Recent Travels

By recent, I mean, since I last talked about traveling in this blog.  The university had a break for the Christmas/ New Year's holidays, then final exams in Jan, and a break between semesters in Feb.  So, here are pictures (one or two for each place) and commentary (one or two sentences, unless something really outstanding happened) of:

• Christmas trip to Austria and Germany to see friends
• Dan to Monahans, Texas, to celebrate his father's 100th birthday
• Dan and Nancy canceled their trip to Egypt to see Kent Feb 1, while Kent came to Romania
• Showing Kent Romania: trip to Bucovina and Botoșani to meet Jake and Eleonor
• Visit to Fundatia Inocentia in Bistrița
• Traveling to Șigișoara with former exchange student Eva
• Nancy's high-adventure mountain experience
• Kent and Dan to Bucharest for the Fulbright Mid-winter Orientation

As Kent told a friend, "I've only been in Romania three weeks, and during that time I've only been home three days!"

• Christmas trip to Austria and Germany 

We rented a car and drove to Vienna to stay in a former exchange student's home, just happened to be the worst snowstorm in Hungary.  For three hours around Budapest, we could not drive more than 40 kmh (that's 25 mph).  At each town, we'd decide, "Do we check in and wait it out or go on to the next town?" Well, at 150 k from Vienna, we got through the storm, the highways were cleared, and it was 5:00.

The best part of the trip: OMA!! Zandi lives in a Danube valley wine village outside Vienna in a large farmhouse with her grandmother on one side of the house and her parents and sister on the other side.  Everyday, Oma would cook goodies for us!

• Dan to Monahans, Texas, to celebrate his father's 100th birthday

I went to Texas for 8 days, and talk about jet lag.  The birthday celebration was a great success. Dad was in the FBI during WWII, and this picture is an agent presenting Dad a certificate from the FBI.  Dad is the oldest known former FBI agent in America.  

• Dan and Nancy canceled their trip to Egypt to see Kent Feb 1, while Kent came to Romania

Kent was in Egypt on a US State Dept scholarship to learn Arabic and experience the culture.  Talk about experiencing the culture!!  He stayed with a host family in a suburb about 45 min from all the demonstrations, but got to observe plenty of neighborhood anarchy from his 9th floor balcony.  His host brother was manning the barricades on the street in front of the apartment to keep the looters at bay. While Dan was in Texas, Kent got the evacuation order from the Embassy, and got to Romania where Nancy was waiting before Dan got back.

So, of course, we had to show him around Romania!

• Showing Kent Romania: trip to Bucovina and Botoșani to meet Jake and Eleonor

At the Botoșani Synagogue

Jake Shulman-Ment is a fellow Fulbrighter who is studying traditional Jewish, Roma, Moldovan, and Romanian music  in Botoșani, in the northeast of Romania. We had been wanting to visit him and his girlfriend, Eleonor, also a musician.  On the way we visited the painted monasteries of Bucovina.
Botoșani had the worst wind storm in 50 years while we were there, so we just stayed in and listened to Jake and Eleanor play music. They showed us the contrast between traditional Yiddish music, Roma music and Romanian music.

Moldovitsa Monastery

We  visited the painted monosteries at Humor, Voronets, Moldovitsa, and Suchevitsa. A cool thing to do next time: the monastery at Putna offers guest rooms.

• Visit to Fundatia Inocentia in Bistrița

with Tibi, the Outreach Worker for Fundatia Inocentia

One of my "things to do" in my Fulbright project is to visit NGOs that serve children and families.  I had arranged to visit Fundatia Inocentia/ Romanian Children's Relief in  Bistrița on our way back from Bucovina and Botoșani. I've discussed my visit in other blog posts. Nancy, Kent and I visited a children's ward of a hospital, a special needs orphanage, a group home for special needs children, a school for disabled children, and a foster family. We met the staff of Fundatia Inocentia and high school volunteers from The American School in England, who have been coming to Bistrița on their winter break for over 10 years.

OK this posting is getting long enough.  It's time to make it into two parts.  Don't go away! More travels to come! Recent Travels, Part 2 Don't miss Nancy's evacuation by Mountain Rescue team!