Sunday

It's been ages since I had a traditional French breakfast. In our case: bread, jam, cheese, hot chocolate, juice, honey, etc etc. Brought back good memories!

We wandered around town all day. I brought them to Friends, my favourite cafe. The Balkans has the absolute best hot chocolate in the world. It's very thick, almost like a hot mousse. You can eat it with a spoon. I have no idea how they get it so thick, and I sincerely hope they do it with corn starch and not cream. You can have about 40 different flavours, ranging from rose petal, lemon and pine nuts, fondant to amaretto, forest fruits and fondant. I stuck with my classic though: winter dream tea. I'm going to have to see if I can bring some back to Canada with me.

By the cathedral, we saw a group of young people with blue hats. Turns out they were campaigning for the local social democrat party. Their symbol is the rose on a blue background, but were handing out carnations (cheapskates!). I met one of the guys, who shook my hand.

They wanted to buy some traditional Romanian plates. They saw some in Brasov but didn't buy any. We have them here as well at half the price. So we went to the Banat History Museum and waited for Cristi to meet us there.

We saw two men standing in front holding a map. I knew instinctively that they were Italians. One of the men was wearing a pin striped suit with very large and very white stripes, very ugly black and white shoes and a baby pink tie. Jerome and I burst into laughter. The other was very nicely dressed, though. I walked by and heard one of them confirm something in English in his phone. I asked in English if they needed any help. Turns out that they were Italian (from Palermo) clothing dealers who came to Timisoara for a trade show. They were given the wrong address. Luckily, Cristi showed up and we were able to get everything straightened out. We drove to the trade show with the Italians following us. I was hoping they would offer us (me!) something in gratitude (like a Prada bag) but alas, they waved us goodbye when they got to the convention hall. One of them didn't speak a word of English, so while his friend was on the phone, I was trying to badly translate our English into Italian.

Don, Jerome, Cristi and I got some ice cream at the student complex. I didn't realise how much I missed pistachio ice cream. After Cristi took off, we wandered around the complex and then the rose park. We saw a billboard for the political party and recognised several people from earlier in the day.

We visited the three main churches in town. I've walked past them all but have only been inside the Orthodox Cathedral. The Catholic church was very nice but somber. The Serbian church was full to the brim with worshippers. The first time we went to the Orthodox cathedral, it was in the middle of the service and people were even standing in the lobby! Apparently, people stand during the whole service! When we went back, it was much less crowded.

I have yet to figure out religion in Romania (but I'll leave that for another post). In the middle of the room there is a book, an icon and what looks to me like a table cloth. The worshipper kisses the book, does the sign of the cross, kisses the icon, does the sign of the cross and then kisses the table cloth, then does the sign of the cross.

That just seems unsanitary to me.

There's a museum in the basement with ancient artwork and icons. The French "Guide Routarde" (sarcastic as hell) said that the curator was "peu sympa mais il parle francais". (Not very nice but he speaks French). He indeed spoke French and was very nice. He let us wander around the exhibit for at least thirty minutes. I was a little disappointed because with the exception of an ol 14th century bible and a 16th century plate, everything else was from the 18-19th centuries. There's only so many painted thee-fingered Jesuses that I can take in one afternoon.

The curator was dressed in a long black somber robe. A few times, his cell phone went off (I couldn't think of any other reason why he was vibrating). Once again, a mixture of the old and the new.

Coming out, we saw people lighting candles in a special candle room. An old woman, who looked almost dehydrated from the heat, was busily scraping wax off the floor. She was only about four feet tall (1.3 metres). I wondered if she was so faithful that she loved her job, or if this was the only work she could find.

We noticed that Carmen was playing at the Opera. Don and Jerome thought it would be a funny story to tell their parents: they they went to the opera in Romania. I was just glad I had an excuse to finally see an Opera. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the ticket booth, although according to the sign, the maximum price was 150,000 lei. A little more than 3 euros. We rushed home to make dinner so we could be back in time.

Don and Jerome live in a university residence in Bacau. They don't have a kitchen, so they were pretty excited to cook (and to clean, apparently. I didn't do dishes the entire weekend!). We made grilled vegetables and chicken with rice. Very good. And tomatoes with mozarella. Very very good!

We didn't know how to dress. I wore a black dress and a wrap top. They wore jeans and tshirts. We got to the opera and almost everyone was wearing suits or dresses. We got to the door and found out that we had to buy tickets at the back. I think we got the last three tickets! Well, we were right at the back, and there was one empty seat next to us. However, the seats were great and we could see and hear everything perfectly. The guy next to Jerome was also wearing a baby pink tie. Is this some new European trend?