Welcome Sight of Springtime

The Blossoms of Zalau

Plums in Bloom

It’s springtime in Romania and the country is alive with blooming fruit trees. The new green of the grass and the first blush of the maples and chestnuts are backdrop to the whites and pinks of the blooms. There are pear and cherry and a great many plum trees. The plums are used to make the traditional Tusica and Polinka, powerful homebrews. The apple trees have not quite blossomed yet, but will within the week.

We rode through the countryside this weekend and the contrasts between beauty and ugly remain as jarring as ever. Seeing the erosion of the rounded hillsides is sad as is the debris of garbage that border nearly every stream in this country. Usually I try to edit my pictures to crop out the unsightly portions but I’ve included one above that shows both the beauty of the blooms and the backdrop of cement towers and old tires.

Nancy and I take our first vacation starting this week. We’ll spend seven nights on the Greek Island of Rhodes (Rodos). The Peace Corps encourages us to travel and see the surrounding countries and this is our first trip out of the country. It’s now been eleven months since we packed our bags and a short break from the routine here in Cluj will be nice. I’ll hopefully have some interesting pictures to post upon our return.

Primroses in the grass

A small flower stand

Flowers for Easter

Flowers for Easter

I saw a statistic the other day that indicated that Romanians spend a higher percentage of their income for food than do any other European country. I thought that surprising because, except for meat, food is not that expensive and people are not overweight. While it might reflect the low amount of income that people earn I was surprised by the data. I would not have been surprised if it had indicated that Romanians spend a higher percentage of their income on flowers than anywhere else.

The flowers are sometimes just simple snowdrops, sometimes bunches of daffodils or daisies, but often they are elaborate floral bouquets. Roses and especially lilies are the favorites. There are flower stands at every market and almost every street corner. Nearly all of the blooms must be imported for I have seen few sizable greenhouses in the country. Albert Bela – I have spoken of him and his daughters before – has a small operation that sells both cut flowers and bedding plants in Luna de Sus and judging from his continual growth and improvements, he must be doing well.

Easter is Sunday. So is next Sunday. It depends on whether you are Orthodox or not. In the United States Easter is the 16th this year. In Romania we can celebrate it twice. It is an important date, with the holiday taken on either Friday or Monday or both. I understand that the rule is you can’t claim to be Protestant one week and suddenly convert to Ortodox the next, though.

And the Easter flowers are out. Women and girls walk with a spring bouquet in their hands. Young gentleman carry a fancy arrangements as they head home after work. For my part I’ve planted pansies along the little strip in front of our apartment. We live on the first floor of our block and it’s our understanding that the first floor apartment has the obligation to work on the flower bed. That’s not a problem for me. I only wish that I had more space to plant. I saw Clematis vines in the market and if I had found the variety that we planted years ago at our entrance in Elkton, I wouldn’t have been able to resist.

As it is, I’ve planted the pansies and three starts of strawberry plants. Impatiens will come later, after the danger of frost. The neighbor commented that the children would take all the strawberries from my three small plants and I replied that I planted them there for the children. Sort of my Easter gift, except that it will be next year before they bare any worthwhile fruit. They will ripen after Easter, of course, but if we have two Easters next year, why not three? I’ll proclaim my own if and when the strawberries ripen.

Oradea

A train station along the CFR

Oradea and the CFR

Oradea and the CFR

Nancy and I had the opportunity to travel to Oradea this past weekend. Oradea is a city, a little smaller than Cluj, sittings on the western border of Romania. Hungary is a ten minute car ride away. We stayed with fellow Peace Corps volunteers and spent the day sight seeing and Nancy took a dip in one of the hot spring mineral pools for which the city is famous.

What I continue to notice is that Romania is a country with sharp contrasts between city and country, between rich and poor, between modern and backward, between clean and trash. It was most pleasant to see spring time beginning to come to the country. The willows were budding out along the river in Oradea and primroses gone wild with their soft yellow flowers dotted the backyards and pastures all along the train tracks to and from that destination. The white storks have come home to the large nests that occasionally top the electric poles along the roads and ring necked pheasants were out in abundance in the pastures along the train route.

Riding on trains in Romania is not as romantic as it sounds. CFR is the company that runs them and the return trip on the Inter City class of train was fine, with a big glass window to stare out of. The train was clean by Romanian standards and the trip took a little more than two hours. Travel on the Inter City trains is not bad, and the next lower class, the Rapid, can be even nicer we’ve been told, but for some reason the train that leaves at the most useful time is normally the Accelerat. Don’t be fooled by the name. It’s slow, never accelerating and dirty.

There is no smoking in the little six or eight person compartments but the heat is always on, making them very hot. People do smoke in the adjoining passage way and it’s a toss up between standing outside the cabin in the smoky air, but with a window open, and remaining seated, looking across at your neighbor in the compartment. Be sure and use the bathroom before you get to the gara, for the facilities in both the station and the train are appalling.

Even on the fastest trains it takes a long time to get places. Bucuresti is a seven hour trip. To get to the Black Sea on Romania’s eastern border would take us over nine hours. Similarly, Iasi, on the northeastern border with Moldova is nine hours away. Those volunteers stationed in out of the way places often figure on a twelve hour trip to and from anywhere.


Whichever train you take though, be sure and look out the window for it is an amazing country that goes by.