The weather gods are smiling upon us today as it is unusually calm and the sky is crystal clear so that I can see the crisp white snow atop the Corsican mountains. I am happily sitting outside where it feels a bit less stark compared to the inside of our house which is missing most of its furniture after our first day of packing out yesterday. We’re not too bad off since the apartment was fully furnished before we arrived and most of the things were up in the attic storage space for us to bring down. But, we’re still waiting for our landlord to bring over a sofa. At the moment, we have a single chair and small wooden table in the living room, so it isn’t the coziest place. Hopefully, that will be rectified tomorrow morning.Things here are racing to a close as we have now begun to pack up and have sadly already said goodbye to many of our friends. Tomorrow, there is a closure ceremony on the base, which will make things feel more official, though I think there are a grand total of about fifty people remaining to attend the celebration. I suppose, as more friends leave and life here becomes lonelier, we will be more eager and less melancholic about leaving ourselves.
Of course, we are trying to pack in as much travel as possible as well
and have just returned from another weekend trip. Aside from Turkey, this was perhaps the most culturally different place to which we have traveled. We spent the weekend in the tiny village of Miklosvar in Transylvania, Romania at the guesthouses of the Count Kolnoky. Apparently, his family, royalty under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was exiled during the Communist period and lost their property. Recently, the Count has returned to Transylvania to reclaim the family castle, hunting lodge and guesthouses and is slowly renovating each property.
Our journey to get there was a bit longer than we’d anticipated, starting with a very early flight to Rome, then another to Bucharest, and then a more than four-hour van ride to Miklosvar (not the simple 3-hour transfer advertised by our hotel). But, along the way, we were able to learn a bit about Romania from our driver, Josef, who met us at the airport clad in grey woolen pants and sweater and a well-worn fur cap. He taught us a few words in Hungarian, which we learned was the language spoken in Miklosvar, rather than Romanian. The only word that stuck was “Koszonom,” meaning thank you, and we used it prolifically. In the more central part of Romania near the airport, Romanian was spoken. Because it is a Latin-based language, we were able to recognize many of the words on the signs along the road. Hearing it, however, was an entirely different story. The scenery along the way included a strange mix of turn-of-the-century buildings with elaborate wooden carved adornments with desolate communist bloc high-rise apartment buildings – and the occasional horse-drawn cart pulling a load of wood down the road.After our long journey, we arrived in Miklosvar, a tiny village made up of colorful square Saxon-style houses along a single main street punctuated by old hand-crank
ed wells that were still very much in use. The chilly air and low evening fog over the snow covered streets made for a bleak and eerie scene. However, shortly after we arrived, we were shown to our guesthouse just down the road from the main lodge and found it to be the perfect cozy respite. Inside, we found creaky wooden floors and heavy 
ceiling beams, a thick down comforter on our hand-carved bed and a traditional tiled Russian woodstove which provided wonderful radiant heat. The lodge was similarly appointed with traditionally carved and painted cabinets and multiple woodstoves and fireplaces. Our dinner that night was down in the wine cellar where we were served soup from a la
rge steaming terrine followed by platters of veal, potatoes and red cabbage topped with a rich sour cream – all carried by women with arms that looked like they had kneaded a lot of bread. There is a sturdiness to everything here from the solid square houses to the thick-legged horses to the dark, stoutly built locals. I suppose the mode of living necessitates a certain amount of heartiness both in build and in character. Sadly, we were not able to communicate with any of the people we came across in town, so it was difficult to get a sense of their friendliness or lack thereof.
Because of the difficulties in communication, one of the services that the guesthouse offered was to provide guided tours – by English-speaking locals. Each night at dinner, we were presented with the next day’s options. We decided to spend our first day in Brasov, about a half-hour away, in order to see a few historical sites. Before heading to bed, however, we retired to what became known as the “Brandy Room” to taste the guesthouse’s caraway brandy fireside and peruse some of the information on the area. Apparently, along with potatoes, home-brewed brandy is considered a culinary staple in this region.The next morning, after a snug night’s sleep and a curious breakfast inc
luding the more familiar muesli and yogurt along with a garlicky eggplant spread and plates of sausage, cheese, tomatoes and strangely-pale green peppers, we headed off on our tour. We stopped first at a fortressed church built by the Teutonic Knights in the 12th century. It was not just a fortressed church, but a refuge for t
he entire village when it came under attack. We learned that their major adversary was the Turks and that Romania was a major region of conflict between the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian empires. Inside the fortress walls were rows of apartments to house the villagers, places to store water and food supplies and a church in the center. The history here is complicated and involves many ethnic groups including Romanians, Saxons, Turks, Hungarians, Seklers and Gypsies. I read a brief history of the interactions between these groups in one of the guesthouse books, but it was too much to absorb and relay. From there, we went into the city of Brasov. To gain some perspective, we rode a cable car up Tampa Mountain and looked down at the walled city below, nestled in the valley of snow-covered 
hills. Our guide, George, pointed out Brasov’s main square where we were going to have lunch upon our descent. Again, it was cool and moist out, and we were happy to tuck inside for a hot lunch. After the usual soups and plates of meat and potatoes, the highlight of the meal was apple strudel with a b
randy-soaked crust. Then, we were off to see the Black Church, so named because it was burned by the Austrians in 1689 and the smoke blackened the inner walls as well as a painting of the Madonna, the background of which was turned from blue to black. It was adorned with an impressive collection of 
Ottoman rugs as well – apparently the second largest collection in the world. We walked through town afterwards and window-shopped, converting the local currency, the Ron, into Euros to get a sense of local prices. Though Romania has been a member of the European Union for a year now, it has not yet adopted the Euro. The people with whom we have spoken have universally said that they think EU membership will bring good things to Romania, but that progress will be slow. Currently, the economy is fairly depressed with most people living very simply in a not-so-forgiving climate. Apparently, the government is corrupt and has not done much to improve general living conditions for its citizens, but that is already starting to change.At the end of a long day of traveling and absorbing many new things, we returned to Miklosvar for a short rest before dinner. This also included a visit to the guesthouse sauna, which we found to be warmer than it was hot, but sufficient to get the blood flowing. We enjoyed more soup followed by Hungarian stuffed peppers and more potatoes for dinner before the post-dinner fireside brandy where we visited with a few of the other guests and anticipated the next day’s sleigh ride.
The next day, we met another guide, Michael, who took us to what really were one-horse open sleighs waiting for us just down the street. They pulled us through the rolling snowy hills, jingling all the way.
The mist from the nearby river made everything quiet and mysterious such that, were it not for a slim line of skeletal trees, it would have been difficult to tell the difference between the hillside and the equally white sky. We stopped at a track going up the hill to have a walk through the woods and look for animal prints in the snow. We found fox, deer and dog prints as well as those of wil
d boar, the target of hunters at this time of year. Recently, the land in this area has been reclaimed by the older families by looking at the old Austro-Hungarian parcel maps and is now being used again for farming and grazing. When we returned to the village, we visited the Count’s old hunting lodge, now empty, but set to become a sort of cultural center for the village in the future. A bit chilly from the sleigh-ride, we returned to the guesthouse lodge and warmed our toes by the fire before consuming another hearty meal. In need of a good walk, I set off into the fields to explore. Along the way, I watched a woman draw water up from the well and a horse-drawn cart pass by with a load of wood, and thought how similar life is here now as it was a hundred years ago. It gives you a better sense of the youth of the United States and its culture to see a place with such a traditional way of life.
We sadly reached our final day in Romania and had to make our way back to the airport in Bucharest for an evening flight. We had time, however, to stop at the beautiful Peles Castle outside of Sinaia. We marveled at the ornate building and gardens outside, but that was as far as we got. The king was visiting and, apparently, did not want any visitors that day. Afterwards, we walked through the town of Sinaia, where we had a surprisingly difficult time acquiring souvenirs despite the fact that it was touted as a tourist village. And then, we were off for the long drive to Bucharest with George at the wheel driving our minibus like a racecar along the narrow, potholed streets.And that brings us back to the present where we are looking forward to just a little over a month remaining here and then it’s back to Maine where we welcome small conveniences like a clothes dryer, central heating, and stores that don’t close for riposo, but will certainly miss the beauty of this place and all of the culture that we’ve been able to observe here and around Europe. Mostly, we look forward to seeing many of you soon and finally being able to tell our tales in person.
