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We met a Texan on the train to Krakow who asked us why we went to Croatia. Number one reason was Leigh had friends in Rijeka. Kevin, Kristy and their 3 kids(formerly of Missoula) are with Campus Crusade for Christ and have been in Rijeka for almost a year. When Kevin offered to meet with us and give us a little orientation I was expecting a guy in a suit and skinny tie instead he was wearing shorts and a backpack. Kevin walked us to the “Centre” and gave us great directions for finding our way to the interesting parts of the town.

Rijeka (270,000 pop.) was actually Italian into the 20^th century. There was some dispute after WWI and the Allies refused to give it back to Italy. Even earlier the Hungarians claimed it as their access to the Adriatic so it is quite a popular place. Currently it looks like a working port and is much more industrialized the typical Croatian coastal towns. Rijeka has pedestrian malls with LOTS of outdoor cafes and bars, also churches and a castle.

Our biggest regret is not getting a picture of Kevin, Kristy and their kids AND ALSO trying to go around the block when we saw the sign for a hotel. In the U.S. when you see a sign to turn, you usually drive at least 15 yards before you turn. In Europe we have learned turnà means NOW!. It took us about 45 minutes and a trip through an endless parking lot and then out of town to go around the block.

When we finally got to the hotel it had a great view of town, a reasonable price and most important they told Dennis the place he was parked in front of the hotel was just fine. We didn’t have to drive one meter further. We are very glad Leigh had friends in Rijeka otherwise we would never have taken this slight detour in our travels and we would have missed meeting these really nice people and the climb hundreds of stairs to Trsat Castle and some great views.  Slide show

There is no way I will get my pictures all done before I come home. I have edited the Brasov pictures and added some info to Krakow.

I think Brasov, Romania and Rijeka, Croatia really were the best examples of towns with a lot of LOCAL café life. I suppose it probably has something to do with local living conditions. If you live in a hot stuffy apartment well obviously…. Brasov seemed to have a well developed social life as exemplified by the people playing chess, backgammon and checkers in the park and just as many locals giving advice to the players.  Brasov had AT LEAST 30 outdoor bars or cafes downtown and the metropolitan population is about 400,000 that is slightly smaller than Spokane.  Where are our pedestrian malls, squares and cafes?

One other thing we have noticed all over Central and Eastern Europe is the memorials. I think Romania has is typical and then some. Felsorokas had memorials to the 1848 revolution as well as WWI & WWII. We think that Brasov had about five war memorials that saw including a memorial to those who died in the 1989 an upheaval overthrowing Ceasescu. We usually think of the changes as bloodless in most of Eastern Europe.

Today Dennis & I went hiking in the Buda hills. Even at three in the afternoon the birds are chirping loudly. It looked the same as my previous pictures except leaves are on the trees. We only got slightly lost. I am starting the clean-up and packing ordeal.

We all woke up to send Leigh back to Spokane and Monday training at Camp Reed at 4:30am this morning.  Dennis went to the airport with her & saw her as far as Passport Control would allow.  In discussion we all decided visiting Felsorakos (pop. 900) was probably our most meaningful experience.  http://picasaweb.google.com/Janwingen/Felsorakos 

Organization is as follows: church, parsonage, town highlights, annual spring fair & high school visit in Barot (pop. 6,000), church dinner & dance in the Felsorakos community center, picnic in the meadow, town and hike from the village. 

Croatia was probably the most fun and the Budapest Zoo & Botanical Garden was Leigh’s favorite in town activity.  In that spirit I spent time today organizing the Felsorakos pictures and concluding you had to have been there. 

I have yet to order our pictures from Brasov, Romania our train station.  We all agreed that Brasov was our best “surprise” town.  We were just there because it was the train station but we had a couple of great walks.  It is a beautiful town and we had one of those wonderful experiences where we were checking to see if a church was open and a strange man unlocked it for us and wanted us to help him ring the 5pm bells.  We were all afraid that we lack the proper rhythm so we just watched him do it.  He also refused to take a tip for doing this for us.  Of course we were so excited we didn’t even think to take a picture.  I’ll work on Brasov next I guess. 

Building Consensus in Felsorakos http://www.uupcc.org/communitydev/Felsorakos/FelsorakosCaseStudyEng.pdf

 http://www.brasovtravelguide.ro/en/brasov/brasov-city.php 

A word of correction: Leigh did not almost fall under the wheels of the train.  The train was moving and I was holding onto Leigh trying to pull her into the train but my suitcase was where she needed to jump.  There is some family debate as to how this situation should have been handled.  In any case we have all survived our trip to Romania and the train trip to and from Zagreb. Even better we survived our auto trip around Croatia although we did not make it all the way down to Dubrovnik.  We decided we would prefer a more relaxed pace rather than driving an extra 5 or six hours.  We opted for an easier day on the Adriatic in a town called Makarska and a visit to a UNESCO/Croatian National Park. We have some wonderful pictures but with one computer and three cameras it will take some time to edit our collections. 

I think about a month ago Pat & Nel told me they were sending me some food items that are hard to find here.  The package didn’t arrive but then neither did other cards I heard were on the way.  Dennis thought I should maybe find out if the post office was having trouble with my address.  How to do that when I have yet to find a postal person who speaks English is a conundrum.

Last week just before we left town a letter appeared from the post office.  I took it to my office for  my Hungarian colleagues to translate.  The first readers decided the post office had a 1,150 kilo package for me to pick-up.  Did you order a car or a refrigerator?  In a different office of colleagues assured me that I had a 1.15 colleages, “the package is long and rather thin.” 

Next where to go to pick it up:  I was told to go to the “main” post office.  When I arrived at the suggested post office on Kossuth Lajos labeled “city post office” on my map I found it was the wrong post office.  Two clerks looked at my map and after some discussion they pulled out the phone book and found the “main post office”  of course it’s not called anything like that in Hungarian.  They showed me the location on the phonebook map & what really helped wrote down the tram number and transfer point.  I had to rest another day but this morning I took it on. 

Once I got there it was relatively painless. The lines were much shorter than usual. I had just a couple of lines and an awkward moment because I’m too inept to count in Hungarian and I confused window “ot” (6) with window 8. There was again one more moment of slight panic  as  I saw them wheeling in several large packages on dollies.  Those were for someone else at window ot thank goodness.   

My package contains some very precious commodities, herbal tea that doesn’t taste like grass, decent granola bars and above all PEANUTBUTTER.  I opened it in my office today & I can tell you one of my colleagues was pretty jealous.  That & the assorted other junk food is going with us to Croatia this week.  We have two 7 hour “no food” train rides ahead & I doubt that there will be a crumb left. 

What a dream it was visiting the Unitarian Church in Felsorakos, Romania (Transylvania). Nothing like the hardships Julie & Jerry Jose had to put up with. It was like an art house European film EXCEPT for the part that was strictly American slapstick. Dennis decided he should locate our train car BEFORE Leigh & I climbed on. These trains don’t wait long and while we were following him the train started to roll. Leigh & I were trying to hop on as the train began to roll and somehow there were people & luggage stuck in the door with Leigh nearly being left behind or falling under the wheel (very scary!). I think someone stopped the train and we were able to get on board safely.

We took an overnight train from Budapest to Brasov,Romania with a 3 bunk sleeper. I was stuck on top but there was a sort of safety belt to hold me up there. We arrived at about 11:30am and the Jozsef took us directly to Felsorakos where his wife Reka was preparing our lunch which always starts with a shot of palinka (clear brandy). We next went to the annual fair in Barot where we saw the sights & had a beer. While sitting in the pub we watched a long line of teenage boys arm wrestle a  sport organized by the current mayor one of the four mayoral candidates running for election this Sunday.

One highlight of the festival was meeting the high school principal who gave us a school tour and celebrated our arrival by having a palinka toast and awarding us three of us honorary hall passes. Dennis noted this is the first time he had ever been invited in for a drink in the principals office. He was really fun guy but we couldn’t figure out why he was in the school on a Saturday wearing a 3 piece suit. We drove home and eat a light supper again and of course start our meal with another palinka toast. (None of us refused.)

Sunday was also incredible. We began with church at 11am which was a special service celebrating the 60 year olds of the village. Of course the service was all in Hungarian but I can tell you Jozsef is a fantastic speaker & there wasn’t a dry eye amongst the elders and even the younger men started to tear-up. We noted that some of the parishioners attending were newbies or at least novices because they didn’t have any more idea than we did regarding the protocol. At 2pm we attended a sumptuous 60 & over luncheon. They danced, they sang & you could really get a sense of the different personalities without knowing a word of the language. We cut out after a couple of hours & met a family & their 5 year-old twins for a barbecue in the most beautiful verdant setting you’ve ever seen. Just when they got their tee-pee style fire really going & we were wondering how we could eat barbacue as we had just finished our lunch not more than 2 hours before it clouded over & the rain began to really pour.

We packed up but the night wasn’t over yet. When the rain stopped we went back to Barot. The town days were ending with a Hungarian singer who Leigh aptly called “the Cher of the Hungarian people.” She is a well known singer who is over sixty but still putting on a fantastic show. Since arm wrestling is a young man’s game the current mayor gave a speech reminding everyone he was responsible for bringing the celebrity & don’t forget to vote next Sunday. I’m just guessing here but I think someone told me that was a lose translation. There were fantastic fireworks that were really more remarkable than anything I’ve seen in Riverfront park. The custom seems to be shoot them all off in about 15 minutes instead of spacing the rockets out for an hour which really makes a much better show. I’m exhausted from my trip back to Budapest.  Monday morning we took a hike around town and in the hills above.  We took lots of pictures of the gypsy kids and new construction in the village.  Jozsef delivered us back to Brasov in the middle of the day.  I’m afraid we may have made him late for his afternoon high school classes.  I hope we left enough money to cover all that gas.

Brasov was really a beautiful city but that will have to be another entry.

Slide show http://picasaweb.google.com/Janwingen/Felsorakos

  Leigh and Dennis arrived about seven hours later than I expected but they made it.  I am way more “jet lagged” than when I myself arrived.  First it was trying to dose but waking to every car going by until almost 1am (Wed.) then 2 days of finishing my final classes at the university and somehow waking up during my new roomates 2am restlessness.  I’m suddenly way more exhausted than I have been all year.

Dennis spent 2 days mostly on a self-guided tour.  I took them both to the Castle District Wednesday and today Friday to St .Istivan Bascilica , Hero Square and the zoo.  Leigh had her choice Wed. and Thursday of going with me to the university or with Dennis back to the Castle area.  She choose the university and attended 3 classes.  It was great to have a teaching assistant but a little discouraging. One class involved evaluating students final speeches and we were both taking notes.  When we were done she remembered the speeches better than I did.  She theorized it was because I was concentrating on hearing mispronunciations and grammar problems while she was listening more wholistically to the presentations as a speech.  Nice of her to cut me that break.  Three students gave a presentation on Hungarian wine so she is now quite knowledgeable for someone who has yet to taste or show any interest in tasting Hungarian wine. 

Meanwhile Dennis is still talking about his self-tour yesterday.  On his way back from the Budapest Castle he ran into some traffic problems and ended up abandoning the tram and walking home.  It turned out the problem was that while doing some construction the crew  unearthed an unexploded WWII bomb.  Everyone here is used to this problem but making his way home in a still strange city was an adventure for Dennis.  There is that odd thing that since you don’t speak Hungarian, while some other people have likely heard what the problem is from the radio or calls from friends, you have no clue as to why building are being evacuated and yellow tape is appearing.  

We are off tomorrow to Vienna returning Tuesday.  I did my homework.  This entry is preceded by summary of two library visits.  We all have a special tour at the Corvin (National) Library Thursday.