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 !
American International School of Transylvania 