On the Road Again

Well, technically Google Maps wasn't wrong when we followed its suggested route to Harghita but we went from this:

New section of the A3, a VERY aspirational hwy
that should go 584 km from Bucharest to Oradea. A lovely
piece of deserted heaven, if only for a short 68 km.

To this: 

Hard to capture the actual bumps and jolts,
but I assure you they were there.

which was about an hours' drive through ruts, cattle, and tiny dilapidated villages during a conveniently timed downpour.  It's always an adventure, and the whole car load (Jim included) were quite good natured if not a little dazed when we rolled into town to see our lovely friends for a short weekend. 

It was a bittersweet visit since a friend of Mark's during Peace Corp days suddenly died the week before, and the funeral was the same weekend. The whole town was shocked by the loss of this well known gentleman who served in Odorheiu's city government and the streets were packed with mourners to pay their respects. On a lighter note, there was also a Hungarian music, dance and craft fair we went to. Apparently, all the cool and popular kids dance to traditional folk music and they were good! I wondered what would be comparable traditional dancing to the US would be. Square dancing? Disco? Could folk dancing ever win a popularity contest? Well I will tell you, if marching band still isn't these days, it probably never will.

Bring it on.

As usual, the food spread was impressive: honey, palinka, cheese, and cured meats with original animal skin intact. I could feel my blood pressure rising just from the decadent smells as we enjoyed the beautiful wood work, embroidery, and felted wool products. I managed to buy my unborn daughter her first strapless too which I unashamedly put on Deets (for sizing purposes only of course). The highlight of the trip however was watching Deets play with the rabbits, who really did multiply... like rabbits! They must have tripled their numbers since our last visit in May.

Heading back on Sunday, we made fantastic timing until we ran into backed up traffic in the mountains. It literally took us one hour to drive 14.4 km along the 2 lane highway between Predeal and Busteni, reminding me of the seemingly endless I-70 traffic we frequently encountered in Colorado but with two differences: 1, the traffic was entirely due to the MANY crosswalks and lack of traffic lights in Busteni and 2, no where on I-70 do you get to buy baskets of berries freshly picked by the locals. Like a scene fresh out of Office Space with the geriatric man hobbling past our car faster than the crawling traffic, the berry sellers were making considerably better headway than we did!

Sixty minutes until the nearest bathroom stop at nearly
8 months pregnant... it wasn't pretty.

Doritz? You want?