Before I left Brasov Monday morning, I stopped by a pretty church and just loved the chalk- like sketching (which I am pretty sure was actually paint) on the wall of the interior, so decided I just had to share them.
The past two days I have spent quite a bit of quality train riding time, but I am not complaining at all because the Romanian countryside is so gorgeous. There are so many cute towns (of course each one has a beautiful church and some have a nice fortress or castle) and I love seeing a different side of the cities since the train tracks basically go through people’s backyards. Whenever I am training or flying it, I am THAT girl who is glued to her window looking at everything outside as it passes by. I don’t know why, but I am always so mesmerized by the clouds, landscape, whatever. Maybe after all the train rides I am going to take while in Europe and all the travel I know I will do for work I will eventually lose interest, but I really hope not and am doubtful.
Monday night, I spent the night in Sibiu, a city that was crowned a European Cultural Capital in 2007. I am not sure what that means, but the town seemed to be pretty cultural to me if I do say so myself. Also, as someone who was raised Lutheran, I am proud to say that the most amazing church in the city was Lutheran (for once…we don’t make very cute churches in the U.S. of A normally). I even had an amazing Transylvanian stew with polenta and tried some Romanian beer with dinner in the city!
I have always been the type of person to value very deep and long-term relationships with people and wondered how much value can be really be added to one’s life through a quick conversation with a stranger. My dad does not share this belief at all. He takes any and every opportunity to talk with strangers. Growing up, my brothers and I would always joke “there goes dad making friends with strangers yet again”, but I am starting to understand the importance of doing so.
I am a huge fan of Oprah and one of her big beliefs throughout her work is that “everyone has a story” to share with the world. I am really starting to understand the value of doing my best to hear as many people’s stories as possible. You never know when a conversation (no matter how long or short) will have a lasting impact, illicit some realization or result in learning something new. Even just a simple conversation during a train or taxi ride.
On my train ride from Sibiu to Arad (my last stop in Romania), the train was stopped for some time. After seeing some people outside inspecting the train and a police officer pace through the cabin several times, I finally asked the woman sitting near me what was going on (apparently there was something wrong with the train, but they got it figured out). She then proceeded to tell me that it was like everything in Romania…it was in disrepair, running late, so on and so forth. I later learned that she was on her way to finish up divorce paperwork, so she was not loving life at the moment, but hearing her perspective was very interesting to me.
She had spent a summer in Utah through a working abroad program where she worked at a Japanese restaurant. She said that America was a culture shock for her because she was amazed at how everything seemed to have its place and was organized: the roads were straight, the fences were lined up with each other and things ran on time (except for a flight she took out of Seattle, so she was not a fan of my fair city, sadly). I told her that what I liked about other countries is that even though the fences aren’t straight and are often built from reused material, they still serve their purpose and work as intended. I guess it depends on one's perspective and frame of reference. We talked about a lot of other things like how different your world can be based on where you are born, the price differences between Romania and the U.S. and the thing she missed most about living in Utah (doughnuts…really?). I am really glad I decided to strike up a conversation with her and at least hear a little bit of her story.
I didn’t hit Arad until after dark, but here are some of the pictures I took of the cool buildings they had at nighttime.
