Sibiu

Sibiu

For eight days Nancy and I attended what Peace Corps calls In Service Training. It was held in the interesting city of Sibiu, one of a handful of the German cities of Transylvania. Sibiu’s center city, its old town, is still largely intact, which is unusual for a city in Romania. Most others have some remnant of the older structures, but Communism dictated that cement block apartments replace more architecturally interesting structures.

Sibiu is currently undergoing a reconstruction, but this time, it’s received European Union monies to redo and resurface many of the historic squares and buildings. It has been selected by some commission or other to be the Cultural Center of Europe in 2007. There is a problem in that there are only two hotels in the city of about 100,000 people, and only three good restaurants, but the place is proud of its designation.

Nancy and I and a few other volunteers attended a symphony concert the first night of our stay and heard a marvelous selection of Von Weber, Schumann and Schubert in an elegant new concert hall erected over and around parts of the ancient walls of the city. On Sunday we went to the German Lutheran church for Sunday service. The sermon was given with conviction and eloquence but was in German, and so was over heads. The church was built in the thirteenth century as a Catholic cathedral with vaulted ceilings and stone columns. The floor paving blocks have been worn by the passing of so many feet in the last 700 years into curving troughs between the pews.

It was a bigger crowd of us that trekked out in the cold December air to hear a Christmas concert at the church later that evening. While we were disappointed that the fine organ was not used, the setting seemed quite appropriate for the recorders and choir of the teenagers of the congregation. It put us all in the proper mood as the cathedral echoed with the resonance of the season.

The IST training is a chance for the bunch of us that came over last spring as Romania 20 to get together and judge our progress. It is interesting that Nancy and I have become something of experts at goings on and cultural activities beginning at 7:30 or before, but after that hour, the group turns to others for advice.