Romania

We arrived in Romania -- Timișoara to be exact -- on the evening of 16 July 2015. A short, round man with a mustache was holding a sign with our names on it when we came past the gate (technically after you leave the security area, I guess). He didn't speak a word of English but claimed he could speak some German (he was Romanian, obviously). His German was somehow even worse than either of ours but we followed him as our friends told us that a short man with a mustache would be picking us up. When we got to his car I became a little concerned because his car was a yellow taxicab. We didn't have any Romanian money and it was very unclear if our friend had simply hired a taxi for us or if it were somehow a coincidence, or in any case not directly related to the monetary aspect of taxi driving, that he was bringing us to our hotel. I tried asking in that sort-of English and pointing that you end up doing when you're trying to speak to someone who doesn't understand at all and you do a lot of repeating words more slowly and more loudly even though that does nothing because it doesn't matter, for example, how slowly or how loudly you say the words "avem să vă plătească?" to me because I'm not going to understand them, if he could maybe stop at a cash machine but to no avail. I continued to feel just a little worried that, as stated just above, this was just some random guy who was still sent by our friend but that was not a family friend or what have you (remember we were being driven in a full fledged New-York-taxicab-yellow taxi) and so at the end we were going to have to pay him some fare of which we of course didn't have and don't even imagine that you could pay with card in this old thing. As I've gotten older, despite the experience that one would think I've accumulated and thus turned into some kind of currency for being able to deal with "foreign" situations I've actually become more worried when traveling and I get stressed out pretty easily always thinking that the next thing will somehow go wrong mainly because I won't understand something. Anyways, so here we are in my quintessential nightmare scenario (even though, again, now from afar it's pretty obvious that things were fine and even if it was a taxi we could have somehow sorted out the payment thing once we arrived at the hotel) and I decide I really want to make sure that this guy is connected to the whole reason that we're here and the friends and all that. And so I say in my best German "so kennst du Monica?" and he becomes quite animated all of a sudden and says like "ja! Monica und Kevin!" (who are of course the friends whose wedding we're here for) and so that at least helped a little. The other thing that helps -- and we're full-on discussing this right there in the cab because it's very clear that unless this guy is an actor with a whole lot of talent he doesn't understand word one in the English language -- is that there's no meter that's running; this isn't a slam-dunk of "you don't need money at the end" but it's arguably a positive indication. We finally arrive at the hotel and the driver walks with us down this alleyway (but it's a nice alleyway past the restaurant and towards the main hotel counter) and is carrying our bags for us. This worried me all the more because on some level you're kind of thinking, if he's just a friend doing a nice deed (or even worse the friends had maybe hired a taxi for us and paid in advance in which case things are still fine but then especially with the luggage carrying we should tip him but remember we don't even have any Romanian coins) then this is all fine but if he's a taxi guy we don't have the cash to pay for either the ride or the fact that he's carrying our luggage. But, it turns out he's come to the front desk with us simply to make sure it's the right place and that everything is fine with our booking and he kind of smiles and leaves our bags there for us, shakes both of our hands, and just like that he's gone.

It had been around 5pm when we headed up to the airport in Munich after work for a 7:30 flight that arrived in Romania around 10 for an arrival at the beautiful Casa del Sole Timișoara just before 11. So I probably don't have to spell it out all that explicitly that by this point we were fairly hungry. We asked the nice man at the front desk where we might find some food at this hour and he directed us towards the main town and along the river where we would find the outdoor bar/restaurant Rivière. The amazing (one of the amazing, rather) thing(s) about our trip to the western corner of Romania was the heat. When we arrived at the restaurant next to the river on that Thursday evening in July it was getting close to midnight. However, the outdoor temperature was still holding above thirty degrees Celsius! At this time of night, Rivière was still jumping. It wasn't strange at all that we were ordering food close to midnight and this seemed to be the standard activity at most tables; though there were many tables where people were sharing drinks or some late-night snacks with their drinks, there were many simply coming for dinner (steak, a burger, whatever) at what Germans would consider to be much closer to breakfast than to dinner time. We enjoyed our experience at Rivière so much that we would return some three additional times during our long-weekend stay in the city (there are not many nice restaurants yet in Timișoara). See how nice it is?:

Friday morning our first order of business (after missing breakfast which is a pretty standard/common occurrence in our family when they only run it until something ridiculously early for holidaymakers like 11) was to get a croissant and a cappuccino and go swimming! So many times in my life I have either (A) hoped to get a hotel with a pool and failed; or (B) hoped to get a hotel with a pool and succeeded but not either (i) not used the pool at all; or (ii) used it but only because psychologically I'd gone to the trouble to make sure I was at a hotel with a pool and then when it came down to it it was more like forcing myself to make sure that I used it and it wasn't necessarily worth the trouble, but this time -- WOW! Best decision ever. The Casa del Sole has a beautiful outdoor swimming pool in the middle of the hotel courtyard next to the cafe and restaurant. No word of a lie it was 38 degrees Celsius around lunch time and the pool was like a gift from the Romanian gods (of which there are four, I believe). After a long swim and a long lunch all of the sudden it was late afternoon and we were scheduled for a walking tour of Timișoara at 5 pm. Our meeting place was the grand Timișoara Orthodox Cathedral of which you can observe below beyond Sandi and a Romanian fountain (in case for whatever reason there might be any confusion what with me going on about the pool just above: that fountain has nothing to do with the pool but it does make things look a little more refreshing than they actually were).

So finally everyone showed up (everyone being just me, Sandi, Monica [the bride], her friend Noémie [who figures later in the story], and the tour guide [I don't remember her name so let's call her hmm... Anna]). Anna was an extremely boring tour guide but unlike the free taxi driver (we asked later and it was the father of one of the bride's friends who happens to be a real-live taxi driver with a real taxicab in his day job but who really was just being nice and offering to pick us up at the airport for free) she was a paid tour guide with no connection to the bride other than that she was Romanian and lived in the same city as where the bride grew up and where her wedding would take place in one day hence. The heat had not yet broken (it actually never did) and we started the tour by walking 25 silent minutes in the afternoon sun to the spot where the 1989 Romanian Revolution that led to the end of 42 years of communist rule in the country began. That spot was a church where the Hungarian pastor László Tőkés was being hidden as the government was attempting to arrest him for critical comments made against the administration. The government came to force him out and a bunch of people were there to say "no!". It was at the end of the day (in mid-December) and as the people rode home on the trams along the main avenue they saw the protest and got out to join it. The protests spread over the ensuing days and culminated in the end of communist rule. Here is what the main square in front of the opera house looked like on December 20th 1989 in the thick of the revolution: 

And here it is on July 17th 2015 in the thick of a heat wave:

Different. That night following a very long and not all that fun or informative walking tour of Timi, we returned to our very favourite Romanian restaurant Rivière with a large collection of wedding-attending partiers. Interesting dudes to say the least. Saturday was the big wedding day. We woke up and went for a swim obviously and probably watched some Tour de France if it was still going on at this point (most likely). You'll have to remember that with temperatures in the high thirties (have I mentioned that part yet?) one has very little energy to do very much beyond going swimming and laying around watching TV and drinking lots of ice coffees and beers and if you're pregnant (for example) then this must be an even more trying time because you're not exactly supposed to be drinking too many beers and even the ice coffees are somewhat off-limits but swimming is A-OK so don't start worrying too much about Sandi and her Timisoarian plight or anything. Faster than you might imagine it was all of a sudden time to leave for the wedding. And I don't want to harp too much on the heat thing especially given the fact that it's so cold here now but the attire that I had for the wedding was essentially a, well, it's not actually wool but, more or less, knitted wool suit (but I could at least take my jacket off and hold it).

Stepping out the door entailed a cartoon-like progression from fluid regular human propulsion movements of the limbs in a walking-like action with a dry suit to immediately soaking-wet comically slow-motion movement through a thickened ether of condensed hot air. We walked the 1-2 kilometer distance to the church and joined a large group of other guests similarly attired (i.e. wet suits). When we finally got to enter the church things improved somewhat because the angry sun was no longer beating down thoroughly onto our weary selves, but it was still pretty darned hot. The ceremony was entirely in Romanian so we of course understood nichts but it was orthodox and sort of cool (in the metaphorical sense).

After the ceremony we obviously went back to the hotel for our seventeenth swim of the stay. The party started later in the evening and we had a little bit of time before our now-good friend the mustache man was going to pick us up. When he did he had a young lady in the car and the entire drive (about half an hour) they argued and yelled and screamed at each other in Romanian. It was fairly obvious but upon arrival at the venue we confirmed through third-party means that yes, it was a father-daughter thing. The wedding party was at a half indoor half outdoor restaurant a little ways outside of the Timi city centre. We sat next to our new friend Noémie (I told you she would be featured later in the story but this is about it. Oh well actually you might also get to see her back in a photo below). Food was served all night. It's a great approach. Instead of having a linear progression with clear breaks in the purpose of each section of the night like "aperitif", "mingle", "dinner", "speech", "dessert", "dance", "end" it was an all-night never-ending dance- and eat-athon. Courses were delivered to your place whether you were there or not and this continued all night with what you might call (for lack of a better term) the "main" course arriving even after midnight. This keeps people going all night long (since Romanian weddings last all night long; when we headed back to the hotel around 5:00 AM upon our return the wedding that was happening at our hotel was still going strong) and you never get so full that you're really tired or don't feel like moving or whatever. Another thing was that the bartenders were I guess bored and made the drinks incredibly stiff. I mean just out-of-this-world-strong. A rye and coke, for example, (remember this was a half-Canadian wedding) -- and I hate to use this cliché but pretty much have to -- was truly and thoroughly a "coke and rye" more than the other way around and the "splash of Coke" at the end was more just for show than anything else. I'm sure it helped people have a good time though. The desserts were quite impressive:

And even Sandi participated in the dancing (luckily she had some instruction from our other good Romanian friend Anca):

As the night dragged on and Sandi heeded the doctor's advice by limiting her alcohol intake to only one drink every two hours, the pregnancy probably didn't help so much in the eventual outcome of her just getting really really tired. I can't put all the blame on her of course as the heat (remember that?) was doing a number on yours truly too and when the big clock on the wall told us that the sun would start rising any time now, we decided that we should pack it up and pack it in. Before doing so we obviously took some selfies and watched the traditional Romanian dancers but that was all we could handle for this night.

I don't think I need to describe Sunday in all that much detail because we pretty clearly just went swimming and ate some more food and in all likelihood went to Rivière but we ended the night at another downtown-Timi restaurant where we again met up with the wedding folks and had one last Romanian meal. Our friends were heading back to Montreal a few days hence and we promised them that since we'd have so much time in the summer when we came to Canada that we would pretty obviously make it to Montreal for a visit (needless to say that never happened) and we bid adieu.

The summer days and nights rolled by and we knew that one day in a not so distant future that we would find ourselves approaching the end of October 2015 and it would be cold again. And what do you know? Here we are.