Lazy October...Ups!

It seems that I had no inspiration during this October but I'll make it up to you during November.

The place where time stopped

Yes, it's in Romania, not far from Cluj, and it's is known as "Padis".





Actually it's part of Apuseni Mountains, an area populated to the top of the mountain and hills, but where everyday all you can hear is the ring bell from the cows neck - practically an old version of a gps in order to know where the animals are...were they eaten by the bears or not? ;)
In these places people base only on raising cattle and on wood. In the winter they are blocked in the mountains and 3-4 months have to stay by the fire and "make children" as one of the villagers said. The actual distance from a house to another is about 3-4 km, imagine that one is on my hill and yous is on the other hill. Quite funny and comfortable for a tourist, but for local folks I can't imagine what can happen if they need an egg to make a pancake...Holly Christ...they need to have some imagination.






We were invited by a friend who owns a chalet in that parts and who was celebrating her birthday. And as Peter's birthday is coming they agreed to celebrate together.
These friends have about 45 years old having big kids...but damn they know how to have fun. We were talking with Peter and made a conclusion: the BIG guys know how to party, maybe it's because they do not do this too often, maybe because they have more experience with these things...or maybe they simply know how to do it! Anyway they're really cool.

We had walks in the forest, picking-up mushrooms (they say they were good ones...I can't make the difference so that's why I do not eat them:) and Saturday evening we made a big fire (well Peter is the fire-boy) and cooked some sausages, mici, slanina (it's not like the tiny, not tasty, English bacon) and chicken. We had potato salad and garlic salad (mujdei for those who know what I'm talking about).



Overall it was a delicious, tasty, unforgetable, fat, not healthy feast like we the Romanians are used to do in open air and then feel sick the next day. But it was worth it. We has champagne, wine, beer and local tzuica so everybody was happy. The next day the nature seemed more friendly so we had a visit in Peter's opened truck to the Belis Lake. My hand got frozen on the iron bars of the car but it was damn fun! We tasted some almost frozen berries from the wood and then hardly, Sunday in the afternoon we got our things and headed again for Cluj.



God how I love nature!

PS: For more picture enjoy my photoblog.

Bucovina

It's always a pleasure for us to visit our dear friends Anca and Stefan and from one year on our godson David. They live in Suceava in Bucovina, north-east of Romania. Great place, great peoples, great food. We planned a visit as David, the little one, celebrated his first birthday, and it's a real tradition that the godparents take part in this celebration and put the little one to choose from different objects: pen, book, money, medicine, etc. in order to see what is he going to become when grown-up! Interesting and funny at the same time. For David the book, the money and the mouse seemed to be the most interesting and then the medicine. I'm proud of him...hopefully he''ll make money out of books :).
Even the weather was the coldest ever...it almost snowed, we had great time. David it's growing up fast and becoming more and more curious. He's already walking on his own feet!
He's crazy about Peter as you'll see from the photos and not so crazy about me...I'm not fun for him:(.
That weekend we visited Humorului Monastery and it's tower and some nice B&B's from the region. Actually tourism it's the main occupation on these parts as a Monastery is every street corner and history and Stephen the Great is everywhere. You can see for yourselves how time seems to have stopped!









No inspiration for me tonight....I'm not very good with words tonight;) so let the pics speak:

Escape

Was the last summer day...although in September, when we had 30 degrees Celsius and after which a drop to 6-8 degrees followed. Anyway I think we have to get used to having two seasons per year instead of four seasons. So the last day of summer 2008 we spent it in nature, having a "relaxation" and realizing that we're getting tired too soon after climbing a hill. Anyway Cheile Turzii a natural splendor near Cluj-Napoca welcomed us with it well-known fresh air, green trees and wild cliffs.
And when you think that we used to "conquer" the 2000 cliffs of Retezat one day and now we can barely get our feet up to the cross of Cheile Turzii. You can enjoy the full trip on my photo album. There you can see our trip car - a Dacia 4x4 and in the first picture the desperate try of our authorities to have a highway in Transylvania.









Anyway it was quite a hot day on the mountain!

A well deserved holiday

After ages of working at the office and then at home we took a Friday off and set to conquer Hajduszoboszlo, a nice Hungarian resort very close to the border with Romania. The resort is something more like a seaside as it has water pools for all kinds of taste, gender, age or preferences. It has also hot water pools with healing effect too. It proved to be very inspired as outside were no more than 20 degrees Celsius on Sunday.
We enjoyed the wave water pool (artificial waves of course - but very challenging. we had some days of relaxation as we had never had for months. It was not our first time there....we've been there 2 years ago and enjoyed even more. Here are some pics (we didn't take too many) where you can see the adventurers we took with us ;)



No need for introduction for this fellow:)



Here is from right to left: Mom, Mother-in-law and Father-in-law:



Peter and his sister, Erika:



The lake for boat navigation, full of big fishes, ready to be eaten :)



Here is our "black rat"...very confortable indeed:



And here is my father too...very hard to settle him down:



No need to say how much we all enjoyed everything...these guys can be very funny and party people!

Oh man! How I liked bathing and thinking only about what should I eat next? Chocolate or Apples?

Construction site ... reloaded

We are almost finished with the reconstruction of our apartment....there is only some parquet to be done on one room and ready. At this time some workers are doing the job so soon to celebrate. Today arrived our new sofa...we have finished sticking the wall paper (it is on fashion)and when all ready and clean I promise to post some EXCLUSIVE pics (sic!) with it. God help us!

As I have promised...

...I don't know how many posts ago, here are some pics with Hera, our dog. It's funny we got the dog as a present from a friend and because we live in an apartment with two rooms, at second floor we passed Hera to my parents'-in-law. Hihihihi...imagine my father-in-law is an animal lover and now the dog it's his best friend...and I mean it...Hera it's coming at bbqs and in trips with us. But she's simply lovely.

It's a beautiful combination between two species: rothweiller and wolf and a very smart dog as her mother it's trained for the Army. But enough with words:







We took the pictures in the courtyard of my parents-in-law and in the city park (Cluj-Napoca). Here are some pictures taken in the park as well:

For those who didn't pass through Cluj ever here is The Old building of Filarmonica:



Here the Fountain of the deities, unfortunately it is subject to vandalism and destruction:



And last, the Casino, restaurant and terrace and it's lake on which you can go by boat:



It was only a short walk in the park:)