Alanica Fara Frica

Everyday I get emails from people in the states all asking for the same thing…  “We want to see old timey pictures of Reghin”  I mean, my inbox gets filled everyday with requests.  Come on people, is it really that important?  Oh who am I kidding, of course it is!  So here ya go.  Check out http://www.szaszregen.ro and just to make it easier for you, its all in Hungarian!  I think kepek means pictures and kovetkezo is next.  So if you are one of the big Reghin fans you’ll find hours of entertainment… well if you spend an hour looking at each photo you will.

This and the picture above are how the central park looked after it was first built around 1960.  My project is in the place where the square pool is.

I am trying to bring back the original theme of the blog of exploring what I am doing at 8:28pm….

Well this weekend I found myself walking into the Sighisoara Blues Festival at that time each day.  The festival was great.  I hadn’t seen good live music in a while.  Although I didn’t really get to see much of the actual concerts because we would leave early to get a table at the restaurant where the after party was each night.  The musicians (mostly romanian and hungarian bands) would play till 5-6 in the morning.  I also got to work on my own musical chops by jamming with a few other volunteers who brought their guitars to sighi that weekend.  Them on guitars, me on the ukelele… I did mention I started playing the ukelele, didn’t I?

Another volunteer fowarded me a link to a video on youtube from a phone company here that just about nails all the funny stuff you see on the streets here.  Check it out, and believe me, maybe the actual video has actors, but I definately see this stuff on the streets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_fV-SfWmQ

I spent the past holiday season visiting friends and family in Romania.  First, I went to Targu Mures and had a nice relaxing time with some other volunteers.  We ate and ate and didnt leave the apartment until it was time for me to head out to Ploiesti so I could visit my gazda family from PST.  Learned a valuable lesson about how easy stuff could get stolen on trains on the way down there when my friends bag was stolen as he slept.  Didn’t lose anything unreplaceable save his passport.  Oh, and he was heading to Istanbul a few days later.  It was not a pleasant train ride.  There is not much street crime here, so there isn’t much reason to fear strangers here, but to trust them, well…

After spending some time with my gazda, I headed back up to Sighisoara for a cookie roulette party.  Let me just give you a little advice.  Don’t eat a cookie that has a tablespoon of salt in the middle.  It’s actually not as good as you would think.

Finally, off to Sibiu to celebrate new years.  There were tens of thousands of people in the street to celebrate not only Romania joining the EU, but Sibiu becoming the (co) Cultural Capital of Europe, which basically means… uh…   They are a little fireworks crazy here and didn’t hold back on the 31st and the 1st.  Went to a concert in the center square and had a blast with other volunteers and romanian friends.  The biggest difference that I noticed partying for new years here was that there was no countdown.  Well, there probably was, but there were so many people we could have easily missed them counting down on stage.  I guess we just assumed we wouldn’t be able to miss it.

Litterally.  I’ve finally installed a shower curtain and a shower head mount in my bathroom.  No more sit down showers for me!  Of course, the same day I did that, my kitchen faucet broke and I have to use my bathroom sink to clean my dishes until I fix it.  Word to the wise, if I locate to your city when I return stateside, be my roomate.  I have become much more handy around the house.  My resume includes:

• lampshade made of plastic bottles
• being able to hang pictures on concrete walls
• washing clothes by hand
• keeping plants alive
• making end tables from cardboard boxes
• defunking random smells
• installing faucets (time will tell on this one)

Also, this past week the mayor’s office had their annual christmas party.  It was quite an experience including; a two dinners, a political fight between council members, a striptease to You Can Leave Your Hat On and lots and lots of circle dancing.

I’ll be spending my christmas in Targu Mures (city near Reghin) with other volunteers who opted not to go travelling outside of Romania.  Then I’m back to Sibiu to share in the festivities of Romania joining the EU.  Apparently there will be a 70 min fireworks show by the same company that did the opening ceremony for the 2004 Olympics.

My cousin Sam came to visit for a week after spending 2 months in Morocco.  He came at the tail end of IST and got to party like a volunteer for a few days.  Then we travelled to see Sighisoara on our way back to Sibiu. Took a nice little hike up in the hills above sighi and played a little frisbee.  We didn’t get to play long, however, because a herd of cows came and interupted our field.  Eh… cows happen.

We came back to Reghin and Sam spent his remaining time here.  I made sure that he got to try everything great that Romania had to offer.  So, needless to say, we drank a lot of romanian moonshine.  We saw some music from a mediocre local band and hung out with my romanian friends from town.  At the bar with music, we met two americans who are living in the area.  They are both from Indiana and one of them actually lived in cincy for a little while, but not only that, he lived in Clifton on Wheeler St., where I used to live with the 2212 boys.  (obviously, at 2212 Wheeler)

We spent our last day having a BBQ with a friend and got to eat some good meat and drink some homemade wine.  Sam got a good taste of what my life is like here so feel free to call him in the middle of the night sometime to ask him what my apartment is like, or how far I walk to work in the mornings.

That is the date that Romania’s regions united into one country.  Think of it as July 4th.  On that day I was woke up by a friend of mine in town who wanted to go get a coffee.  We went to a place in the center and as he was driving me home, I realized he wasn’t driving me home.  I asked him where we were heading and he turned to me with a big smile.  “We go my house.  BBQ!”

So I found myself standing around a grill for the whole of the day drinking all kinds of homemade brandy and wine and moonshine.  My friends family was very welcoming to me and made sure I was never without food or drink.  Everytime I would speak the simplest romanian, they all laughed and got a kick out of the novel american trying to speak their language.  We had a lot of fun with it. 

Now I must go take my wet laundry and hang it from all of my door knobs around the apartment to dry.  Too cold outside.

My apartment took a major step towards completion as a permanent residence today with the addition of a full stove.  Before I only had a table top two-burner, but now I have four burners and an oven.  The most impressive thing is that the city of Reghin actually paid for a brand new stove for me… I have to say that I am a little surprised it happened.

Another pleasent surprise is that my project is starting to develop further.  I am moving ahead on a design project to replace the old fountain in the center park with a small stage area for events.  I also hope to design a new fountain that will be located in the center of the park.  If anyone has any experience in fountain design, please share.

Also, here’s a little Romania culture tidbit.  Last week, there was a birthday in the office. This person holds a pretty high ranking role in the office so all employees came down to the center courtyard for food and drinks, all of which supplied by the birthday guy.  Whenever it is your birthday, you are expected to supply food to others.  Also, if you go out for drinks, guess what… you’re buying. 

This is a picture taken from my balcony.  As you can tell by the little tree in the 5 feet of grass inbetween the parking lot and the steel factory (looks nice for a steel factory, doesn’t it!), fall is here!  Reghin has had a nice fall so far, the rain hasn’t come to hard yet, although it did rain me out of a hike this past weekend.

I was about to write how I am celebrating the begining of fall but now that I am about 5 lines into this post, I am realizing that fall has been here for quite some time.   Oh well, the leaves are really getting going now anyway.  Many have wondered how one living in Transylvania celebrates halloween.  Well let me tell you…  uh… I got nothing interesting.  Transylvania actually has little/no connection to halloween, vampires, the undead or anything else scary.  Us volunteers will be celebrating of course, I don’t want to go into the creepy details of it all, but I can assure you… funny costumes are involved (because we all know Halloween is about having the funniest costume, not the scariest).

If you would like to learn about the history of how Bram Stoker decided to base his fictional Dracula character on the very real prince, Vlad Tepes (sorry, he’s not a vampire) then read this paper I found online.  It is good but a bit long, so I did a bad job of paraphrasing it below:

So, like, there was this dude named Vlad III Dracula Tepes (tze-pesh).  He was a prince in the region of Wallachia, the south of current Romania.  He was born in Transylvania, the northwest region, during the mid 1400s.  He didn’t like dishonest people or invading turks and punished them by impaling them.  Its pretty gruesome so I’ll let you read about it in that paper.  He was known to impale, like, 30,000 people at a time.  Pretty nasty.  Bram Stoker used his name for his vampire cause he liked it and it wasn’t widely known at the time.  He also moved him back to Transylvania cause he liked the name. 

So there you have it.  Transylvania has its rep cause Bram Stoker liked the sound of it.  It is kind of a creepy name though.  Say it real slow and deep.  TRAN-SYL-VAN-IA.  Creepy.  But as some of you who have seen in my pictures, Transylvania is a beautiful region where the only thing creepy or scary are the… I’m almost afraid to say it…

public bathrooms.  MOAW-HA-HA-HA!!!!

In other news, I have uploaded many more photos to my photo site and tweaked some settings so that you don’t have to login in to comment.  Feel free to leave me some note about a place you have been, a pretty scene or that you think my butt’s gettin big.  You can also send pics as E-Cards to friends and family to spread the wonderous word of ME!

-alanica fara frica

Again, I must apologize for how long it has been since I posted last. A lot of internet fraud comes from Romania so it can be difficult to access certain pages from Romanian IP addresses. Alright, enough nerd talk. I have been a busy Alanica since we last spoke. I now have my own apartment, a nice studio apartment on the edge of town. I have a big balcony with a wonderful view of a parking lot and a steel factory. The apartment is owned by the mayors office and they are responsible for furnishing it, which… of course, means that I have lived there for three weeks and still dont have any drawers, shelves, chairs or even a full stove. I only have a table top 2 burner. Oh, and my fridge lacks a freezer and smells like rotten fish. I am promised all the issues will be solved soon, but right now it is certainly livable. It has been remodeled in the past few years and isnt stuffed with junk from the owners grandma, like other volunteers’ apartments. I am keeping busy working on the place, installing shelves in my pantry, a shower curtain, laundry lines, etc.

I also recently got internet at my place. So I should be able to be more responsive to emails now and hopefully post some pictures soon. I havent posted any since before July 4th. That will change, although I make no promises for when. I also have bought a guitar from the guitar factory, Hora. It is a very nice handmade instrument that I purchased for the equivalent of $70. In the states a guitar of similar quality would cost 5 times as much. They also sell mandolins and violins. If anyone is interested in and instrument, it’s only a 17 hour flight away! So I have been finding ways to keep busy living on my own (the first time!).

I have also made some friends with some kids in town, all high school kids. There arent too many people my age here, there is no college so they all go to Targu Mures or Cluj Napoca. But I am happy to meet high school students because I know I will be using them as an asset for some of the work I will be doing in the future. Maybe you are wondering what kind of work that will be? Well, so am I. I have been coming to the office for about 3 weeks now and I havent really gotten the ball rolling on any projects yet. It is slow going, but I dont want to push anything to hard this early, I am just sitting back and observing. Observing the needs of the town, and observing how things get done in the mayors office. I dont want to jump into anything without having a good idea how long the fall is.

If you want to send me any postcards or letters or peanut butter, send me an email and I will send you my address.

Pace, (peace)
alanica

First I must appologize for being out of contact for a while for those who have tried to contact me.  I have been travelling around the country checking out the region of Transylvania.

My site for the next two years is going to be the town of Reghin in east-central Transylvania.  It is about 30km north of Targu-Mures and 100km east of Cluj-Napoca, the second largest city in Romania and home to most of the college students in the country.  I got to visit both cities on my recent trip.  Reghin is actually about 36,000 people and is set along the side of a hill, at the edge of the Carpathian mountains.  I will be working for the Primaria (city hall) there.

Reghin’s claim to fame is the violin and guitar factory, which is the only one in the country.  It has a quaint main street along their central park and a forest at the top of the hill.  It is mostly Romanian, but has a about 10,000 Hungarians and a few thousand Roma (gypsies).

I met my counterpart, Camelia, on thursday, who is the person I will mainly be working with in the city.  She works in the Financing and Economics department and speaks the most English out of the 70 city workers.  I will actually be working in the Urban Development office, but no one in that office speaks english, so I will have to become fluent in Romanian real quick.  In the mean time, I will be doing a little traveling and studing of the language and city so that I can have a good understanding of the town by the time I can easily work with the Urban Development office.  I will also probably be helping Camelia in the finance department helping to find new grants and funding sources from the upcoming accesion into the European Union.

I have also posted loads of new pictures at www.828pm.com/photos There are pics from PST in Ploiesti, Brasov, Sighisoara, Reghin and I addem more from the Habitat for Humanity trip.  Check them out and if you want to leave any comments, you have to register (really easy).

I have also changed the name of this blog page for, hopefully, the last time.  My gazda mom always calls me Alanica Fara Frica and I never knew what it meant until today.  Little Alan Without Fear.  It is actually used to refer to someone more foolish than heroic, but… whatever.  It’s probably true anyway.