Alanica Fara Frica

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

Went to Cluj-Napoca to meet with a civil engineer who helped me get a better understanding of how projects get constructed in Romania.  While there, I realized why I liked going to Cluj so much.  It is the biggest university city in the country so there are lots of people in their early-mid twenties.  There aren’t many young adults here in Reghin, so it is nice to get out and know that I won’t be surrounded by high school kids when I go out at night.  Even when I was in Ploiesti, there were university age kids, but it was different (it was the south).  Many of the kids there dress in cheap european fashion and listen to awful manele music (modernized gypsy music).  But in Cluj the kids seem to be much more… uh… individual.  And the cafes, bars and restaurants reflect it.  They play good music that isn’t just the same bad american and romanian pop music that plays on all the radio stations.  Once I saw that there were kids with dreadlocks there, I knew I’d be able to find some good music.  Isn’t it funny how that always happens?

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.

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 how I would explain my last week and a half.  I’ve been in the city of Sibiu for an In-Service Training conference for the volunteers in my group.  We have three conferences spread over our service to get together and talk about our projects and learn hold sessions on information we would need at that time.  So basically 68 americans get together in a big city and party for a week.  We had some language training and some sessions on grant writing and funding options… sounds fun, right?  Well we also had four birthday parties and a christmas party.  Got to watch the grinch and charlie brown’s christmas, as well as had a tacky christmas sweater contest and white elephant gift exchange.  All in all, it was great to see everybody and I learned a lot.  (when I say “learn”, I mean “dance”)

check out photos from IST by clicking the picture above

Last year I was living in Portland and spent my Thanksgiving with a large group of other west coast orphans.  We had a great time and it really gave me a chance to appreciate the holiday more than I ever had.  Being away from home made me more conscience of what I had to be thankful for.

This year was exponentially more powerfull.  Tim and I had a train to catch leaving Poland on thursday night at 10:30.  The Krakow gang had planned a big Thanksgiving dinner for anyone that was interested in going.  There were Americans (both current residents and ex-pats), Canadians, Poles, Brits and someothers that I can’t remember.  Steve had left that morning, but Ian was there that night and so were Anna and Katie.  It was nice to spend that time with Steve and Ian because we were together the year before for our midwest meets west coast Thanksgiving.  The turkey we finally found was frozen and we didn’t get it till the afternoon so we had to flash thaw it in the bath tub… a bird bath (bad joke).   And, of course, at 8:28pm we were deep into our circle of thanks. 

It was hard to leave such a lively group right in the middle of the party, but Tim and I had a train to catch… and we really didn’t want to do dishes.  Filled up on stuffing and wine, we were ready to sleep through our 15 hour train ride back to Arad where….

We did Thanksgiving all over again!

A volunteer in a small town outside of Arad had organized a dinner of about 13 volunteers and 20 romanians.  It was nice to get out into the countryside of RO after spending a crazy week in Poland, but my late nights sure didn’t get any earlier.We hung out friday night in the cabana in the woods and caught up after having spent a few months apart at our sites.  We had great food that night and lots of fun sharing our holiday with Romanians.  Highlights of the night include:

• Deep fried turkey, it was my first experience with that, and I don’t think I can go back
• Stirring the big bowl of mashed potatoes with a rolling pin
• Having a dance party in the tiny kitchen
• The french guy dancing on top of the old iron stove and waking up to find his shoes had melted on the bottoms
• Did I mention deep fried turkey?
• Sleeping in a bed by myself (needless to say sleeping conditions were a little cramped in Krakow)
• Sitting around a fire

Well, chalk up another great Thanksgiving.  Now I’m back in Reghin and have to do work and wake up “early” and upload pictures and clean my apartment and study romanian and …

After a pretty entertaining train ride with Anna, Katie and Clint (another volunteer who just happened to going to Krakow on the same train) I arrived in Krakow in the early foggy morning.  We wandered around for a while until we found my friend Garrett’s apartment.

Garrett is living in Krakow now teaching english and writing for the English language magazine, Lost in Krakow.  My friend Rachel was there and my visit was a surprise for her.  Most of the excitment of the surprise was not fully felt at 6:30 am.  Their friend, the Goat, was also crashing with them for a few weeks.  Once my friends Steve and Ian showed up from California, the apartment felt more like a hostel than an apartment.  Oh, Garrett also has two roomates… and oh, my friend Tim from Arad also showed up a few days later.  It was quite a culmination of people in one polish apartment.

Despite the many distractions in the apartment, I got out of it plenty and was able to explore one of my new favorite cities.  Krakow’s city center is a great place to wander around.  The old city is surrounded by a park that used to be a moat.  Unlike some other European cities, the old city still serves as the financial and civic center for the city so it is the busiest area of town.  There is basically no car traffic in the center as well and the streets are filled with people all the time.  I can understand why it has such a high ex-pat community there.  Every bar/restaurant/cafe we went to was a unique experience.  The food was great.  There were all kinds of events and festivals going on.  Pretty much everything that I ever wanted in a city was there (save Skyline Chili).  All that and I was actually not spending too much money.  I was shocked to find that the Romanian lei is actually slightly stonger than the Polish zloty.  Didn’t really make much sense.

I saw the World Press Photo traveling exhibit, which is the best photojournalism images from the year.  It tours all over the world, and looks like it will be in Los Angeles in January.  To my friends there (who probably don’t view this blog) check it out.  I also got to see a little bit of the animation film festival that was going on there.  Saw some cool stop motion animation by a film maker whose name escapes me.  We even checked out the National Museum of Art, but that was mostly because we were there for the free museum day.  It was pretty awesome.

If anyone happens to be in the area of Krakow, I’d suggest a stop.  It is a place that can easily suck you in if you go with no agenda and just feel like hanging out for a while. 

For those of you reading this that know and see Steve Muzik, feel free to point your finger and laugh at him a little.  He was sure klutzing it up Krakow to the tune of chipped tooth, face abbrasion and broken foot.  He’ll tell you a meteorite hit him… you can choose to believe him or not.

Last week two friends from UC, Anna and Katie, came by Reghin to check up on me.  We cooked some Romanian dishes at my apartment and got ready for an all day trek to Arad, a city on the border of Romania and Hungry, where I would leave to Krakow.  Since the girls had such a short time in Romania, we thought the best way for them to really see the country would be to hitch hike to Arad. 

We set out towards Cluj and got there early enough to check out the center and go to my favorite tea house, Flowers.  We then walked 40 min to the edge of town where we waited for 40 seconds before a truck driver pulled over for us.  Danny was his name and he was an Italian truck driver transporting tires from Bucharest to Turin.  I was able to understand his Romanian better than one else before and I got some good language practice in.  He could only take us half way to Arad, but was on the CV radio most of the ride trying to find us a ride all the way to our destination.

We pulled over in a traffic circle outside of Oradea and he walked us to another truck who was heading towards Arad.  This guy I could not understand at all.  But after some poor verbal communication and hand jestures we managed to get dropped off only 10 min from where my friend Tim (who lives in Arad) was. 

We partied that night and after minimal persuasion, the girls agreed to come to Krakow with me… despite the fact that they already visited there a week before.  If anyone reading this knows Anna and Katie, give them a pat on the back for being awesome travelling partners and open to changing their travel itineraries.

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.

Our presentation to the city went great.  The head of the urban planning department liked our design that we presented with one of the students.  There were certain elements of the plan that they agreed were important to discuss with city officials.  They are planning a presentation where some of the students we worked with will present to the city council.

On the weekend I went to the town of Sighisoara (pronounced Sigishoara).  It was a beautiful, historic town of about 30,000.  It was the hometown of Vlad the Impaler who the character Dracula was loosely based on.  I spent the whole day on sunday relaxing by a pool with some volunteers from group 20 (I’m in group 21).  Check out the pictures at www.828pm.com/photos.

Today we had a 4th of July party at the school with PC staff and our gazda families.  It was great to grill out and listen to some classic American music that I, of course, got to DJ.

Tomorow is the big day where we learn our permanent sites.  I have no idea where I am going to go.  Don’t know if will be a big city or a small town.  During my site interviews I focused more on the type of job I would do and not where.  All I know is that I will probably be working at a mayors office which tends to mean that I will be in a smaller city, possibly around the same size as Sighisoara.  Well, I’ll let you know as soon as I do!