Valparaiso

Howdy, (it's a long one)

This weekend was grand. We spent half our time in cars driving, but that's okay, it was worth the drive (speaking as someone who rode shotgun the whole time)...(shotgun is the main passenger seat for those not familiar with the term). But, before the weekend we had dinner, on a Tuesday:

DINNER AT ZOLI'S:

Zoli invited the lot of us over for dinner. Zoli was in Argentina with Aly via Tenaris, so the two of them know each other quite well. Leon, Haegen, Aly and I made our way, dangerously, to Zoli's. Leon has a way of always getting close to wrecking when he drives, but never actually breaking, scratching, paralyzing, or physically hurting someone. Emotionally, though, we cried. (Exaggerated slightly) Anyways, Zoli lives with Alin and Mihai, both of whom we know from previous adventures. Alin was out of town, but instead the wonderful Lauren joined us. Lauren was new to the bunch, and she has braces! I also have braces, so it was nice to find one of my own kind in such a friendly environment. Zoli has been rumored to be a good cook, and the rumors proved to be just as they were, false rumors. Zoli is an excellent cook. He constantly apologized for the meal he made us, which I can best describe as Hungarian (Zoli is Hungarian, if you could not tell by the name) chili. The first few minutes of dinner the conversation was simple.
Zoli: "I'm sorry. It's not that good."
Everyone Else: "Zoli, shut up and sit down. It's perfect."
Zoli: "No really, I needed more time and ingredients. I'm really sorry."
Everyone Else: "Zoli, shut up and sit down. It's perfect."
.........and so on and so on.
We chatted for a while and said out goodbyes to Zoli, Mihai, and Lauren. Here are some pictures:

Zoli promoting World Peace behind Mihai

Zoli ashamed of his delicious meal

Dinner table

Lauren not wanting a photo, too bad its a great shot of her hands

I think Zoli is messing with Mihai

Some brotherhood going on between Zoli and Aly

Zoli craves competition

FRIDAY:

Aly and the 4 Americans usually take separate cars to work as we are on different schedules. But, since we all planned on leaving work early on Friday (whoop!) to head out of town for the weekend, we decided to carpool in Aly's car. One U-turn and straight to work. Apparently a construction crew came in the middle of the night and installed an old beaten up curb though. Boom, flat tire. Haegen, Leon, and Val went upstairs to get more breakfast food from the buffet while Aly and I changed the tire, as we did not need more than 2 people to do so. Plus, Haegen grabbed me coffee and just brought the mug without asking the waitress. Oh well, it ended up back at the hotel later that day:

Not our first flat, just 1st flat in Romania

So, after work that day, Aly and I went straight to Cluj before the others left. We had to go to the airport to get a new car for the weekend while the rental agency repaired the tire. And, of course, we got a manual transmission. (Automatics are pretty rare in Europe from my understanding.) Aly has driven a manual before, but judging by the 3 times we had to restart the engine before leaving the parking lot, I'm guessing not many times. We made it though, there were some bumps along the trips we had ahead of us, but we are still alive and have laughed more at a car stalling than most people ever will. Oh, and to get to the airport, we decided to pick up a kid looking for a ride. His name was Beniamin (Benjamin). He had just taken his last final from university and was looking for a ride home. We asked him if he could take us to the airport instead of home. It wasn't the way he was going, but he still took us to the airport. It was a fun ride though. We became facebook friends shortly after.

After the airport and Aly's dealings with AVIS, we met the others (Stef, Haegen, Leon, and Valerie). Now we just needed to get Nana before we grabbed food and left. We went to Nana's dorm and grabbed her suitcases. Then, McDonalds! You know what they call a quarter pounder here? They actually call it a quarter pounder.... such a let down. But, there was a Royal Deluxe on the menu. Now, McDonalds is about as expensive at eating out to a descent restaurant here. It is almost twice as expensive as McDonalds in the states, but taste the exact same. I don't know man, I don't know. Something ain't right about it. But, I didn't care that I paid $10 USD for a coke, fries, and a Big Mac. It was nice to have a burger.

Nana brought us to her home town, which is by far my favorite town in Romania thus far. Sibiu is a very historical town filled with culturally rich buildings and structures. It was very pretty. Nana's high school was a large building just in the middle of town, but it was originally built in 1692. Yeah, that's older than my country. My favorite spot was the bridge. The Liar's Bridge. The story was something like people would lie on the bridge for some reason or another. But, the Germans (who originally founded the town, I believe) misunderstood and called it the Liar's Bridge. So, there's more to that story but I'm having a hard time remembering it:

Lugenbrucke

From there we went to a club for a bit and danced. Then, Nana's house was very close, and it was late, so we retired to the hospitality of her parents. Nana's mother, Dana, was an exceptional host. She and Silviu (her husband) made sure we had blankets and pillows and comfortable places to sleep. In the night, after our excursion to the club, we may have laughed a little too hard. After we all got tucked in, the boys room decided to text each other on GroupMe (messaging application). We thought if we typed the jokes out, maybe our laughing would be quieter. No, it apparently does not work like that. But, we didn't wake Dana or Silviu up, so it was a good and harmless time. I won't even begin with the full breakfast in the morning and the only true long coffee I have had since arriving to Europe. She made it just right. We left that morning, shortly after breakfast, to Brasov.

Dana and I, naturally my favorite shot taken

Breakfast: Nana, Leon, Aly, Stef, and Haegen

Outside of Nana's house

Nana's childhood (and current) bedroom

Pretty awesome room, and Haegen also is in it

The lovely kitchen (yes this is a house tour)

Where we slept, aftermath anyway

Sibiu

Sibiu

Sibiu

SATURDAY:

....To summarize: (I'll post pictures later)

Saturday we were hosted by Stef's family in Codlea, a smaller town outside of Brasov. Stef's father and Stef BBQ'd for us and it was delicious. Lucia, Stef's mother, also made mashed potatoes, rice, and a desert with cherries in it. Great meal, and great hospitality. Lucia prayed before the meal, including thanking God that we were there. It was neat.

Stef's driveway

Aly and Guzi

Stef the Fierce

Haegen and Guzi, or Guzi and Haegen

All of us.

Myself, Guzi, and Aly

Then we went to the city for a bit. It was the original bunch plus Irina, Stef's sister. We played tug of war in the town square and got free beer because of it. Then we all went to a big ropes course. It had a bunch of fairly long ropes courses all beginning from a center hut. It was quite fun, Haegen and Stef kind of went ahead, Leon was a floater, Irina, Aly, and I were the middle group, and Nana and Valerie formed the caboose. Our group (Aly, Irina, and I) went on this one zip line that went over a pond. You can hit pretty hard at the end if you aren't careful. On the walk back from it, we attached all of our harnesses together, to avoid getting lost (no chance of actually getting lost). But, it was funny (or we seemed to think so) and people tended to either smile or stare (or both) at us. No pictures from tug of war, but Leon did manage to capture a small video of us playing tug of war. I don't wanna say Aly and Haegen had an advantage, so I won't ;)...:

We went to dinner afterwards, and had some pizza and pasta. Then we walked up a hill and looked over Brasov at night. We walked down, went back to the cars, drove to Codlea, and slept... Oh, how we slept...

Brasov town square in the day

Kids on bikes, with a go pro

Just a path we took

Long walks are hard, eh?

Irina

The lot of us at dinner.... everyone is on their phone....

Haegen has a way of finding the camera for the shot

SUNDAY:

We arose to Lucia's kitchen. The table was set, and the food was ready. Of course, we all had to take showers first. We took cold showers, not because the hot water wasn't working, but because shower valves can be tricky opponents. We ate, then, we made our way to Sinai.

The room the 5 of us guests slept

Aly and Lucia

Valerie, Leon, Haegen, and Lucia

Lucia and myself

Nana and Stef (Stef watched Avatar the air-bender all morning)

Irina helping Haegen get the house wifi

Leon....swag

Sinai has a castle, and it is grand. It's very pretty from the outside, but the inside is what makes it so magnificent. The level of detail in each room was incredible. We weren't suppose to take pictures... (oops). I met a guy from Oklahoma that attended OU back in the day. He was a little strange, but still a man that lives 3 hours from my hometown, and we are in Romania. We also met some girls from Netherlands. If you wanna meet people from different countries, go to a tourist site. Then, we left:

Irina and the others walking up to the castle

Irina and Stef messing with each other while walking... such the siblings

Peles Castle

Haegen, doing him

Haegen and Leon.. hoping it's not too shallow

Peles Castle

Valerie always smiles after she sees I'm zoomed in on her

Stef doesn't really understand the Titanic pose

Some guy was born on that bed.... what a site...

Aly making friends... "Yeah... I speak French."

Part of Peles

This was a large sized picnic basket too!!! (almost)

Stream nearby

We ate at a restaurant, then headed to Codlea to drop Irina back off and say goodbye to Stef's parents. Then straight to Sibiu to drop off Nana, then back to Cluj where we ate McDonald's (Stef, Aly, and I), then Zalau.

Some fun extra pictures from the trip:

Stef, doing Stef

Pee break

Aly.... ridiculous timing

Romanian cinema town...

YESSSSSSSSS. I'll take a 6 inch (or, 15 cm, I guess)

Just the gang walking in Brasov

Some place, some where

Long day (Stef and Nana)

This country does have some pretty scenery

Some building on a hill

First time all 4 of us got to the lunch line at the same time

Haegen jumped into a murder scene with a kiss

Goobers

Little big for those cars eh?

Little side adventure in Codlea

But it turned out to be nice

Walking up to Peles Castle

Stef!

Stef's family as we leave

At Nana's place

A variety of emotions, and yes, Haegen fell into my arms

DURING THE WEEK:

Monday the boys went out to Giorgio's and ate. (Leon, Haegen, Aly, and myself)

Tuesday we went to Zoli's for dinner, even better than last time. I had two full plates and couldn't feel my limbs after. Aly got caught putting salt in his.... With us were Mihai, Alexandra, Zoli, and Ive (Zoli's girlfriend, best spelling I can produce at this time). Alexandra made cup cakes, they were okay.

Wednesday we went out to dinner with Mircea, Cristi, Stef, Irina, Victor (co-worker of mine) and his girlfriend Lavinia. It was a relaxing dinner with a lot of laughs.

Thursday we needed a break, so the 5 of us plus Stef went downstairs in the hotel dining area, and played our new favorite card game "wist". We hung out for a solid 3.5 hours, and ordered Giorgio's delivery. Haegen won..... whatever.

Here are a few random things though before it's over:

1. All from items from work got deleted last week because my computer crashed and I am a noob who didn't externally save them yet. But, it turned out better because I learned how to unlock old excel documents from a different branch of Tenaris. Some translating, and smooth sailing. Robert, from IT, was most helpful in the manner of trying to recover my lost items.

2. Gabriela's birthday was last week! She called me over as I was walking to IT, and pulled me into the laboratory. She brought cake and juice into the office. It was so sweet. Also, Ovidiu came from upstairs to also get some cake. Gabriela then showed me a picture from a year ago of the Quality and Safety team training activities. Ovidiu, who is now in good physical shape, use to be pretty fat just a year ago. He told me the secrets to losing weight, not all of which I can share.

3. Gaby, in Quality, was saying goodbye to me for the last couple weeks using a hand symbol only those from a school in Austin, Texas use. It consisted of a pinky and an index. Letting school pride get the best of me, I correct him and said either a typical peace sign or a gig'em would suffice from now on.

4. Flashing lights on the road to signal there are cops ahead. That is universal. Thank you Romania drivers.

5. Europe has this thing where they have a Youth and Culture capital every year. And it changes yearly. Well, in 2007, Sibiu was the Cultural capital of Europe, something they are very proud of. And, next year, Cluj will be the Youth capital.

6. On the car ride back, most of the way, it was a lot of jamming to music. I'd say well over half the songs, all three of us knew by heart. An Egyptian, a Romanian, and an American all listen to the same music. Universality was kind of cool to see.

7. Reiteration: Both families we stayed with this weekend were excellent hosts. We are all very grateful and appreciative of their hospitality.

8. Stef convinced me that glass on the side of the road was ice that had frozen over night. He sucks.

9. The only person that knows more about Sting than Sting himself, is Aly Shash of Cairo, Egypt.

10. Also, many have told me Happy 4th of July today. I told me family last night, living abroad has never made me more proud to be an American, especially today.

Happy Independence Day

That's it for now. This coming weekend: Budapest.

Ciao










Disclaimer: Misspelled names and cities are not the fault of the author, because Romainya has some challenging words.