again I must mention last night’s rugby, as now England are in the final, we are considering having a world cup final party at our house and inviting our neighbours to experience a truly British experience,... just a shame you can't get good fish and chips around here!!! I'll keep you posted!
I think I'll be really lucky if I can top last week's report on the Hungarian Wedding, and so this week's tale returns to more everyday matters in Romania...You may remember our torturous trip to Brasov which included and 8 hour train journey home (for a 3 hour bus ride) and the outward journey where I sat on a beer crate on the floor of a mini-bus for 3 hours!
This weekend we (me, Karen, Helen and her two friends Lou, & Lizzy) visited SIGHISOARA. Sighisoara is famous for being the birthplace of 'Vlad the Impailer' who the Dracula 'legend' is reputed to be based upon. My knowledge of Vlad is limited but he basically got the name after being kidnapped as a child and held prisoner in Turkey, where during years of violent fighting he picked up such behaviours as displaying the heads of his enemies, by impaling them on sticks outside his castle... he returned to Transylvania and continued these practices. There is no direct link of him to Dracula (which makes sense as the Dracula legend was made up anyway!), just legend of such horrifying behaviours... hence the link....Anyway, enough of a history lesson and please feel free to correct any of that story that might be a little incorrect. So this weekend.... we got up at some crazy time in the morning to get the only bus at 0730. But as we arrived at the bus station that we were told was the 'old' bus station, a local man was saying that the bus was not coming today, in fact the bus was not coming for two weeks!!!! There was no notice to say this, or say why! We have learned that tourism is not a concept that is thought about, so whereas the locals know, non-locals get to know nothing!!! But wait, there was nurse from the hospital nearby, who told us we could get a train... (Oh no!!) In 30 minutess which would take us some of the way, then we could pick up a different bus.... so after getting on perhaps the slowest train ever in my life... (I think three local horse and carts passed us twice!!!) We got off the train as directed, in the middle of nowhere... there was no sign indicating a bus stop, so we stopped in a lay-by where people seemed to be hitch-hiking... or selling vast amounts of onions... this is true, there were almost 9 huge onion stalls within 200 yards... bizarre! After close to an hour, we began thinking about hitching (mum / dad don’t worry.. its common practice here).... we were saved by the now infamous maxi-taxi which took us to or destination.
Sighisoara itself is a small town, with most attractions based within its citadel walls, on the hillside. It was busy and of course has far too many 'Dracula' tourist sites, but we did find plenty places of interest, and the great thing is everything is within easy walking distance. The 'hidden' wooden staircase is perhaps the most impressive feature, along with great views for the tower in the citadel.
My return journey was slightly better, but did include an hour wait for the maxi-taxi, which again crammed 20= people onto a 16-seater minibus, and with no queuing system in operation, anywhere in Romania, you need to be its survival of the fittest... fortunately I was no going to let the last minute arrivals deny me my ride home, so with elbows sharpened and at the ready I fought my way to near the front of the queue... be warned though, old ladies with bags of onions will do whatever it takes to push past!!!
At the hospital it’s been a quiet week... I think the more comfortable I become with the language, the better I can distinguish between, rambling irrational talk of patients, and genuine bursts of real emotions, which has meant that I have begun to feel more empathy for people's situations. We also took one guy who is deaf and dumb, in the car of my Dutch colleague, just in the hospital grounds. He was so excited since he began to cry at this tiny drive around. This was really emotional for us all to see, and to add some context to this story, I must explain that he is affectionally known as 'Mutu' (as in mute...) because he is deaf and dumb, and was orphaned form being born. He spent all his life in an orphanage, before being moved to the psychiatric hospital, purely because there is nowhere else to go. Everything that we take for granted is alien to him. He only knows his world.. is has been argued that maybe ignorance is bliss in this case? He has been taken on a few day trips in the past, but these are not currently allowed.
Other weekly highlights have included, more drinks with at the Hungarian family home Monday evening, and going to another neighbour's barbeque (Wednesday), which was great for me, but not good for vegetarian colleagues... having said that, we all had a good night and met more neighbours... so the networking continues!!!
Bye for now! (or ‘pah’! as they say here!)
Regards from Romania
Dan
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