Romania – a collection of thoughts part 1

Magdalena for you:)

Sibiu, city-life, old town hostel, listening music, enjoying the atmosphere of backpackers around, feeling the energies of people in the streets, flowing through the old city center with its beautiful houses – a good mixture of renovation and signs of slow decay, having mobile connection and hearing a voice from France:), digesting one week of mountainlife (more about this later), preparing for the next long trip to the Fagaras mountains that already twinkling now and than between the roofs of the city to us with their peaks up to nearly 2600 meters, meeting people living in Sibiu – hearing their opinions about their country…

So it is exactly two weeks that we left Hateg, the last place where we had Internet, a new triple couple after Paulin left for some weeks. The first days walking through a beautiful valley, along the river, partly in a Natural Parc, with a lot of juicy and rich green parts and yellow meadows the same, flowers, butterflies, plumgardens, rising mountains partly coverd with trees to the right and the left. The sun followed us and bathed everything in golden autumnligth in the evenings, the sky and air clear. Everywhere are the signs of sheep from time to time we meet a Shepard with the flock. The villages are often a surprise, a lot of houses are renovated and new colored, every here and there are new houses build. Their are hardly houses that give the impression of poverty, even if they are small they look nice, with their gardens around, the animals in the yard, a lot of flowers decorating the entrances. And all the beautiful, helpful and warmhearted people we met, it seems to me the same with them. Even if I know they do not have a lot of money – they tell us, the average income in Rumania is about 250 Euros, and prices for life are not so much less than in Germany – they do not seem poor. They have their houses, gardens and animals (nearly everybody in the villages has some chicken running around the house, a cow, some pigs or sheep, I love this!…and so everything is biological, natural – what they are never tired to emphasize proudly;), they find their ways. There is no luxury their is no extras but they have something of a big value, they have their families, friends and neighbors,and  they see the most important – the present moment, that is what life is about.

That is what I felt a lot on our way, for sure their is another side too and it is difficult too, they have troubles but it is not a feeling of desperation…my impression.