Month: October 2010

Me to Romanian guy, “what does ‘stii’ mean in English?”
“you know”,
“no I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking”.
“you… know…”,
“no, seriously I don’t”.
“stii means ‘you know’ “.
“oohhhhhh”.

Feel dumb much?

We really wanted to go and see Cluj, a “student” city in the north-west of the country, around 4hrs or so from Brasov. Trains over here are, well, slow, so either we could get the 4hr train at 4am or if we left at a more reasonable hour, it goes to 6hrs or more. With our previous average experience on Romania’s train system, which isn’t cheap, we thought we’d hire a car, considering there was 4 of us – Larissa (California), Vicki (Melbourne & more recently, Cyprus), Deb and myself.
Continue reading “Road trip – Cluj, Romania”

With no volunteering today for me (Glen), I headed off to Sighisoara, a 2hr train ride from Brasov with my volunteering friends from the sanctuary, Larissa & Vicki. The train ride was pretty amazing for the scenery and people. The forests are a beautiful mix of green, gold, orange and red and the grass is a beautiful green. Truly stunning country.
Continue reading “Brasov, day 13”

2 more glorious days in Brasov since the last post. Seriously beautiful weather except when leaving the house. At that time, it’s freezing cold, there’s fog everywhere and just miserable. It’s not until about 10am or so does it lift, or in my case up in the mountains, not until you get above the fog does the day improve weather-wise.

Had another enjoyable day at the sanctuary. Not as much to do this week as I learned that 2 of the full-timers were off on leave for the past 2 weeks or so, so with them back, the volunteers aren’t pushed quite as hard and the days are shorter – 9 until 4 instead of 5:30-6.

We got to do a bit of exploring around the sanctuary today… absolutely stunning place. It’s easy to forget the scenery with how cool the wildlife is.

Part of the exploration included visiting the wolf enclosures. There’s at least 2 – one with 3 fairly young wolves and another with older, fully grown wolves. For the first 5 minutes of us being there. they hid in the foliage but after we were quiet and still, they became a bit more inquisitive about who we were and started play-fighting with each other. Fascinating animals – very quick across the ground and they all move in unison. Clearly the pack mentality is instinctive and not learned behavior.

We went out for drinks with 2 girls from the sanctuary and Lora from the hospital and met up with 2 locals plus friends. Was a fun chat with them all, particularly with the friends. One guy was from Budapest and his girlfriend from Brasov. Neither could speak each other’s native tongue so they have to speak English. Pretty amusing watching boyfriend/girlfriend struggle to
communicate with some words/phrases and have to refer back to a friend to find the English word they’re after!

Tomorrow I have the day off so I’m going touring with the girls from the sanctuary whilst Deb is at the hospital and then having dinner with her placement friends. Should be a good day!

We’re really feeling like we belong now as part of the community as we get to know the city, the language & the culture better and better.
Continue reading “Brasov day 9”