This past week Mihaela and I were in Iaşi for a 3-day workshop (like the one we did in Baia Mare). Then on Thursday we went to Suceava to present in Petru Rareş High School. After five days of travel and work, Mihaela went back to Bucharest and I got to stay in Suceava for another night for a bit of relaxation and photo shooting.
From Suceava I took a "microbus" 45 minutes to Gura Humorului to see some of the famous painted monasteries. The monasteries were pretty spectacular, but first back to the bus ride. At the bus station I thought it only logical to ask at the ticket counter about buying a ticket to Gura Humorului. Apparently that was wrong, because I got pretty severely yelled at by both ticket agents (who both claimed they spoke no German or English) until I figured out I was supposed to buy the ticket from the bus driver. After I got on the bus, bought my ticket, and made sure he was going to stop in the center of the town and not go straight to the bus terminal a few kilometers outside the town, I managed to actually get a seat. Yes, that actually is quite a feat. These buses have about 10 seats, but I think there were probably close to 30 people at any given point on the bus. So there were no seatbelts and the roads were snowy, we were packed in so tight we wouldn't have gone far in case of a wreck anyways.
Once in Gura Humorului, I was able to visit Humor Monastery. Then Sue, an American teaching at the high school there for a year, called her favorite taxi driver Cristie, who took us to Voroneţ Monastery. Cristie played tour guide, and his broken English and cheesy sense of humor was quite entertaining. Afterwards, he set me up with a "maxitaxi"/hitchhiking ride back to Suceava. I sat up front with the driver, a man in his 50s, and had a pseudoconversation in a strange mix of his broken German and my very broken Romanian.
The next morning the mother of the owner of the villa I was staying at cooked me breakfast, checked on me 11 times to make sure I was eating everything, and peeked around the corner as I talked to her grandson about MBA programs in the US. After breakfast, I was able to wander Suceava for a few hours before my 7-hour train ride back to good ol' Bucharest.
From Suceava I took a "microbus" 45 minutes to Gura Humorului to see some of the famous painted monasteries. The monasteries were pretty spectacular, but first back to the bus ride. At the bus station I thought it only logical to ask at the ticket counter about buying a ticket to Gura Humorului. Apparently that was wrong, because I got pretty severely yelled at by both ticket agents (who both claimed they spoke no German or English) until I figured out I was supposed to buy the ticket from the bus driver. After I got on the bus, bought my ticket, and made sure he was going to stop in the center of the town and not go straight to the bus terminal a few kilometers outside the town, I managed to actually get a seat. Yes, that actually is quite a feat. These buses have about 10 seats, but I think there were probably close to 30 people at any given point on the bus. So there were no seatbelts and the roads were snowy, we were packed in so tight we wouldn't have gone far in case of a wreck anyways.
Once in Gura Humorului, I was able to visit Humor Monastery. Then Sue, an American teaching at the high school there for a year, called her favorite taxi driver Cristie, who took us to Voroneţ Monastery. Cristie played tour guide, and his broken English and cheesy sense of humor was quite entertaining. Afterwards, he set me up with a "maxitaxi"/hitchhiking ride back to Suceava. I sat up front with the driver, a man in his 50s, and had a pseudoconversation in a strange mix of his broken German and my very broken Romanian.
The next morning the mother of the owner of the villa I was staying at cooked me breakfast, checked on me 11 times to make sure I was eating everything, and peeked around the corner as I talked to her grandson about MBA programs in the US. After breakfast, I was able to wander Suceava for a few hours before my 7-hour train ride back to good ol' Bucharest.
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