Complex Hanul Muresenilor Sacele

Day 1 - Adrian Pask It's the end of our first full day in Romania and we've had an amazing start to our visit. Firstly, our hosts are being fantastic - they, and their families, have been exceptionally friendly and welcoming and we're all having a fabulous time. We were greeted at Bucharest airport after our gruelling business class journey (!) by the ever-smiling face of Zsuzsa from the Romanian GSE Team. Interestingly she was carrying a sign marked ...

... of my very own feet just a few meters but an "Irish" pub. Of course, I might have to disagree with the "Irish" part after visiting the establishment. I couldn't get a Black and Tan. Did have a Guinness though, strictly for medicinal purposes against the cold weather. As Jimmy Buffett would say, it's five o'clock somewhere.

My days in Bucharest were interesting. I'm glad I got the opportunity to go down there. My visa was approved so I'm on my back to the US on Saturday :-) I'm really looking forward to going home now. It took about 3 hours all up. It was a morning of queuing. First they assumed i was american because I spoke english so I queued in one room. Then i moved to a another queue in the non-american room. Then I found out that I was supposed to first queue in another room to hand ...

... asked for a passport photo. I started to describe that I need one that is 5cm x 5cm and she said oh.. you want it for the USA? They obviously do a lot of those because she knew exactly what was needed. She pasted my hair back behind my ears and took a nice communist style photo. I couldnt pick it up until Saturday morning though, I had wrongly assumed that everywhere in the world has a 1hour photo service. We had all decided to go out to Sighisoara on Saturday. The others ...

... my mate and followed me all the way down to the other end of town. Havent seen the kitten for a while which is probably just as well. Everybody kept asking me if i was going to bring a baby home with me from romania, it's more likely that i'd bring the kitty home. For dinner I had the usual fake meat plus this vegetable soup that Piri made on the weekend and has given me every day. It wasnt my favourite soup on the first day, but on the 4th day in a row it was really ...

... them. These dogs continue to breed until now. Even the hostel did not have any curfew, I chose to return to the apartment way before dusk. I also saw the building where Ceausescu tried to make his speech from a balcony, just days before he was shot to death by a firing squad in 1989 (I remember seeing this on TV when I was a student in Australia). In front of the building now stands the Revolution Monument.

a light shouting in your mind the presence of loneliness coming from behind and what is silence if not a cure spoken forever, never listened for sure i really hurt you with my pain no silly arguments to reduce or restrain i feel that " you coming" is just an excuse forever tempted but never induced and what are your words if not a trial keeping you waiting seduced in denial i am a madman ...

... the political developments in that country. I get shivers down my spine as I here about the dwindling situation there from news reports. I still find myself crying over both the friends I've had to leave behind there and what future awaits them. My heart, hopes, and strengh are always reaching out to them. They are in a tough situation and unfortunately they have very censored access of news information...if you would even call it news. I've tried to stay in contact ...

... backpackers to take back to her ad hoc hostel, basically an apartment converted for that use, entirely DIY auto-pilot. God help you if one of your back-packer buddies leaves the door open or some other such irresponsible nonsense. A couple days of this is enough, but I still like Romania, so book a train to Timisoara.

... hosts drove us around a bit for us to get a better view. The most entertaining aspect of the journey was Nico sitting in the back of his truck with his Romanian-English dictionary, attempting to speak to us. It was hilarious to hear him rambling off words.... "hello. red. I am good. yes." The town where I am living has a beautiful open-air market which is open 7 days a week. It is a wonderful cultural experience to go there, and it has become one of my favourite places to visit ...