7 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

I’m so breaking my rule. Two pictures in this post. But I can’t help myself.

In the morning, some of us went over to the dairy to move some hay bales. This was not the most active of trips and so I was thrilled to go and work. Alas, there were enough of us that it didn’t take very long and so we begged to shovel manure. We got to, and Levente, the minister and Brandon, the Peace Corps volunteer, were amused by our enthusiasm.

The dairy is part of Project Harvest Hope. This organization promotes economic development in Transylvania, with the idea being that if their are economic opportunities then more people will have the opportunity to stay in their village. You can read about and see pictures of the dairy here.

Our next stop was a visit to the salt mines. Parajdi Sobanya (aka Salina Praid) If I remember correctly, this is still a working salt mine, but we went where the other tourists were. It turns out that spending time in a salt mine can help with respiratory diseases. So entire families come for a period of several days or a week or two and spend several hours each day in the salt mine. My journal says, “They [the children] play, so there is ping pong and badminton and slides and it’s all kind of dark and salty tasting.” If you go to this link you can scroll down and then click on several pictures of the salt mine. It’s a bit bizarre to wander though and dodge the hundreds of families playing and hanging out down there. There is also a chapel and an art gallery as well as a museum. I think the visit to the salt mine qualified as the oddest stop on the trip.

But then we went to the most magical place ever. It was a mineral lake, with so much salt we bobbed around with no effort whatsoever. It was also warm. Alex and I particularly loved it and had to be motioned out. I have no idea where this place was, or what it was called, but it was wonderful.
Back in the village I caught this picture in front of the church. In the villages, many people still use wagons for transport. It isn’t unusual to see them, but I still got excited every time. As you can see, one of the men is waving at me. Hungarians are incredibly friendly and generous, a fact that makes the area a very nice place to visit.
After this wagon went by, the cows came home. They wandered up the street and one of them peeled off from the herd and stood at the gate of the house next door to where we were staying. The women of the house came out, opened the gate and in she went for the night.

6 July. Five pictures from my Washington DC trip.

My flight didn’t leave until 5:30 pm and Sara nicely offered to drive me to the airport which meant we had time to do a bit more sightseeing. Jess came along too. We took a trip to Oxon Hill Farm where we wandered a bit and had a chance to take this senior portrait.
Here we are violating the rule “don’t touch any farm animals.” I thought it was a dumb rule.
Post farm, we drove into Baltimore because Jess heard that the Pizza was quite good at BOP Brick Oven Pizza. It was, but you know what else was good? The gelato shop down the street. I’ve not had gelato before–figuring that if you can have ice cream, why have gelato? Today I found my answer. It was de-lic-ious! Pitango gelato. Go there if you can. I had chocolate noir and creme fraishe which I recommend.
While in the gelato shop Sara saw a woman with a great hat. As we wandered through the shopping area I spied the very same hat in a hat store. We went in to look at the various great hats and chatted with the clerk, who was much nicer than the clerk in the clothes shop down the street who ignored us, which is why I don’t like to go into fancy clothes shops, aside from the fact that they don’t make clothing in my size. Anyway, this clerk was quite friendly and Sara bought a hat. “Would you like to wear it,” he asked, “so others can see it and come in here just as you did?” he asked. She said yes and she did.

On our way to the airport, we saw this billboard. I really liked what I saw of Baltimore and I would like to explore it more someday.
Because my navigation skills are good, but not superb, we got to drive through a good chunk of Baltimore. This was okay in my book because I wasn’t really excited about getting to the airport. We also got to play Sara’s “identify the denomination of the church” game which I’m not so good at, but is fun. We eventually got to the airport and posed for one last picture, with Sara in her new hat. Fetching, isn’t it?
I then entered the hell of airports, as evidenced by this incident. I was waiting in a line that was not moving and witnessed a woman in an American Airlines uniform, with an American Airlines lanyard and American Airlines ID tell a man, “I would love to help you, but I don’t work for American Airlines.”

I hate airlines.

So if someone could get to work on that transponder, I would be ever so happy.

Minus the airplanes it was a great trip. I came home proud to be an American.

6 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

We started the day with church, and everyone looking so nice. Oh wait! I just glanced at my photos and I see the embroidery at the church is red, not blue as mentioned in earlier posts. I made the mistake because the church is primarily painted blue. At any rate, the church is small, and I think we doubled the size of the congregation that day. Eva said it was summer and a lot of people were working in the fields.

After church, eating (again–we were quite well fed) and some resting, we set out for the swimming hole. It was a bit of a walk, in the US we probably would have driven. But we made it. The swimming hole was very small, more of a large hot tub size with boards built all around it. The mineral content of the water was supposed to be healing. It was kind of a breezy day, so none of our youth went in. Some of us did however, enjoy the mud hole. Dana, Eva and I wandered in and I muddied up my arms, to help with the psoriasis. Then Brittany arrived and put us all to shame. There is a picture after this one where even her hair is covered in mud.
Now think of getting all that mud off. There was no faucet, just a trickle from a stream. It took me a bit of time to wash all the mud away, but it took Brittany quite a long time. She was happy though.

Another thing to notice in this picture is the decoration on the posts around the mud hole. I like how everything, no matter how mundane is decorated. It makes so many nice places to rest your eye.

In the evening we had a campfire and sang songs.

Three sentence movie reviews: Vertigo

In contrast to today’s suspense/mystery-type movies, this one moves incredibly slowly. Very obvious shots are lingered upon until even the dimmest movie viewer gets the point. Still, it is a Hitchcock film, and though I had seen it before, I still was tense/frightened at the end.

Bechdel score. Two women: nope. Unless you count Kim Novak as two women. 🙂

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1958/vertigo.html

5 July. Five pictures from my Washington DC trip.

After our long day and late night, I was happy that St Paul’s K street’s solemn mass isn’t until after 11:00. We went and I enjoyed the pageantry of the service. Post church we met up with Sara’s sister Jess and went to Chinatown and had “Fresh Noodle Made on the Spot.”
I met up with Jenna at The Building Museum. I was pretty excited to see Portland was featured in the Green Community exhibit. Oh look! We’re even in the picture on this page of the website. There was also a great exhibit about storefront churches.

I bid goodbye to Jenna and decided to take another attempt at the National Museum of the American Indian. On the way, I took this picture of the capitol.
I love the beauty of the American Indian museum’s building. All the undulating lines make it interesting to photograph and fun to look at. You can see more pictures by scrolling down to the bottom of this link.
I never thought I would say this, but I was pretty museumed out. I went to look at the food court, which I heard was fabulous and which looked delicious, but I was still full from “Fresh Noodle.” I wandered through two gift shops buying some last souvenirs. Then I wandered across the exhibit “Ramp it Up” about the skateboarding culture in Native America. Because I have always had a soft spot in my heart for skaters, I loved this exhibit.
I took the Metro back to Sara & Shawn’s and I entirely checked out, missed my stop by a couple of stops and had to double back. That has never happened to me on any public transportation system. Ever. I was pretty tired. We (S&S along with Jess) lounged around a bit and then went to see Vertigo at this Diner. Both Sara and I were thinking “Diner in front, movie theater in back,” but no, there was not theater, just a small screen and a projector in enclosed deck out front. When it got time for the movie, they loaded it up and turned on the sound. It was kind of bizarre. But fun. I’d seen the movie before, but still gasped in surprise as the nun rounded the corner at the end.

It was a good last full day of my trip.

5 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

Man, there were a lot of good pictures from today. It was a touch choice. Today was the day we “worked” in Okland, which consisted of about an hour or so of clearing wood and debris. A sudden summer downpour ended our labor, though we were pretty much finished. After resting a bit, we took a tour of the cemeteries of Okland. First we went to “the cemetery” on a hill above the village. From “the cemetary” we could see the “passersby cemetery” where anyone who hasn’t lived in the village since forever is buried. “Even if they have lived here for 100 years?” I asked. “Even if they are the minister?” Eva told me both of those groups would be in the passersby cemetery. She said she likes the view better in the passersby cemetery anyway.

We walked back to the village and had a tour of the church. Their church, unique among Unitarian churches, has painted tiles on the ceiling. Their embroidery, as mentioned before, was solid blue. We got to play the organ and go all the way up in the bell tower, where I took this picture of the village.
Isn’t it pretty? Most all of those houses have gardens in the backyard where in America the lawn would be. The road through town that you can see in this picture is a dirt road, and it is the one that the cows walk on to get back to their homes at the end of the day.

After our tour of the church we wandered up to the passersby cemetery and indeed, the view is quite nice. Next on our agenda was an incredibly long soccer game in the school yard. I played, Marcia played, Don played, the YRUU youth played, the youth from the village played. It was tremendous fun. While my soccer skills mostly involve getting in the way of things at the correct times and constant chatter, Don (our most senior member of the group) turned out to be a soccer star. So much so, I began to refer to him as “The Wall.” I was surprised to learn he hadn’t ever really played soccer. He attributed his skill to his youth playing hockey.

Our game reluctantly ended when we were called in for dinner. Post dinner, was a viewing of Juno. So ended the evening.

4 July. Five pictures from my Washington DC trip.

We (that would be Shawn, Sara and myself) started today with the parade. Always a good start to a day, in my opinion. In the parade there were many different people of many different ethnicities in many different traditional costumes as below. There were marching bands. See Sara’s write up of the day to hear about our favorite marching band which we also ran across later in the evening enjoying the fireworks on the mall. You can also see them at the parade in this link. They were great!

The parade itself was interesting, but the spectators were very silent. It was kind of weird.
After the parade, we walked back to St. Paul’s K Street, where we had parked and picked up our picnic lunch. We walked over to the Kennedy Center, where they have nice picnic tables that anyone can sit at, and had our 4th of July feast. You are looking at a BLT, beet and goat cheese salad, potato salad and a delicious broccoli walnut salad. Dessert was blueberry peach cobbler and whipped cream. Yummy! Sara and Shawn need to move to Portland so Sara and I can cook for each other.
We wandered down through the Folklife Festival towards the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and arrived just at closing time. We wandered back toward the Washington Monument. I took this picture, because in DC, they cleverly use buses to block off roads during events. Then, when the event is over, they can just put the buses into circulation. Genius.
We got to the Monument pretty early and just sat and chilled out for awhile. There were naps taken by some of us, and a lot of people watching happened. Sara and I went to find food at some point, but the lines were very, very long so we abstained. We took this picture of me in front of the monument. We heard an awful band play a concert. I noticed that certain “I’m a patriot sacrificing for my country” songs are a bit whiny. They seem like they are all proud, but underneath you can hear the whine.
Eventually darkness fell and I got this picture of the monument. The fireworks started. We were dazzled. Then came the walk back to the car and the very tricky maneuver that bypassed the traffic and got us home in minutes instead of hours.
It was a lovely fourth!

4 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

Today we bid goodbye to Kolosvar and began our journey to Okland. On the way, we stopped in Torda to see where the Edict of Torda was signed. We Unitarians are quite proud of the Edict of Torda.

We stopped in Marosvasarhely (you will note that the link uses the Romanian name, though references the Hungarian. Interestingly, 2002 was the first year in which Romanians outnumbered Hungarians in this city, though they were close in number in 1992.) In this city, we first visited the City Fortress, mentioned in the above link, then after lunch, the Palace of Culture. This, aside from being a lovely place where we heard a pianist practicing in the main hall (until his cell phone rang,) was also the site of our tour guide, Eva’s first date with her now-husband. It is also known for its Hall of Mirrors which is apparently very hard to portray on the Internet. The Hall of Mirrors does have mirrors on one side, but on the other is a series of stained glass windows that portray various fables from Hungarian history. If you click through the above link, you can see some of the stained glass, though alas, not the stars that I fell in love with. It was fun to go to the hall of mirrors, because we got to hear the recorded tour. It was a little hard to understand, but it was humorous to shuffle down the hall hearing about the various fables. This link also has some good pictures.

After the Palace of Culture we got back on the bus and arrived in Korond, which was a place to buy authentic Hungarian handcrafts. We bypassed the place we had stopped in 2005, with Eva remaking that they had started selling non-authentic items. In Korond (“I’ve been there!” Matt told me when I got home) we got to see a family of potters throw cups, as well as their workshop. I bought a few mugs with the traditional designs on them.

This is the gate leading into the courtyard. The gate is the traditional carved wooden gate. This one also sports a few decorated plates. Behind the gate is the shop and the workspace as well as, I think, the family home. Note the satellite dish next to the traditional gate.
We journeyed on to Okland, arriving in the afternoon. Okland is a Unitarian village of about 400 people. When googling around for information about the village, I found this article which is great because these are the exact same people we stayed with. There is even a picture of Eva, our guide, and Levente, her husband, the minister.

I had been feeling a bit homesick all day, this being the first time I was not in the US on the 4th of July. I may have not been the only one. Eva cleverly planned an American-style celebration and we sang patriotic songs. At one point Levente came in waving the flag. I was most astounded that they would have a US flag. We had watermelon and spit the seeds and there were even sparklers. And marshmallows. It was a great end to the day.

3 July. Five pictures from my Washington DC trip.

Not many pictures today, as the majority of the day was spent traveling to Silver Spring to visit my Aunt Merle, who lives in a retirement community there. I had left my Zipcar card at home (drat) and so could not reserve one to drive and see her, so I depended on the Metro to get me there. It did, much to my amazement, though it was a bit more than a 90 minute journey each way. This is the road leading to the retirement community. While there, I neglected to take a picture with Aunt Merle. (double drat)
One of the houses on the way back. I liked the decorative wood in this carport.

Sara lives in this tall building. The one in the middle of the picture, not the one closest to me. By the time I got home, it had started to rain, a bit. In the afternoon, I hung around and helped (a little) while Sara prepared for our 4th of July picnic.

In the evening Sara, Shawn and I went to the very fancy and delicious Restaurant Eve, where Sara’s sister works. I had a delightful dinner including a poached duck egg with prosciutto and croutons as well as bouillabaisse for my entree. My dessert was quite fabulous, being a house made “Butterfinger” which was about 400 times more delicious than any Butterfinger I’ve eaten (and about twenty times more expensive.)

If you squint you can see Sara and I in the restaurant. We opted for the stealthy, no flash picture.

3 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

Our day began with breakfast at the High School, and then we met the Bishop and got a tour of the school, as well as the Unitarian Church. Because Unitarianism came out of the Protestant reform movement, the churches, especially in this part of the world, tend to be very white and bright with little ornamentation. What they do have is beautiful, solid color embroidery decorating everything. Apparently, if you are familiar with the styles, you can identify the embroidery by region. The church in Kolosvar had red embroidery, the church in Okland used blue.

We also saw the stone where Francis David stood and preached a sermon that converted the entire town to Unitarianism. (There has since been some backsliding.) We also toured St. Michael’s church which is the large Catholic church in the main square.

Then: swimming. I was thrilled as it was very hot and sticky and I like nothing more than to be in the water on such a day. We took the bus to the pool which was huge–they had one big pool and two or three smaller ones. There was topless sunbathing (which everyone handled most maturely) but the thing that was the most interesting to me was that the pools had no filter. They were very large cement rectangles with no outlet for all the detritus that comes along with public pools. So while swimming I brushed against all sorts of things.

Post swimming we broke up into smaller groups. Dana and I found a post office, which was thrilling as I had been trying to mail my postcards for days, and then wandered down to look at the Orthodox church, where these two women were chatting. I wonder how old they are? They could, conceivably, be in their early 60s as old people there tend to look older than their age would suggest.