Friday, February 23, 2007

A Week on the Road, Part One

I was on winter break a few weeks back and decided to hit the road. My travels took me to Zalau, a city in northwest Transylvania and then on to Sighet, the northernmost city in Romania. Sighet, located in the region known as Maramures, straddles the border with Ukraine. I managed to hop across the border and spent an interesting afternoon in Solotvyna, Ukraine before heading back home. The following is my travel journal, accompanied by some photographs and video clips. I’m going to present this journal in two parts. Part One is Saturday, February 3rd through Tuesday, February 6th. Part Two will be Wednesday, February 7th through Friday, February 9th. Enjoy.

Saturday, February 3rd

I left Codlea around 8am and waddled over the ice to the Brasov maxi-taxi. I waited in the cold for about an hour at the Brasov train station with the pigeons. There were some shady characters there that morning, a lot of Gypsies and guys who looked like they had spent all night in the bar playing slot machines.

I took the 5 hr. 15 min trip to Cluj on the Accelerat train. Of course, the compartment was burning hot and all the while there was a snowstorm outside. Romanian trains are “temperature control challenged”. In fact, all of Romania is this way. Anyway, the route went north out of Brasov through Covasna County, an ethnically Hungarian area. Outside the bathroom window, I heard Hungarian being spoken while we were stopped at a little village station about an hour down the road, Cristian. It’s nice scenery on the route up through Sighisoara and on to Cluj- rolling hills, little Hungarian villages, forests, etc.

Got off at the Cluj train station and found a maxi-taxi to Zalau. Shitty weather. Really wet snow, fog, etc. We took the route northeast out of Cluj into Salaj County. Again, nice rolling hills, tidy little villages and a modern road as well! We descended through the fog into the valley where Zalau sits. I got off right in front of Puck's bloc. Emily, Jaime and Danielle were already there. We went out for pizza with about 10 vols, most of whom were from my group. We went to Allan and Autumn's place after that for a party with about 20 volunteers and a few Romanians. I played Euchre all night and went 3-1. Not bad, but I had to withstand a loss in game four to a guy from the new group who was being pretty obnoxious. I beat him once before though. Whatever. Drank some of Allan's home-brew apple wine. Not bad actually, though my standards have dropped during my time here. I admire his effort. Headed back to Puck's around 3am.

Super Bowl Sunday, February 4th.

I emerged from my sleeping bag around 9:30am after a fitful (and cold) night's sleep on my camping pad. We were all treated to some coffee and ham, egg and cheese sandwiches from Puck. He's got a really nice place and the kitchen is big, sunny and fully equipped. Linda, Puck, Emily, Danielle, Jamie and I all ate breakfast together and chatted. It was enjoyable. Jamie, Danielle and Emily headed back to Petrosani around 1pm. I jumped in the shower. The hot water was a godsend. I was exhausted at that point, which was good because Puck and I popped a couple of sleeping pills around 4pm and set the alarm for 10pm. We got up, brewed some coffee, started cooking and at 1:00am it was on!

As you can imagine, it was an emotional, up and down early morning. We had homemade taco dip, nachos and Heinekens to go with our live stream Internet broadcast from CBS. I was pumped and, after Hester's kick return, I thought that it was really going to happen. Alas, my dreams were shattered. I’ve got to give it up to the Colts though. They’ve got a classy coach, a great QB and a team that hustles. They deserve a championship. The Bears still need to plug some holes. I went to sleep at 5:15am disappointed, but not defeated. What a thrill it was to just be able to watch the game here in Romania!

Monday, February 5th

Got up at 10:30am. Puck was streaming ESPN on the laptop, so I spent my morning listening to how great Peyton Manning is and how much Rex Grossman sucks. In the Super Bowl, the winning QB always gets way too much glory and the loser simply gets dogged no matter what his performance or the outcome. However, Rexy deserved what he got. He was pretty awful when he just needed to be average. I ate more taco dip on top of scrambled eggs for breakfast. Mmm.

Puck took me on a walking tour of Zalau. It's the seat of Salaj County, a nice, relatively clean city of about 70,000, although nothing to write home about really. Highlights included: 1) the history museum with some Roman artifacts in the courtyard. It was closed. Bummer. 2) two public recreation projects created by past PC RO Vols: A park with swings, slides, etc. for kids and a mini-golf course made out of concrete and Astroturf; one useful, one not so useful. You be the judge. 3) A Romanian Orthodox church with, supposedly, the largest fresco of Jesus in Eastern Europe. I'm not sure if I buy this claim, but the interior of the church was stunning nonetheless.

That evening we went to Puck's favorite restaurant, Pizza King. It's a Hungarian-owned joint that he claims is one of the best places he's ever been to in all of Romania. However, he's concerned that they might not be able to stay in business because Romanians don't go there. Why? Because it's Ethnic-Hungarian owned of course. Good reason, right? No matter that it’s the best restaurant in town. Romanians boggle my mind with their unbridled, narrow-minded prejudice against Hungarians. They're lucky to have the Hungarian minority, a people that brought Western values and ideas to Romania. Alright, enough. I'll save that lecture for another day.

Pizza King was okay. I didn't eat pizza. I had some Greek chicken and potatoes. The next day was a travel day. I had another long road ahead of me. I had to prepare to go back to Cluj via maxi-taxi and get on the train to Sighet. The train was a "Personal" train, so I mentally geared up for the 6 hour, 28-stop trip from Cluj to Sighet. I hoped that I would be able to find a compartment with heat. More often than not the Personal trains are a nightmare, a real third-world travel experience.

Tuesday, February 6th

I slept like a rock. My first good sleep in 3 nights. I awoke around 9am to the smell of Puck baking peanut butter cookies for Julie. Like a big brother, he tries his best to take care of her, as he knows things are a bit rough for her in Sighet. I went down to the "Non-Stop" store at the bottom of Puck's bloc to buy some provisions for the trip up north.

I found a couple of decent apples and began to collect some stuff to make sandwiches. Bread, check. Cheese, check. Then came the meat cooler. I asked the lady if she had anything healthier than salami. I never realized just how many different ways one could make salami until I came to Romania. Dumbfounded, she stared at me for a few seconds. She replied, "We've got bologna". Aha, of course, how could I have forgotten the health benefits of bologna? I passed and asked if she had something made from chicken. "We've got ham." I settled for the fatty ham lunchmeat. Gotta eat, right?

Puck went to work. I made my sandwiches, took a shower and got packed up. I watched Euro News and read a bit while I waited to leave. Puck came back during his lunch break to walk me to the edge of town, where the maxi-taxis wait to take people south to Cluj. I took one last look around his apartment and couldn't help but feel a hint of that loneliness I experienced during the first year here when I lived alone. I hadn't felt that way in a long time, a sad depressing feeling.

For the first time in my life I felt a bit carsick as the maxi-taxi sped its way up, down and through the switchbacks on the way out of Salaj County towards Cluj. We were stopped twice by the highway police before we got to Cluj. I'm not exactly sure why, but each time the officer checked the passenger manifest (only the second one I had ever seen in almost two years) and various documents that the driver was carrying. Of course, the driver received a stamp of some kind and we went on our way. Romanians are obsessed with ink stamps. Nothing is legit without the "stampile". Anyway, the whole process is probably some EU thing, an effort to regulate multi-passenger transport, ensure that safety standards are being met, taxes are being paid, etc. This is a good thing, no matter how inefficient they go about it during the beginning stages. We were stopped twice over a distance of 80km. Once would have sufficed.

I arrived at the Cluj train station around 2:45pm and bought my ticket to Sighet. The price was about the equivalent of $7.50. Cluj is a cosmopolitan city, but its train station leaves something to be desired. A perpetual construction zone, it lacked a warm place to sit and wait. I had to walk outside and about 100 yards away to the small adjacent station in order to use a filthy toilet, for which I was charged 1RON, or about $.40.

I boarded “Personal” train #4110 bound for Sighet. To my surprise, I found a heated compartment that was relatively clean and only occupied by one other person. A six-hour, 28-stop journey lie ahead, out of Transylvania, through the Rodna Mountains and into the heart of Maramures.

Initially we had heat, but no electricity. We lost the heat about 3 hours into the journey, just when the temperature started to drop as evening set in and we gained altitude. However, the company of my fellow passenger, a 30-year old man from a small village outside of Sighet, as well as the scenery (albeit in the dark) kept me occupied, my mind off of the fact that we had neither electricity nor heat in our train car. We conversed for hours while we crept along, looking down on snow-swept villages tucked into forested valleys. I felt like I was on “The Polar Express” as we inched our way north through the snowy night. I hope to travel this route again one day during daylight hours and in the summertime in order to truly appreciate the scenery. Maramures is unique in its rustic, traditional appearance and culture, a time warp back 100 years or so.

Near the end of the journey we stopped near the Ukrainian border to change locomotives. My friend invited me outside to “stand on the ground in Maramures for the first time” while he had a cigarette. I stepped down into the snow and the first thing I noticed was the sign on the little train station building. It was in Romanian and Ukrainian (Cyrillic). Only then did it hit me where I was. We got back on. The train went backwards for a bit and then turned onto a route straddling the Tisza River, the only thing separating us from the former Soviet Union. “Look across the Tisza. Those are Ukrainian villages”, my friend said. We were so close, probably less than 300 feet away. Amazing.

We said our goodbyes and he got off at his village. Ten minutes later, around 9:30pm, I was hanging out the door of the train car as we pulled into the Sighet station. Julie and her boyfriend Dani, a Romanian English teacher, picked me up and we took a taxi to Julie’s bloc. Before Dani continued home, we resolved to meet in the morning and go to the Sighet Memorial, as he had never been. Julie had lasagna waiting and fed me well after that long trip. We stayed up talking until 1:00am.

Photo Highlights...


Romania's #1 Bears Fan. Bear down baby. Bear Down.



Super Bowl Spread. Yes, I'll have a Heineken.
Yes, that really is Tabasco Sauce.



A view of beautiful Zalau from Puck's balcony.
He lives in the nice part of town with the Hungarians.



Once upon a time there was a Roman outpost nearby called Porolissum, the northernmost limit of Roman Dacia. I didn't make it to the site, located about 12km outside of town, so I had to settle for some stones in the courtyard of the history museum.



PC RO and The Zalau City Hall proudly present...



A playground! Fun for the whole family. And we mustn't forget...



Uncle Sam's Mini-Golf.
Yes, that is really the name of this stellar facility.
Development work at its finest I tell you.
Lovely scenery, no?
I dare you to try to find a more challenging round of mini-golf in Romania.
I double dare you.



Bloc-land, Zalau style.



This monstrosity of a Romanian Orthodox Church (yet to be finished, as you can see) supposedly contains the largest fresco of Jesus in Eastern Europe.



There he is, floating above us in all his majesty. It's kind of hard to effect scale with this photo, but that chandelier is indeed gargantuan. Now, given Romanians' penchant for b*llsh*t, I can't say with confidence that this particular fresco of Jesus is indeed the largest in Eastern Europe. However, at any rate, it's pretty damn big. You have my word on that.


Stay tuned for A Week on the Road, Part Two. Coming soon to a Fenblog near you...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yet another excellent entry, Scott!!!

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