Romania AKA "How We Pictured Hungary Before Getting Here and Thank Goodness We Were Wrong"

Update -- The lack of recent blogging is really not our fault this time. There were some technical difficulties or, more likely, human error. As my friends from college would say, "there is a non-zero probability" that this was all my fault. And yes, my friends are huge dorks. Anyway, it is taking us forever to load pictures onto the website which means it is either a wi-fi problem, a website problem, or a "I've done something stupid to the computer problem." You make the call.

Also, the weather has turned cold here -- it snows just about everyday. We did get a day about a week ago that was 40 degrees and sunny. So, we thought we'd test drive our bikes for the first time.  The tires were a little flat so we aired them up and rode to our new Tesco. Oh wait, that's not what happened at all. Our tires were a little flat and after trying to air them up for about an hour all I accomplished was completely deflating Melissa's tires. Then we walked to Tesco. 

Anyway, on to Romania!

-------------------------------

A few weeks after our trip to Eger, Melissa's faculty was taking a trip to Arad, Romania. We were invited and jumped on a bus at 6 AM at her school. It was one of the first really cold, dank, rainy, gloomy, wintery, and all out dreary days we had in Hungary. That's ok, though because as soon as we headed out some folks passed around a bottle of homemade palinka to warm everybody up (which included our patented response of, "no, we hate palinka," followed by the requisite, "oh no, I make good palinka"{which is never, ever, true}).

Csaba (chaba) brought the palinka

Off we went, and I suppose it was fitting to have such weather for our trip to Romania -- I always pictured Romania as dark and creepy, so this fit the bill. 

It took about ten minutes to reach the Romanian border...and it's one of the last borders to still have an actual checkpoint. I should clarify, it seems if we go east from Hungary, there's a good chance we will be stopped somewhere along the way -- to the west, it's all open.

Awesome! Our first border checkpoint!

We were pretty excited to get a new stamp in our passports (especially considering we knew we wouldn't be getting too many more if there aren't any border checkpoints left {we briefly considered tattoos from all the countries we visit...then I remembered that I hate needles...and pain}). Our Hungarian hosts explained that this was just stupid, it takes forever, and the border guards have to come on and check passports because they need to justify their jobs. By the way, Hungary and Romania do not care for each other a great deal. 

The guard came in and seemed to randomly check passports until he got to us. When he saw our American passports, he just smiled and took them away. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. 

In the meantime, Meliss asked if she could get out and take a picture of the sign above. Notice that the picture was taken from inside the bus. That's because of the armed guard that scowled at her when she stepped off the bus. 

We felt bad because everybody had to wait on the lousy Americans to get checked out, but about twenty minutes later, he returned with our passports, stamped and everything! 

The Romanian landscape in this part of the country is just as inspiring as the Hungarian countryside...or, as I've mentioned, Kansas. 

Creepy cemetery

More creepy cemetery

Creepy purple house

Creepy road sign

Seriously?

Yeah seriously...seriously creepy

Honestly, there was a cemetery every 15 minutes. If it was sunny out and not raining and we weren't in Romania, then maybe that wouldn't have been so bad. But, since I am scared of just about everything, it gave the day a very negative vibe.

What was odd, though, was that after passing a bunch of cemeteries and your basic rundown shitty houses and whatnot, we started seeing a bunch of really nice houses.

Ok, this looked nicer  than it does here -- and much nicer compared to the other living quarters we saw. There were a bunch of these all in a row -- kind of out of nowhere.

Melissa's teachers explained that a lot of people have started buying property just across the Romanian border because land and stuff is so much cheaper there. They said that ten years ago people were doing that in Hungary. Also, Hungary is in the midst of an economic collapse right now -- and our bus was leaking (Meliss pointed out that the roof was leaking a bit and the teachers sitting near us basically said, "yes, it's an old bus of course it leaks, welcome to Hungary.").

The day trip was planned to visit a Hungarian Catholic Church in Romania. Arad, Romania and much further east from there was all, at one point, part of Hungary. This all goes back to the Treaty of Trianon after WWI (and before, Hungary has been chopped up several times throughout history). Many Hungarians still live in these parts that are now Romania, but they make sure to call themselves Hungarian Romanians. This church trip was all part of that aspect with the tie in that Meliss works at a Catholic school. Also, part of the trip involved placing memorial wreaths on two different monuments in the area --both commemorating the martyrs of the 1848 Revolution.

At some point, we were supposed to stop and eat traditional Hungarian/Romanian food and go to a castle...neither of those occurred. Meliss and I ate sandwiches from a convenience store (pretty sure it was some type of bologna. Meliss gave me her "meat" and just had bread on the first sandwich. Later in the day, we both ate just bread).

Just over an hour and a half later, we made it to the church -- we actually drove past Arad a ways to get there -- and we did see the beginnings of some mountains in the distance which was where the castle was supposed to be.

Ooh, can't wait for this!

Turns out we weren't going to have enough time for that...you'll see why in a minute.

We pulled into the church at 9:15 for a 9:00 service, Melissa and I were quite pleased by this until we found out that the church was putting the mass on just for her school and they patiently waited for us. Hurray!

The church was big and historic and neat like all of the churches we make a point to see -- but this one was much more haunted than the others. Perhaps it was just cause it was a crappy, rainy day in Romania, but everything here seemed haunted.

Pretty much the most haunted place we've been in Europe

Just like other churches we've seen...but more decrepit and scary

Look how happy and sunny it should look!

Picture from what I suppose is a mausoleum in front of it

Everybody piled off the bus and entered the church. Then, we all stood "in line" for the one bathroom available. After about 15 minutes, we decided we'd just go and have a seat and find the bathroom later. It was a beautiful, ornate church to walk through...also, very dark -- so the pictures didn't come out very good, but here are some.

This is an actual hoof print from a horse used by the Turks as they invaded this region. The story goes (we think) that the priest prayed for God to save the church and people from the invasion and so the horses got stuck in the road? Something like that -- the story was told to us by one of Melissa's teachers whose English is good...but not great.

Side view of the painting with the raised roadway and hoof print

Just about everyone was back from the bathroom and mass was about to start, so Meliss and I walked to the back to find the bathroom and, I know you're not going to believe this, but we got lost! Ok, so we weren't in that much of a hurry to sit through a Hungarian mass. We walked to where we had seen folks milling about for the bathroom earlier but could not find the bathroom. All we found was a really long corridor with a bunch of religious paintings hanging up.

One of these doors has to be a bathroom, right?

Did I mention that attached dormitory was being renovated? I don't know how many ghosthunter type shows you watch, but one thing that is sure to bring the spooks is renovation. That's why Meliss and I never, ever do home improvement projects (also, we can't and we're lazy -- but it's really the ghosts!).

The first door on the left was open so we kind of peeked in and it led to another hallway and we could smell something cooking. Slowly and quietly (very slowly and very quietly) we headed down the hallway -- all of this feeling very Brothers Grimm all of a sudden -- and saw a wash machine off to one side and a kitchen off to another. No bathroom. We left this hallway (still quiet, but less slow) and headed down the corridor figuring we'd run into a bathroom somewhere or another.

Who needs the actual mass -- this was the holiest corridor I've ever been in!

And not at all creepy

We made it to the end of the hallway and discovered some stairs -

This is only lit up because of the flash

- at this point we knew we had to have missed the bathroom but thought maybe there'd be another one somewhere up these stairs. All we found was another hallway covered in paintings.

Maybe look closely at the top right painting, we didn't at first.

Still, no bathroom -- but at least mass had started. We made our way up another flight of stairs and found a third hallway, this one filled with old statues and paintings. No pictures from here because we were afraid someone in the mass would see the flash. No matter, we headed back down to the first floor. As we walked by the side room, we popped in one last time. I walked over and peeked into the room with the washing machine and just around the next corner were two stalls (I guess you could call them that). Mission accomplished!

Back to mass for us -- and good timing too since it was almost over.  But, lucky us! The priest was now going to discuss the history of the church and take us all on a tour.  Here is a picture we took of the "history" of the church. Some form of worship was going on in this spot since the 1300's.

The priest began talking and after about 15 minutes I asked Andrew what year the priest had made it to and Andrew just said, "I think the 1600's." I then asked if it would be rude if Meliss and I excused ourselves to go check out the grounds and he said, "Of course not -- this is all in Hungarian!"

So Meliss and I popped outside to look around (except Meliss had squeaky shoes on which made our exit more noticeable than we hoped!).  Once we got outside into the drizzling cold rain and wetness, we made a bee line for the bus to pick up our umbrellas. As we waited for the bus driver to open the door a  (maybe) eight year old boy walked up towards us in tattered clothes. It was like a real life Dickens novel. He said something to us in Romanian -- most likely begging -- but we had nothing to give and hurried on the bus as soon as the door opened.  We grabbed our umbrellas, feeling awful about ourselves, and walked back towards the church -- but not before the bus driver yelled at the kid, who then walked away, stopped, pulled his pants down, peed on a tree, and then left. Welcome to Romania!

The church grounds were pretty massive. Beyond the church to the right was a whole park type area full of shrines with walking paths leading this way and that between them. Again, I am sure this could be quite beautiful but today, and after seeing that kid, it just added to the depressing, creepy feel of all of this.

Probably didn't help that everything was in some state of disrepair or another

Did not walk much closer to this thing -- it was all very Sleepy Hollow

Back of the church -- down past the connected dormitory

From the same spot towards the front

We decided to head back in and see what year the tour was on at this point. The congregation had moved to the lobby, which was a good sign, but then we found out that was just to buy souvenirs before touring the rest of the church and dormitory. The best part was that the Hungarian teachers we were with had already had enough and were starting to get a bit grumbly.  We borrowed some Romanian money from Csaba and bought a postcard of a big shiny thing that hung above the altar.

Our pictures of it didn't come out because it was too dark but we're pretty sure it's a big deal. Anyway, here's Romanian money...

All of this added up to maybe 5 dollars or so...

Since the Hungarians were upset, we thought it might be fun to join the tour at this point in case there was a fight or a screaming match or something. Plus, it was raining. Boy, are we glad we did! 

The next part of the tour took us into the corridors we had walked thru earlier looking for a bathroom. We thought, "oh great, looking at more religious paintings, can't wait." But then, we noticed everybody  gathering around the paintings and pointing and talking. So, we looked a bit closer and discovered the most awesome thing we've seen since we've been here!!!!

We walked through these hallways and just assumed these were all straight, boring religious pictures, but we were WRONG, so very, very WRONG!!!

Hmmm, looks like a boy had an accident involving some wood...man, that's a lot of blood.
Good thing Mary is there to help him?

Um...what?

Quit reading that book, that guy's on fire!!!

The flash is right in the middle of the pic, hopefully you can see this girl getting run over by a car

Ouch

There is one car on this street -- how do you get hit?!

Either that's a small bus or a giant woman

Just relaxing under a car, no big deal

And, our favorite

From what we gathered, these were all paintings sent to the church by people that survived these horrific accidents with help from Mary. Even the Hungarians thought this was strange. But, what a shock! There were dozens of these type of pictures (most involving cars and buses).

A good laugh was had by all...but the tour continued. By this time, their were audible sounds of displeasure coming from the group. We toured the dormitory...

Nah, I'm sure it's not haunted

Saw some sheep -- Meliss and I were pretty close to where they all came
galloping (is that what sheep do? Doubt it) down the hill.

Saw this, don't know what it means, but still...

The tour continued up to the organ where we were treated to a brief (15 minutes) concert. 

Church from the organ

Finally, the tour was over. So, how do you make a pack of disgruntled Hungarians happy again? Why palinka of course!

The priest brought out tray after tray of palinka shots until everyone had one. Then he blessed them (didn't help) and down the hatch. I think Meliss poured most of hers into the nearby plant. I guess my face gave me away because Maria, one of Melissa's teachers, told me that if I didn't like this then she would bring me some of her home made brew because, you know, it's really good. Everybody says this, yet all the palinka continues to be terrible.

Post palinka picture

In all honesty, that church part of the day was supposed to take an hour and a half -- it took 4. That nixed the castle and food portion of our day but we still had to place the memorial wreaths. I think we've covered this before but, just in case. The Hungarians rebelled against Austrian control in 1848-49. They lost. The 13 generals in charge of the rebellion were executed by the Austrians, after which (according to the Hungarian version) the Austrians clinked beer glasses in celebration. Beer glass clinking was strictly forbidden in Hungary for 150 years after that...and is pretty much upheld today. Melissa's teachers were placing wreaths on two memorials for the generals.

The first one

We all stood around it and they read a poem of some sort and then placed the wreaths. A few minutes later, we were on our way to the heart of Arad, Romania to a much bigger memorial statue. But first, another church tour!! The bus about exploded when this news was dropped -- we didn't have to know any Hungarian to know folks were unhappy about this new development!

Church, right in the heart of Arad

Inside same church

We were pretty churched out (even after we skipped half of the church-y stuff from the previous one), so we headed outside and walked up and down a few streets.  We were told this was a particularly Hungarian part of the city...because the buildings were so beautiful they couldn't be Romanian.

Random pics of Arad, Romania

Town center of Arad

After the group was done in the next church, we walked to the main square to place the other wreath.

Main square in Arad -- Hungarian memorial to the generals

We weren't the only ones to place wreaths

A moment of silence

On the other side of the square was the Romanian memorial to the Hungarian 13 generals which one Hungarian told us was kind of a slap in the face.

I liked it though

Afterwards, we took some pics of "oilerman."

As we got on the bus, Meliss snapped a picture of two dogs play fighting. Of course, they were probably just fighting to the death over a crust of bread but I didn't mention that.

And then, the ride home...

It was a long day in a Romania. By the way, Romania really was what we expected to be walking into in Hungary (and especially Sarkad). We were happy to be wrong on that account. Romania went to the bottom of our travel priority list after this, but...there are parts of the country (the north and central mountainous regions) that are supposed to be beautiful. So, who knows? Maybe we'll be back.

Up next -- a fond farewell to Sarkad!!