A drop of Latin...

After a long day in the factory on last Friday, I took off for Timisoara, Romania.  As I drove east, I hoped that I wouldn't have any trouble at the border.  I crossed with no issues, and entered my thirteenth country in the past 6 1/2 months.  I have mentioned before that the area where our factory is located reminds me of NE IN.  It is flat, fertile farmland.  This extends into Romania and Hungary, so there wasn't a lot of interesting scenery on the drive there.  I arrived in Timisoara late on Friday, and just went to sleep.  I was staying at this hotel near the city center, and I made a real connection with the older guy working the desk and he let me park my car behind the hotel in a locked lot.  

I awoke on Saturday and went out to explore the city.  The weather was warm and it was a perfect day to explore.  I walked around the city center.

I walked all around the city, and one observation is that Romanians really like to paint their homes bright colors.  Here are some examples.

I even got to see a Romanian prison (from the outside, luckily!)

I stopped back in the square for some lunch, and then walked around for a few more hours.  


I wasn't in the Transylvania area of Romania, but I did see something truly frightening:

It was a cross of a crow and a pigeon.  Pure Evil.  

I then decided that I wasn't ready to go back to Belgrade, so I started driving south.  I wanted to see some mountains.  I drove towards Caransebes, which is at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.  This is a very rural part of Romania.  I drove through many villages in which people were just sitting on their front steps watching the cars drive by.  There were lots of old women selling fruit, vegetables, and some yellowish liquid in used plastic bottles, which I have to assume was either gasoline or homemade wine (or both!).  The roads were not good; there were a lot of potholes and some parts of the road were only gravel or one lane.

Here is what I encountered at one point:

But as I drove south, the mountains were beautiful.  It reminded me of where North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee come together.  The mountains were green and lush, and there were farms dotting the landscape with cows, horses, sheep, and goats.

Finally, I got to the Danube.  It was like when you are driving to the sea, and you get your first glimpse.  I had this sense of excitement and wonderment about the water.  I have seen the Danube in Belgrade, in Novi Sad, and in Budapest.  But this was farther downstream, and wasn't spread out on the Vojvodina Plain, but was carving itself through the mountains.  It was so beautiful.  At this point, it was nearly dark, so I decided to try to find a hotel.  I found one that was right on the river.  I checked in and snapped a few shots from my balcony.

The Danube here is the border between Serbia and Romania.  I was thinking about when Romania was behind the Iron Curtain.  I asked the hotel manager if people tried to escape to Yugoslavia.  He said that they did and many people drowned.  But now Romania is part of the European Union, so the river represents a different kind of border.  The manager said that now people are coming from Serbia into Romania.  It is interesting to think about the changes in this region within the last 20 years.

I went down and ate at the hotel restaurant.  There were not many people staying here.  It was very remote and not in a town.  I had river fish that was caught from the Danube.  It was a nice meal.  

On Sunday morning, I got up early, because I had a long drive back to Belgrade, and wanted to make sure I would be back in time for the Hash at 16:00.  I went down to the restaurant to pay for my room and I was told that they couldn't accept my card because it wasn't issued from a Romania bank.  I only had about 1/4 enough cash in local currency, and apparently the nearest bank was 30km away, and the roads are so bad that it would have taken me 45-60 min to get to the bank and then 45-60 min to get back.  I also had 20 Euros and some dinars.  So the friendly hotel manager let me pay my bill in all three currencies.  I was very nervous and my hands were shaking, but I didn't know what else to do.  Thankfully, everything worked out ok.

I started driving along the river, snapping photos and enjoying the scenery.  The roads here were very bad, and I had to drive so slowly.  I had my GPS, but I was a little nervous about getting fuel, since there were no gas stations, and I had no local currency.  I was driving through these small villages and everyone was starting at me.  Finally, I got to a point in which the road just ended.  The GPS and my map disagreed, but it was clear that the road was a dead end.  I randomly took another road, and this road was not on my GPS.  As I was driving along this road, there was a roadblock by the police.  I stopped and they asked to see my documents.  I gave my US passport to them, and they talked to each other for about 5 minutes.  Then the guy just comes back and says something in Romanian and lets me drive away.  At this point, I was very nervous that this road would end, and I would have to go back the way I came, which was about 5 hours to Timisoara and then another 3 hours to Belgrade.  I would run out of fuel, I would miss the hash and I was lost in very rural Romania.  My phone wasn't working because I was so far in the sticks.

Then, magically, the GPS found the road I was on and I was very near the Serbian border crossing.  Whew!  Once I was back in Serbia, I knew that I could get home easily.  Plus I had Serbia money and I know many people in Serbia that I can call if I have a problem.  This border crossing was very small.  It was a place called Naidas.  As I tried to leave the EU in my Serbian car that is covered with Marbo stickers, they did not want me to leave.  The border guards didn't believe that this was my car.  Never mind the fact that it is a Serbian car and I was trying to drive into Serbia.  So they took my documents and I waited for about 20 minutes.  As I was waiting in my car, about 10 guys came outside to look at me.  They were just standing there smoking cigarettes and looking at me in my car.  It was wholly annoying and unnerving.  Finally, a woman comes over and says "you are ok, have a safe trip.".  As I crossed the no-man's land between the EU and Serbia, I was both angry and relieved.  As I went to Serbia, the guard was friendly and didn't ask me anything.  Just a satisfying stamp and I was free to go.  

I passed by some interesting churches on the way home.

I made it back to Belgrade by 13:00, so I had time to clean my apartment a little and do some laundry before it was time for the Hash.  The Hash was a lot of fun, as usual, and I was glad to be back in my apartment and my bed.

They say that Romania is a drop of Latin in an ocean of Slavs.  I only saw a small part of Romania, but it is a very beautiful country.  I had both good and bad luck, but the people were very friendly.  I would like to take more time to travel along the Danube all the way to the Black Sea.  This was the first solo car trip I have taken.  I was thinking of the adage "if a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound".  If I see all of these cool things but don't have anyone to share the experience, does it diminish the experience?  I guess that is why I have this blog.