Primavara

I hardly dare write this in fear I'm going to jinx something, but I think spring might actually be settling in here in Bucharest!

So yes, it did snow last Friday (which I missed due to a flight to Rome!), but it's gone and the sun is out and we have highs of 50 degrees forecasted this week. So I'm operating under the assumption that it's going to stay this way for a while.

I've been doing a bit of traveling the past few weekends. I went to Cluj, a long night-train ride northwest of Bucharest, and spent a nice weekend watching Hungarian opera with Romanian supertitles and eating sushi. The trip to Rome probably deserves an entry all its own, so sit tight on that.

I don't have any plans for more traveling until Melissa gets here in three weeks. Until then I plan to do all the things in Bucharest that I've been meaning to do for five months but haven't gotten around to, including going to the opera and the Peasant Museum, eating a burger at the American Sports Bar in the Marriott, and going ice skating in Cismigiu Park (if Spring allows).

Gephyrophobia

Gephyrophobia: The fear of bridges and/or crossing them.

I've noticed an interesting pattern in myself: the moment I make a definite decision in my life, for example and most conspicuous right now, buying a plane ticket from one continent to another, I stop enjoying where I am and start stressing out about where I'm going. I can no longer take things one day at a time, appreciating the hesitations, questions, expletives that punctuate life's simple rhythm. Instead I make mental lists of everything I have left to see, to do. Each one of those One Last Coffees I have to grab with friends.

I devote all my attention to the Next Big Step. To resumes and cover letters and thinking it might help to narrow it down to at least one region of the world, but not knowing where to start. 63 days of crescendoing whirlwind. Of last minutes and long goodbyes and just one more times.

I think this is more a fear of time constraints, but there isn't a word for that.

An Eventful January

January is almost over, and it's time for a long-overdue post to the good ol' blog!

The first week of the new year I spent traveling Romania with Mary and Jen, my two good friends from home (who I had actually met studying in Graz). I've posted pictures, and here's the blow-by-blow:

The night of January 1st we took a rather eventful night train to Timisoara. Running late, and not knowing which end of the train our sleeper car was on, we just hopped on and decided to find it once the train started moving. That turned out to not be the wisest of ideas, because several of the doors to the train never got closed, so we had to shimmy along the wall past the open doors. Once we finally found the right car, we were locked out of it, so we had to knock until someone came with the keys to let us in. After all that excitement, we slept like babies, even if we were stacked 3-high in bunk beds!

After Timisoara we went to Oradea and soaked in some thermal springs. Then on to Sighisoara and stayed in the hostel that was in the fortress on top of the hill. In Sibiu we stayed with Nicole, a Fulbrighter (and fellow PNWer!). After a day in Sibiu I came back to early to go back to work, which didn't end up lasting very long because I got the flu and had to spend the week in bed.

Now I'm back in the swing of things at work, staying busy with posters and special events. I've even been formally dubbed their "Artist in Residence" thanks to all my PowerPoint and Publisher expertise. :) I started language classes last week (finally!), and I'm really excited to get some formal learning under my belt before I leave.

Speaking of leaving, I bought my plane ticket home finally. I knew I needed to buy it before I got the crazy idea to just keep staying, as I tend to do. So April 3rd it is. Back to the land of orderly grocery store check out lines, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, solid sidewalks and Mexican food!

Christmas in the Alps

I'm back after a lovely week and a half in the Austrian Alps for Christmas with my Austrian host family from 2005. It was a pretty eventful week, but entirely laid back and relaxing at the same time, which was exactly the kind of Christmas break I needed.

After a 2-hour delay, what should have been a 10:00pm flight didn't arrive in Vienna until 1:00am, and once I finally landed we drove straight through the night and got to the cabin just as the sun was rising. So needless to say, that day was basically spent sitting in the sun, reading and eating. Well ok...that's how most of the week was spent...but at least the first day we had a valid excuse.

I did get to try my hand at skiing for the second time in my life, which ended up being a lot more fun than I remember it being. The next day muscles I didn't know exsisted in my legs were screaming at me, and I had a winning bruise on my hip, but it was totally worth it. You can see pictures of my skiing endeavors, as well as the rest of the week, here.

On my way back to Bucharest I made a pit stop in Vienna to meet Dan and his parents on their way to Prague. I spent the afternoon with them, playing tourguide and showing them around my city. The next day I hit up all six H&Ms in search of a coat and warm clothes, of course taking breaks for coffee in my favorite cafes. Dan flew back to Vienna the next day, and we somehow managed to catch our 6:00am flight (leaving the house at 3am!) back to Bucharest the morning of New Year's Eve. We decided that the incredibly cheap price we paid for the ticket just wasn't worth the pain of starting your day at 2 in the morning.

I'm proud to say that after such an early morning, we still managed to ring in the New Year that night, celebrating with old and new Romanian friends in an apartment in Bucharest. My dear friends Mary and Jen came from the States to see me, and we all watched the fireworks from the balcony and enjoyed good food and champagne.

I hope the New Year finds you all well. Here's wishing you all the best from Romania!

Sărbători Fericit!

Crăciun Fericit şi Anul Nou Fericit dîn România!

This last week before Christmas Bucharest has finally decided to start spreading some holiday cheer. Christmas markets are springing up in all the major squares, and on most street corners the usual flowers/slippers/undergarments vendors have been replaced by those selling Christmas lights, Mos Craciun ("Old Man Christmas") window decorations and mini Christmas trees. On Sunday it snowed all day, and the downtown area looked really beautiful covered in snow and Christmas lights.

There was even a special on the news last night about the pig slaughtering, torching, roasting and eating traditions and the EU's regualtions against them. I had thought this might be a nice tradition to witness firsthand, but after watching the news special (content not suitable for the young or squeamish...no editing over here, folks!), I realize I'll be ok without seeing it.

Which works out nicely, because I am leaving for Vienna tonight to spend a week in the Austrian Alps with my "European family." I feel like it's a bit of a cop out to not be in Romania during Christmas, but I'll be back for New Year's. I figured that was a good compromise. And I must admit, I can't wait to spend a week with Silvin, Anja and the boys drinking coffee, baking cookies, playing games, reading and sledding! Sounds like a pretty decent way to finish off an eventful year.

Here's wishing you all a lovely Christmas surrounded by friends and family. You will be missed!

La mulţi Ani 2008!

A Week Up North

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.

Weekend in Bulgaria

As I'm sure you're all aware of, it's not too difficult for me to find excuses to travel. Well, the Romanian government (in cohorts with the EU, of course) was just so kind as to hand me one without my ever asking! Since I don't have a residency permit, I'm only allowed to stay in Romania for 90 days. Since I'm here for six months, the easy solution is to cross the border and get your passport stamped, and 9 times out of 10 you won't have any problems. So there you have it: Kymber has to leave the country.

When my good friend Dan heard about my plans to cross into Bulgaria, he decided to come along and we made a weekend out of it. If we're going to go all that way, we might as well do some sight-seeing, right? We were pretty shameless with our American touristness, and got some great pictures. Somehow it's ok to look like a foreigner as long as you aren't actually living in that city.

Being the experienced travellers that we both are, we packed quite a bit into one weekend. It started out with a 10-hour night train to Sofia, which we almost missed. But after running through the metro and train station "Amazing Race" style, we were informed the train was 90 minutes late. It was kind of anti-climatic, but at least we got to eat a nice McDonald's dinner before we left! :)

We arrived in Sofia after a long night of border crossings and the first of what Dan refers to as "A Series of Uncomfortable Beds." We explored for a few hours, discovered a Dunkin' Donuts and the famous Yellow Brick Road, then hopped on another train for Plovdiv.

Plovdiv, the "cultural capital" of Bulgaria, is the second largest city in Bulgaria, and one of the oldest cities in Europe, dating back to the days of ancient Rome. Standing in one square, we watched a man clean the tower of the muslim mosque while artists sold their goods along the edge of a Roman amphitheater. The contrast of Roman ruins, muslim architecture, and the cryllic alphabet, side by side in a clean Balkan city free of gaping sidewalks and relentless traffic was fascinating and refreshing all at once. Not to mention the friendly people and the prices that were about a third of those in Bucharest! Our hostel, while virtually unheated, was right in the middle of the oldest part of the city, so we were able to walk everywhere and see most of the sights in about a day and a half before heading back to Sofia.

In Sofia we had a few more hours before our night train back to Bucharest, so we did some more exploring, this time finding a restaurant with the best salad either of us have had since we've left the States. Then another long night train back to Bucharest, and back to work and real life!