also helped her grandfather one morning in making the roasted eggplant spread.

Sometimes there was not much for Lia to do, but she found her own entertainment....swinging her PJs around.

More to follow....

Visit to Romania 2010

I just got back from another wonderful trip to Romania to visit Keena, Rica, Lia, Grigo and the extended family. It was very relaxing and I spent most days hanging out in the garden under the apple tree watching the girls play.

Nothing much has changed in Sibiu. Many days we would walk into town for ice cream or to visit a museum.

Heading into town, we walked past the building next to the market that was designed by someone in Grigo's family. It has rustic charm with the brick exposure.

As you walk into town, you can see that some of the buildings have had a face lift with bright colors. This building is rather pink despite the photo.

The buildings still have eyes. I particular like these.

Here Grigore is pushing the girls up into the town. Too bad the nice walls have been tagged.

Here is the church next to Grigo's high school.

And of course, the town square.


Unfortunately, the water fountain was never on so the girls had to find other things to do. Rica really liked to harass the livestock.

We also walked under the Bridge of Lies, Romania's oldest cast-iron bridge...

and walked by Sibiu's good-looking Opera House...

and the ancient city wall. In one story I read about Sibiu, it says the irregular holes in the wall were originally made to get rid of dead bodies during the period that Sibiu was ravaged by pestilence. Excellent!

We also did many other things. More to follow in the next post.