DAVID

The last weekend we went to Moldavia, Bucovina, the North-Eastern region of Romania where my friend Anca and her husband live. It was at the same time a trip for pleasure but also to partcicipate at the baptismal ceremony of their newly-first born child DAVID. Altogether we had a special role in the ceremony, namely we were the god-father and god-mother of David.

We travelled for aprox. 5 hous by car through beutiful places and breath-taking landscapes, but horrible road (under construction). Fortunately we took some friend with us (Ana and George) who were heading for the same big event and were godfathers of the child as well.

As I was saying Bucovina, especially, is that part of Romania with plenty of Monasteries and where you feel like inwardness and peace is at home. The nature and the landscape is just perfect for meditation and rest. Here is just a piece of what we experienced during our trip, and are just some fugitive photos taken on the road. You can see the colour of Autum through the camera lens, but in fact they where more splendid.

We left Cluj on Friday afternoon and reached Manastirea Humorului (our destination) at 10 pm. After cathching up with Anca and Steven (her husband) as we haven't seen each other from New Year's Eve 2006/2007 and after a good sleep in their guest house, we woke up on Saturday in the baptism rush. Everybody was saying and doing something, not necessarily having a clue about it. I don' t know how time passed but we realize we were at the church listening to the priest about what we have to do as godparents. Obviously we were excited about our "status" and we relly hope not to miss smth or doing smth wrog as it was our first time in this position.

It's not a philosophy to attend and to be a godparent but it'a a nice feeling. The tradition says you remain the mentor and a spiritual parent of the child for the rest of your life and you are responsible for his evolution in that respect. Ouch! Responsible? Oh my Gosh! Now I realize. But the kid is a sweety and I think we will get along very well. He's so cute and small and funny.

Our main responsabilities as godparents during the ceremony were:

1. Carring a burning candle through the ceremony:

2. Holding the child in turn with the others godparents while the religious ceremony continued:

3. Dress-up the child with new clothes brought by us (poor baby was terrified with so many "giants" around):

4. Pay for the ceremony...one of teh most unpleasant moments!:)

I must say that the child, in order to be baptized, it is submerged in water, three times, in a big bucket. Fortunately our priest was inspired and boiled some water and then mixed that hot water (it was a funny scene to see the boiled water prepared for the little one, it was like a horror movie scene:) with cold one to make a pleasant bath to David. He cried like crazy when submerged...but we all have our good and our bad moments in life. I think this was the first David's bad moment;)
Here we gathered for the ceremony. The parents of David (our friends) in the middle, both looking left!

Touchin moments. Generations meeting under the church roof (grandmother and grandson):

Afterward everybody went home for the party. We gave the presents for the little one (usually money but also all kinds of baby stuff). Looking for a perfect present I was susrprised to see how diverse and quite expensive can be these things. But they worth every penny.

Well as I was saying after eating like a viking (they eat like crazy in Bucovina, but they have all the reasons to do that...the food is great!) we started the party. As usual me, Peter and Anca (David's mother) started dancing. We started to dance about 6 o'clock (the three of us) and in almost 1 hour the party heated up. At 1 pm we had to take a walk under the moonlight. The village is so quite and the air is so fresh that you have the feeling you could stay there forever.

When we came back the people were still rocking and the noise kept awake half of the village. It was our time to leave the premises. We were knocked out! Of course as we started dancing at 6 pm not at 8 pm as the rest of the people. It was a mega party anyway and we felt like in the College: young and fit! Hahahahah.

More pictures (but not all) at www.flickr.com/photos/ancu_bm. We didn't take too many pictures this time, but David's parents did so we're waiting!

Flea Market, Negreni 2007

In autum, every year, there's a flea market in Negereni, aprox. 80 km from Cluj, where you can bargain almost everything: clothes (most of them second-hand), shoes, sports equipment (our goal), antiques (some very precious I guess, but also extremely expensive, at least for me) and of course food and drinks. One side of the river:

and on the other side of the river:

We convinced the Mishes, our trip partners, or they convinced us ... it doesn't matter, to leave Cluj for Negreni hoping that we could bargain something to worth it, but cheap or very-very cheap. Anyway everybody goes to Negreni having that in mind. Last year we missed it, so this year will be our time.

We had in mind some skiing equipment for Peter and for Alexandra (skies and skiing boots). The offer was very poor in this field but still, there were some Hungarian fellows which had some good-looking equipment and with whom we could bargain (especially Peter in Hungarian and me in English :)

So in the end everybody got something cheap Peter skies and skiing boots, replacing the old ones and being the perfect present for his birthday. I got some old wooden plate for ornament, Alexandra got skies (her first) and some skiing sticks (lol...I don't know the exact word in English for that) and Mishu I think only something to eat...heheheh (the traditional kurtos kalacs).

Negreni is a mixture of commercial and traditional market. Of course are many sellers with all kinds of counterfeit goods, but also quality things. Some of them as I was saying are quite valuable and precious, but you need to have a good eyes for that. Every year collectioners from all over (Hungary as well) come to Negreni to complete their collections. But for that you need lots of money. A single small bronze statue, that interested me was 100 Euros (yes! the prices were very western only in Euros) which is quite much in Romanian money; and probably it was so cheap because was not that old and valuable...but it was well-made and signed by some unknow artist...for me!

In conclusion, it's worth while visiting this open-air enormous market, but you need patience, feel like bargaining and plenty of money on you! You can really find something nice at a good price. And if not you can enjoy at least the beautiful wild Cris Valley...but maybe not at 2-5 degrees Celsius as we did.

Wedding PICS

I've promised and now I have finally made it! I uploaded all the wedding pictures, grouped them by themes and post them on my address www.flickr.com/photos/ancu_bm. The link to this site which I will periodically update from now on with all our new pics is posted at the bottom of this page.

Enjoy the pics and leave some commentaries If you feel like it!

I wish you a dynamic weeked!...but not at work :)

Chestnuts Festival, Baia Mare 2007

Every Romanian city or town has an annual so-called "Beer Festival" when all the urban population goes out on the streets, eats the traditional meal MICI (impossible to translate or to describe the feeling when eating those:) and drink tones of beer. It's a time when everybody, young or old meets their friends and chat while getting drunk. Well Baia Mare needed to be more special than the rest of the Romanian cities so we organized The Chestnuts Fest.

The name it's not just a coincidence, Baia Mare is a rare place on the Romanian territory where chestnuts grow. In Romania we have only one more place like that but it's not at all so prosperous. You can see I still love that place very much even if I live in Cluj for 8 years now.
Anyway at the fest it gets very crowded at some point...I mean all the time...the streets are full of people wandering here and there trying to bargain something...clothes, pieces of traditional art, handcrafts, food, etc. At night (because the party goes on until morning; on Saturday we got home at 1:30 am and the party was still to continue) it gets very crowded, it's like attending a concert of thousands of people and having a survival space of 1 sq cm around you. You have to go where the crowd goes. If you want to turn left maybe you just get back from where you first came. Oh! But what am I explaining here...you all know what I mean.

It was a good moment to visit my parents and to involve them as well into this bath of people. Here we were still together, afterwards we got lost ;)

Through the sun-glasses (It was like summertime those days 23-25 degrees Celsius):

Like all the locals we sat to a table ate MICI with mustard, had a beer and had a lot of fun and bought some cheap clothes. Here is the MEN's side of the table:

Here is the WOMEN's sector. You can feel the "girl power" can't you?

We enjoyed the street singers (some old indians playing traditional music...they can be found on the street of Cluj as well).


We also had a walk through the old city of Baia Mare, now reconstructed and modernized and we fooled around...like kids. Gee! Those child-games can be so relaxing and fun...if your butt still fits those tiny spaces...auch!



Then we walked by the place where our wedding took place an in the Municipal Park. Somewhere on that hill on the back was the restaurant where we had our party:

And here is the Ethnographic Museum from Baia Mare...I'm ashamed as I have never visited it!

I realized that we have our beautiful and special places in Romania too, and in our small quiet tows as Baia Mare is we just have to raise our eyes and take a look...and of course take attitude and preserve them...and OK! we need some marketing training as well, as we have no idea how to sell our jeweleries .

Of course we have our funny silly parts:

But over all we're funny people with a great sense of humour and a great respect for our family...and we look good together even if some really fought for a place in the front:


Chestnuts...yummy they are tasty but everything that is very good it's hard to get. Try these with bare hands:


Or better do not try this at home...PLEASE!