Romanian diary (12 – 19/3/2016)

So, our first Ersmus+ mobility has ended, our project has led us to Romania, the ice breakers were students Ana Cerovski, Ana Knežević, Maja Ivšac, Luka Pinturić i Mihael Pušec together with their teachers who cared for them the whole week, Ivana Kujundžić and Dubravka Vuleša.

On Saturday, 12 October 2016, in the afternoon we were off and on the road, or better said trail. The situation was promising, after almost four months without a railway connection between Zagreb and Budapest, three days before the start of our journey the train Zagreb - Budapest was back on a trail again.

Our parents, the headmaster along with our teacher Tanja Horvat walked us to the train. Our adventure was ready to start.

The whole compartment was ours. The excitement was in the air while we were merrily gliding through Hungarian plain heading for Budapest, teacher Ivana updated her facebook status so that our hosts and Mr. Drakula would know that we are coming. After six hours of traveling, we were at Keleti train station and feeling somewhat like traveling to Hogwarts, you are able to see that from our photos. The train for Romania was scheduled to leave in less than two hours. We had time to exchange money for in Croatia we could not find Romanian currency. Besides, we needed some accessories for the road and actually had time for sightseeing the Budapest main train station during which we accidentally entered a film set because it was the only way to get us to the train for Romania. Well, it was not real fun to find oneself in front of a bunch of dead serious, armed WW2 German soldiers, but then again it would be a great story to tell.

After the train Zagreb – Budapest, the one for Bucharest was a bit unpleasant, but this is something that makes travelling interesting. We found our compartment and were heading into the night, into Transylvania. In the morning, we were in Sibot where taxi was waiting for us to drive us to Blaj where our hosts welcomed us. The Sincel school headmistress was waiting for us in boarding house Montana Popa, some parents had come too. We said goodbye to our teachers and went to our hosts’ houses.

The Romania was a different land, we knew that the moment we stepped out the train in Sibotu. Not all roads were paved and our luggage had wheels. I think you can see the problem!? At the same time, the people were great and everybody tried to help us to get to the taxi that was waiting for us, in Romanian of course.

Monday, 14. March Our first day of school in Sincel was Monday, 14 March; it was also a day

for introductions, so it was important to leave as good impression as possible and to present our school in a good way for now our teachers were not the only one who was watching us. Everybody introduced their school and presented their students together with their mascot.

Mihael and Luka introduced our school and presented our mascot – little dragon. Ana and Maja did a rap performance. All together, we were great and broke the ice. Even our teachers were satisfied.

After the lunch, we went to Alba Iulia, the capital city of the Alba region where Sincel and Blaj are situated. We explored the landscape and with what we were especially intrigued were utility poles with a jumble of wiring. We have not seen that in Zagreb.

From the moment we saw the town, it was obvious that the trip to Alba Iulia will be great. We saw the walls that were enclosing the old town, roman remains and underground hallways, numerous churches and the archaeological museum. Unfortunately, we only visited the old town and as far as we could see from the bus, the new part was beautiful to. Both buildings and streets seemed different from those in Zagreb. They looked somewhat interesting. We had a guide who talked about the past of Alba Iulia and its importance, about Habsburgs and Ottomans, collision of people and cultures. We started to be tired because the day was full of excitement and new encounters. In the evening, we were back to Sincel.

Tuesday, 15 March We attended classes. We attended mathematics, English and

Romanian. Afterwards we went to dance workshop where we tried to learn “brašovjanka” and later we went to the art class. There we made some welcome spring postcards, Romanians call them “Mărțișor” and we decorated some bowls with decoupage.

After lunch we had a free afternoon. In the evening we went to see the traditional show in the Sincel community hall. Through dance and song the hosts presented themselves and welcomed us together with the mayor who wished us a pleasant and happy stay in Sincel and Blaj.

Wednesday, 16 March We have spent the day sightseeing the area of Tarnava Mice, and getting

to know its cultural and historical sites. We visited ethnographic collection in Sincel, churches in Balcaciu, Sanmiclausu and Jidvei, Bethlen castle and churches in Blaj. We were all travelling in the polish bus and now we finally had a chance to get to know better our contemporaries from other countries. They all travelled to Romania together in a bus from Poland, so they already knew each other.

We have spent the afternoon in families socializing because we needed to go to bed earlier. New adventure was waiting for us tomorrow, a long trip to Brasov and Bran Castle or better said Dracula’s castle.

Thursday, 17 March

This was a day to remember. Nothing could do us wrong today, not even standing up before 6:00 am. We were excited and full of expectations. We set off to Brasov and Bran Castle at 7 am. We knew about the castle from stories about vampires and from the Roman Polanski’s movie.

We could hardly wait for the bus to arrive at the bus stop. By now we were good with all of the students, but somehow we were best with those from Poland and Slovakia. You can try to guess why, but like our teachers, Ivana and Dubravka, had said, “What happens in Romania, stays in Romania”!

After four hours of driving we found ourselves beneath Dracula’s castle, which has some connections with Vlad III Dracula, whose biography was a muse for Irish writer Bram Stoker and his Dracula character. The surroundings seemed a bit spooky.

The taverns covered with fog, a lot of odd looking people, and numerous stands with a variety of scary souvenirs of which the most numerous were fake wolf skins made in China. By the way, we saw the same skins in Budapest. You could also find masks for protecting people against evil spirits, t-shirts with vampire teeth and a sign “Smile from Transilvania” and of course cured meat. The castle itself sits upon a steep cliff and it can be reached by stairs in front of which is a giant cross. At the entrance a guide was waiting for us. His appearance fitted perfectly to the ambient of the place we were. As teacher Dubravka putted, he had this strange look in his eyes. We explored the interior of the castle very carefully, took a great many photographs and slided down to the souvenir shop to plunder it. While others were reading about Dracula, we were here, in his chambers.

 

And now we had to continue our journey to Brasov. Before we arrived to Brasov, we spotted an interesting thing, a giant sign with the name of the town on the hills above it. The town was beautiful, so not like what we saw in Romania until today, very middle European. It was time for lunch. We cozily set down in a Pizza restaurant at the main town square and had our lunch. We had some spare time for exploring and for buying souvenirs. On our way back to the bus, we spent time to take photographs with friends from Poland, Slovakia and other countries. It seemed that it would be very hard to say goodbye tomorrow. We came back to Sincel late at night.

Friday, 18 March Was our last day in Romania. We have spent it socializing with other

students and doing sport. We all got up earlier to try to seize the day because we were bound to travel back home that evening.

Firstly, we visited a traditional rural estate in Panada where a nice old woman showed us how to spin wool and how to weave on a loom but she also showed us how to make dough for “pup”. Pup is a kind of a cabbage cake. After we tried some cake, we went to take a part in some sporting activities. Our star Mihael gave his first interview for Navsi school television from Czech Republic. He did that, of course, in Croatian and teacher Ivana translated it into Czech.

Tired from sporting activities we could hardly wait for lunch to be served. We had a traditional Romanian soup that they call “ciorbă” and in Romanian, it usually refers to sour soups with pieces of meat. We also had stuffed cabbage or how Romanians call it sarmale with traditional bread baked in a ring-shaped form and for desert, we had a walnut cake. Teacher Ivana, we are sorry but the cake was delicious. During the lunch, we had a chance to listen to traditional Romanian music and teacher Alina has promised that she will bring us a CD when she comes to Zagreb,

We took a rest in the afternoon and then we went to a restaurant in Blaj and had a farewell dinner. The dinner was tasty, but we did not care much about eating. Mostly we talked while taking some final photographs and forging a new rendezvous. The headmistress and teacher Dubravka delivered a farewell speech at the end and we took a group Photograph. Czechs, Slovaks and Poles went into the bus, they waved us and off they were. We almost cried and then went to our hosts’ houses to pack our things. We were departing later that evening.

At about 10:00 pm we arrived at the boarding house where our teachers and the headmistress were waiting for us. We had one final photo session with our hosts, goodbye greetings with the headmistress and a promise to meet us again in Zagreb. Taxi arrived at 22:30 and drived us to Vintu de Jos. The train was late for half an hour so we had some fun waiting for it in that late hour of night while talking about things that happened that week. Completely tired we boarded the train, but instead of falling asleep, we started laughing and could not stop all until Hungarian border.

Saturday, 19. March We arrived in sunny Budapest on Saturday morning. We left our luggage

in the station lockers and went to find food and to explore the City. The train for Zagreb was living in the afternoon.

The teachers took us to a famous shopping street Vaci where we had pizza, called our parents and bought some more souvenirs. We walked a city and slowly headed back to Keleti train station.

We were at the end of our journey on a train from Budapest to Zagreb. We watched our photos remembering the days we spent in Romania. At the train station there they were, the same bunch of people that came to say goodbye, had come to welcome us back. We were still full of impressions and could not stop joking and laughing.

It was a remarkable, one and only experience, so thanks to all who made it possible.

Written by: Ana, Ana, Maja, Luka, Mihael

Corrections and editing: Ivana Kujundžić, prof.

Translated by: Dubravka Vuleša, prof.