A week full of culture

Over the last week there have been two festivals here in Baia Mare: firstly the Főtér Fesztivál last weekend (a festival celebrating the Hungarian community who live in this part of Romania) and over the last week the Festivalul Castanelor (Chestnut Festival). I managed to catch a little of the former festival in the old town as well as viewing some of the parade as it passed by our house, however was already busy hiking up to Lake Firiza with Melissa to swim there  as well as attending my first ever air show at Baia Mare airport (featuring parachuters and many planes, of course).

In the evenings and over this last weekend, I have however grabbed every opportunity to attend as many events as possible, either by myself or along with some of the others from the group (being something of a culture vulture). I have sampled a wide variety of different musical genres (ranging from traditional folk to pop) at the numerous concerts which occurred each night at 3 different locations across the city, highlights for me being the classical music and opera concert on Tuesday night, as well as the operetta and musical concert on Saturday night. I also went to watch a film on Baia Mare, showcasing many of the highlights of the city, which I am still steadily exploring, and went along to two plays. Although not understanding much of what was being said in the dialogue, I was able to catch the gist of what was going on, especially in the shorter sketches during the show on Friday night.

Dance has also featured in the past week , as I had my first two dance lessons, covering the basic steps of the two opposite extremes: the waltz and the bacchata. Despite initial reservations, I am enjoying it and managed to get most of the steps correct. Less formally, some of us showcased our dance moves at the festival on Saturday, to the amusement of the locals.

Alongside learning to dance, my language learning continues apace. Each day, I understand more of what people are saying around me, as I learn new vocabulary and pick up links to Latin cognates as well as French words. It’s been very satisfying practising the little Romanian I know in shops (especially when the shopkeeper doesn’t recognise I’m foreign!) and I’m already eager to progress further (it being a very long time since I’ve learnt a new language). Our first event on Friday ‘Gate to Languages’ was unfortunately disrupted due to the inclement (typical British) weather but we still had fun parading around the streets with flags and viewing the city in its entirety from the top of Turnul Stefan. We’ve also been  preparing ahead for our upcoming cultural workshop evenings this term, where we hope to share a little bit of our own cultures with the locals- a good chance too, to appreciate aspects of our own countries, which we usually take for granted.

A key part of culture is food and drink, of which there has been a plentiful supply over the past week. We  have gladly sampled some of the cakes from the bakery, tried our first taste of palinca, enjoyed the vin fiert at the festival. as well as eating Kürtőskalács and gogosi (and chestnuts, of course, being the namesake of the festival).

Tomorrow marks the first proper day of work with the children. I’m very much looking forward to finally starting , reviving the old childhood games we used to play (anyone for a game of Parachute?) and putting  the non-formal methods of education we’ve been learning about into practice !

 

Festivalul Castanelor and fireworks

This week, we are working in the office to prepare our workshops which are every Wednesday. These workshops are about our different cultures and are addressed to teenagers and adults.

In other news, Monday will be our first “real” working day, because then the children will come to the after school clubs for the first time while we are here.

Friday the city had planned a parade which we would also be part of, but because of the weather they cancelled it, so we went only with some flags through the market.

At the end of the working day we went to the “Turnul Stefan” which is for Baia Mare a popular sight and enjoyed the view over the city.

Another interesting event was the “festivalul castanelor” this week which took place all week long, with lots of traditional and modern concerts and markets.

In the evening of Saturday there was a big firework display and live music which was really nice.

To sum up, the week was quite interesting with lots of new experiences and good food at the festival! 🙂

 

Around town

This is the big market in Baia Mare. It is open all day, everyday.

….What can be found here?

Vegetables of all kinds. Herbs of all kinds. Pickled. Fresh. And everything in between.

You can also find meat, grains, and all sorts of eatable things.

You can also find cups, spoons, flutes, tools, and bags.

Most importantly you can find people and life.

You can find everything you should ever want.

Corn? Yes.

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Here is a lot of flower shops. Here is also a lot of imported shoes.

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Here is also a lot of Jesus.

Jesus walked on water and told us to love each other.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A25-37

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This is how Baia Mare looks from Turnul Ştefan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen’s_Tower_%28Baia_Mare%29

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This is a picture of a house in Baia Mare taken on an evening where there was thunder.

 

Beautiful Romania :)

Hello guys, I had a great weekend! Clare, Annika and I went on a hiking trip to Lake Firiza. It was very hard but on the other hand, it was so awesome. We hadn’t seen much of Romania’s nature until then, because we live in a quite big city but on this trip we saw so many nice places.

The mountains and forests were just so beautiful. Even though it was so nice with the nature and so on, it was also really hard with the hot weather and only two bottles of water. So we decided that we won’t do any hiking tours any time.
Because of this sporty Saturday I didn’t do anything on Sunday apart from cleaning, cooking and skyping.
This week, we prepared lots of things for our first cultural workshop next Wednesday evening. I hope our efforts will be rewarded.
Also, my parents send me this week my winter clothes and other stuff which didn’t fit in my suitcase, so soon I will have even more clothes in my cupboard 🙂
Besides this, I improved my cookingskills a lot. We cook almost every day and try things like pickled mushrooms and other interesting foods.
Another thing that is I’m improving my guitar skills. Joan and Melissa show me a few chords and helped me to play “Blowing in the wind” from Bob Marley. When I’m not practicing the guitar, Clare and I motivate everybody to sing Karaoke with us which was so nice with our “beautiful” voices.
So you see, we have lots of fun! 😀

 

Another week, another blog entry

Last weekend. Saturday.

Annika M. and I went to the Firiza Lake. We hiked there having a marvellous adventure, as hiking paths in Romania look quite different from the ones we’ve known. Sometimes we would just follow streams or search for markings to find them ten metres away from the actual path. After three hours we arrived at the beautiful lake:

Sunday.

Erlebnisbericht

Me taking the cookies out of the oven. Burnt at the bottom. Damn gas oven. I mean I could’ve known better – well I didn’t. Burnt fingers. Do we have oven cloths?The hot cookies stick together creating a huge cookie-sandwich. Great. I’m late. Great. Running down the stairs, taking two at once, then three, then I just jump. My keys fall down. Muddy keys. Perfect. Simply perfect. I get my bike out of the garage finally. And speed up.

30 seconds later

OK, it’s windy, nevermind. But now it’s raining. Heavily. More heavily. Too heavily. Water’s running down my face, my body, the hollow of my knees. My skirt – soaking wet – sticks to my legs. I can barely see, there’s water in my eyes, on my glasses. That would make quite a romantic scene, me standing in the doorway soaking wet. But this isn’t a movie. I arrive. “Am I right? Is that Alexia’s place?”. She comes to get me. We carry my bike to the second floor. I leave foot-shaped puddles on the stairs. Towels, socks, shoes, a shirt, trousers… They put me in their shower. No backtalk!

I’ve had a great time at Alexia’s place, it felt like home a bit. Hope that I can spend more time with her and her family, they are amazing people. (I wish her all the best and good luck for the 5000m race she’ll have on the weekend in Bucarest. She’ll rock it, I’m sure!).

We also have the Chestnut Festival this week, so there’s no more time to “waste” on reporting, time to experience more!

 

Preparation

In this week we have been doing a lot of preparation, because on the 25th of September we will have an event. We made posters and flyers, it was a creative and very interesting process. On Friday we will represent our country at the workshop. I have never been at such events, so I’m curious to know how it will be.

Now all my free time I spend on learning English, it is difficult and at the same time very interesting. I see progress and it motivates me to achieve great success in the process.

I enjoy the weather in Baia Mare, today was plus 26, that’s amazing for me as a person from a more northern country.

Next week we will start our activities with children. I hope everything will be good. It is very important for me.

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The language of friendship is not words but meanings

Languages of the world word cloud illustration. Word collage concept.

The moment that a baby babbles their first ‘mama’, they embark on a lifelong voyage of communication through language. Language is the life blood of culture, and learning a new language is like gaining access to the nerve centre of a country.

While living in the UK, language and communication was something that I took somewhat for granted. Although I studied French at university, and had friends of different nationalities, I spoke only English in my everyday life. The first time I moved abroad, to France in 2011, I already had a reasonably good grasp of the French language. While I was far from being fluent at that time, neither was I completely alienated by the language. Moving to Romania has been a very different experience for me. In my life in France, and at home in England, my ability to speak English and French was about more than just communication. It was my passport into the community, my way of demonstrating that I was not just a passing tourist, and allowing me access into the heart of their way of life. Here I feel completely bewildered by language.

Since arriving in Baia Mare my world has been flooded with new languages, and interaction with people has gone from being something that I take for granted, to a daily challenge. Our flat is a beautiful melting pot of languages. We have three girls from Germany, two Estonians who speak Russian at home, and one Danish girl. This creates a wonderful mixture of unfamiliar sounds in the flat, with all our different native languages swirling around. We have all been enjoying sharing our languages, and finding their similarities and differences.  Our attempts to teach each other snippets of our native languages have been a source of great entertainment, as we struggle with the unfamiliar shapes our mouths must make to throw out these alien sounds. Teaching each other tongue twisters in our mother tongues has been a great party game!

But this is more than just a little bit of fun. It is said that if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. When I stepped off the plane in Romania three weeks ago, I could just about manage to say ‘multumesc’ at the correct time, although even that was quite difficult. It was a strange experience arriving at the airport and not even being able to communicate the simple question “where is the bus stop?” Of course we managed to get by with hand gestures and Basic English, but it was a rather uncomfortable experience. I’m used to being able to express my needs and desires in the language of the country in which I am living. I find it very unfriendly always having to force the conversation into English. I feel like the rude British tourist, who expects and demands that everyone speaks English, and refuses to make an attempt at the local language.

However little by little, one lesson at a time, I can feel myself slowly starting to connect to the language. I’m beginning to connect with the people. Small, every day interactions correctly completed are an exciting triumph. I look forward to the day when I will be able to kiss goodbye to my tourist status of being an English only speaker, and proudly use my knowledge of the Romanian language to gain access to the heart of the vibrant culture and people of Romanian.

Until then, I’m getting by with a warm smile, the universal language of kindness.

 

Sports and Firiza Lake

This week I tried some sports here in Baia Mare such as Zumba and Tae- Bo. Both of them were really funny and it is quite useful that the gym is right next to our flat. Tae- Bo was in another gym near the park of Baia Mare and I liked it a lot. The people in the gyms are really nice and the trainer was really enthusiastic, and happy to explain us the moves on German. 🙂

This week we went to the park and ate some ice cream, because almost every day is was about 30° in Baia Mare.

On saturday Clare, Charlotte and I went to the lake at Firiza. We hiked in the mountains to get to the lake and the scenery and the nature were just wonderful. But we agreed that it was maybe not the best idea to go to the lake through the forest when it is 35°, and the 4 litres of water we had with us was really not enough.

But on the way to the lake we meet some really nice cross- motorcyclists who showed us the way and waited for us each 100 meters, to make sure we didn’t get lost or die!! In the end we reached the lake after 5 hours walking.

At the end, we were so relieved when we got to the lake; I thought I would fall asleep for three days there. 😀

After we went back to Baia Mare we visited the old centre and the Hungarian festival with lots of live music and good food!

Hungarian Festival

 

Vineri/Friday/Fredag

This is the building direct across my window. Notice the man on the sidewalk, I wonder where he is going. Maybe somewhere really interesting, or maybe just home. Maybe his home is really interesting. Maybe not.

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This is me, or partially me, looking at the building you saw in the above picture.

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This is our street.

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This is a bus from Baia Mare. As you see, it is attached to wires. They are electric, or at least partially electric. The bus company of Baia Mare is called URBIS, and apparently have a rich and maybe interesting history.
Here is a link: http://urbisbaiamare.ro/index.php?mod=istoric . It is all in Romanian.

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Yours truly
Princess Hasenheide

 

It’s Life, Jim, but not as we know it…

This week at the office we have been very busy getting ready for our start of term. We have been learning techniques for successful game-based learning and preparing for our cultural workshops. But I don’t want to give away any spoilers, so in my blog post this week, I’m going to focus instead on adjusting to living in Romania. Life in Romania is a strange mixture of being in familiar European surroundings, with an unfamiliar Romanian flair. There are roads, supermarkets, restaurants, bars and everything else that you would expect to find in any other European town. At the same time, nothing is quite the same as it is in the UK.

It’s been fun experimenting with new foods; the Romanian Seven plant tea I tried was quite a success (although I’m still not sure exactly what the seven plants are….) but the sour pickled cabbage was not quite as enjoyable!! The shops themselves are also quite different. There are many shops, open 24 hours a day, which you cannot actually enter. They have large window displays showing all the products they sell, and a small window with the shop keeper. You tell this shop keeper what you would like, and they go and get it for you. As a former shop assistant I quite like the idea of keeping a shop with no customers coming in and messing up my displays, although I have not yet been able to pluck up the courage to buy anything from one of these shops. I will need a few more Romanian lessons first.

The money here is also very interesting. The notes are made of plastic, and have small see-through sections. They chose to focus on the arts when designing their money, with their bank-notes celebrating painting, music, theatre and flowers. This is a beautiful expression of the Romanian freedom of spirit and love of culture and nature. They have notes for every denomination of Lei – the equivalent of pounds or Euros, from one to at least one hundred (they go higher, but holing a one hundred note makes me feel giddy enough) and coins are reserved only for their smaller denomination of Bani – the equivalent of pennies or cents. I only used Bani when shopping for fresh vegetables in the market. If I manage to catch the word ‘Bani’ at the end of an incomprehensible string of sounds, I offer up a handful of small coins, and allow the bemused old farmer to select however many coins he would like. I really need to learn my Romanian numbers!

The people of Romania are very friendly and kind. Of course we received a wonderful warm welcome from AIST, but everywhere we go in town, people are also very happy to meet us, and help us out as we bumble through our days in Baia Mare, trying to get to grips with the Romanian way of doing things. While living in France I attended Zumba classes for a year, and never exchanged more than a smile and a ‘bonjour’ with the other women in the class. However, after my very first Zumba class in Romania, all the women were very open and friendly, quickly engaging me and Annika in conversation. On the other hand these charming and friendly people forget all their good manners and polite behaviour just as soon as they get behind the wheel of a car, and I join them on the road with my bike. I guess no nation can be perfect.

These are just a few of my observations so far. Overall, living in Romania is a very interesting cultural experience. For the most part, life here complies with the general European norms of cultural politeness. It is not as different as living perhaps in China or Japan where cultural expectations completely challenge all European norms, but there are just enough quirks and variations in everyday life to make living in Romania a thought-provoking experience.

Live long, and prosper.