Buna Piatra Neamt!

I boarded the bus at the station in Brasov yesterday morning at 7:30, fighting back tears as I had to say goodbye to Ica & Victor. It was an emotional moment for me, sitting on that bus all alone and watching them wave goodbye. Seriously, it hurts just thinking about it. I think that's understanbable at this point though, given the fact that I've only been in town for just over 24 hours.

It was a cloudy and rainy day yesterday as the bus headed north out of Brasov. We passed through Harghita County, which is the Hungarian zone bordering the Eastern Carpathians. I saw the towns of Sfantu Gheorghe, Miercurea Ciuc and Gheorgeni, all of which are nothing to write home about. The ride ot interesting when we began to climb in elevation and made the trip into Moldavia. After many a switchback, the bus headed through the awesome Bicaz Gorge and past the intimidating Ceahlau Massif, which is one big, bad looking mountain.

The sun came out as I entered Piatra and my counterpart Florin was there to greet me in his spiffy outfit, equipped with a euro man-purse. We got into his Passat (quite a change from the Dacia) and headed to my new gazda. I unloaded all of my crap and had a nice lunch with Georgiana and her son Stephan. Georgiana is a 36 year-old overworked, underpaid doctor and her son is a 14 year-old hunchback computer geek. Stephan's never had a dad, doesn't get out much and hardly sees his mom. It's kind of sad acutally. Grandpa George (retired physics teacher) and Grandma Rodica (retired dentist) live there too, but they'll be leaving for Canada to stay with their other daughter in a week. They'll be gone for 2-3 months, so I'll be in my apt. by the time they return. So, it's going to be the three of us for most of the stay. Oy.

I'm running out of time here at the Tavernet internet cafe in beautiful downtown Piatra Neamt, so I'll have to cut this short. More later.