On our first day in Romania, our guides asked Brian and I what we knew about Romania before we decided to visit. "Count Dracula, Transylvania, uhhh gypsies?" Yeah we were clueless. To be fair, we asked them what people in Romania knew about America and they said the Kardashians and Bieber.
Romania was a very beautiful country to visit, with a really interesting history. First of all, Dracula. Dracula WAS a real person, but was definitely not a vampire. The author of Dracula, Bram Stoker, basically took a few aspects of the personality of the real Dracula (Vlad III), saw a picture of a cool looking castle in Transylvania (Bran Castle), and took off writing a fictional story. Bram Stoker never even visited Romania!
There was a dude named Vlad Dracula, who ruled Transylvania in the 1400s.
We hiked 1,480 steps up to one of Vlad's fortresses, and came across these guys.
Vlad posthumously became known as "Vlad the Impaler" because of how he treated his captured enemies. Scary!
We did visit Bran Castle one day, the supposed home of Dracula. We didn't find him. We did find a massive amount of tourists that made the visit a bit less pleasant.
We also visited the much more beautiful Peles Castle.
We visited the "muddy volcanoes" of Berca, which are these mounds of built up mud, which "erupt" more mud every so often due to gases generated by oilfields deep in the ground. This was an interesting place to stop, as I had never seen something like this before. We spent about an hour wandering around, checking out the "muddies," and getting a little muddy ourselves.
Brian decided to try to walk across what looked like dried up mud, and lost a shoe in the process.
Digging out the lost shoe
Mud flowing out of one of the "volcanoes"
A few of the muddy volcanoes
Here is a video of one of the muddy volcanoes in action!
It was like two different planets!
Muddy volcanoes!
Us at the muddies... me with my nice and clean sandals, and Brian's shoes full of mud.
One of the things Romania is starting to become known for is their wine. We visited a few wineries during our time in the country and really enjoyed both the drinks and the views of these beautiful vineyards.
The vineyards of Lacerta Winery! This one had the best wine and the best tour out of the three we visited.
At dinner in a wine cellar one night.
At one of our wine tastings. Beautiful view!
The night we ordered a liter of wine. It did not turn out well.
Another winery that boasts having HUGE wine barrels!
One of our favorite excursions was bear watching in the forests of western Romania. We were forewarned that we may not see any bears, but we got lucky and saw lots! It may have helped that they threw corn and chocolate all over the area...
The bear guy, who spoke Hungarian! Our Romanian guides didn't understand a lot of what he said, but the big gun he carried spoke volumes. His shirt had a silk screened bear on it which I thought was hilarious.
On the way to the bear viewing house we encountered this guy on the trail. Oh hey, Bear. The guide made lots of noise and snapped some twigs and he ran off. We continued on our walk to the house, though a little more vigilant about the possibility of animals hiding in the woods.
Within minutes of getting to the bear watching house (a tiny shack with a wall of windows and a Murphy bed), bears started to arrive in the field. The bear guy had put pieces of chocolate on fishing line. We enjoyed watching them reach for it!
There was also lots of corn on the ground for them to nibble on.
This one got really close to the bear house!
The bear guy boasted his English speaking skills by exclaiming, "Dance, bear! Dance!" as this bear reached for his chocolate treat.
We ended up seeing a lot of bears that evening! It was a great excursion!
Another day, we took an old-fashioned steam train into the woods in the Maramures area. There's not much to say about the train ride. It was slow and we sat on the side where there wasn't a great view. Occasionally we were treated to a nice view on our side when the train came around a curve, but overall it wasn't my favorite activity.
We took a ride on an old fashioned steam train.
The view was pretty, but the train was slow.
Even with all this steam, the train didn't move quickly at all.
I was a little bored after a few hours.
Brian had a great idea to bring along champagne and OJ and make mimosas! That made the ride a little more fun. (Also, this picture makes it look like we were moving very fast. We were absolutely not.)
Much more exciting than the steam train was the hike we took to Horses' Waterfall, the highest waterfall in Romania. It was an absolutely perfect day; sunny but not too hot. The only problem was my camera battery was dead, and I didn't realize until we were halfway up the ski lift. So the cell phone camera had to suffice.
We took a chair lift up a mountain to a trail for hiking.
The most scenic outhouse!
The hike led us to a beautiful, but COLD waterfall.
It also led to very picturesque photo shoots!
Senior picture!
My favorite place in Romania was this cemetery. People usually don't like to visit cemeteries, but this was quite the unusual place. Deemed the Merry Cemetery, this resting place looks at death not as a sad event, but as a celebration of a life that ended. The tombstones are carved in wood and painted in bright colors, and included a lighthearted and sometimes humorous rhyming poem about the deceased. Oddly, the poems were written in the first person. The pictures on the tombstones were of something the person liked to do, their job, or even how they died.
The Merry Cemetery! Created in the 1930s and located in northern Romania.
We were lucky to visit with a Romanian guide, who was able to translate some of the poems for us. This one said something about "I love my tractor and I love to drink." Brian thought it was hilarious.
In this one, the boy died when he was struck by lightning (in the form of God hitting him with a whip-like object). His shirt simply says "sport" which we thought was funny.
The man who originally started doing these gravestones is buried in the cemetery. He actually carved his own cross. His apprentice continues his work.
Romania has several important monasteries from the 15th and 16th centuries in the area of Bucovina. They are special because they are painted on both the inside and the outside with frescoes of religious scenes. There are around 7 or 8 in this area, but we only visited 3 or 4.
One of the painted monasteries!
These painted monasteries are on the list of UNESCO world heritage sites.
They were painted on all sides, inside and out, with religious scenes.
The monasteries were beautifully landscaped! Roses everywhere!
We saw some actual working monasteries too, that were absolutely stunning. So many flowers!
Just one of the many different varieties of flowers the nuns care for at the monastery.
And here are just a few other random pictures from our time in Romania. We enjoyed this beautiful country and would encourage everyone to visit! The food is good, the people are friendly, there are a lot of interesting things to see... what more could you ask for???
Yay Hay!
Sunflowers were a huge crop in Romania, both for the seeds and for the oil.
So pretty!
This lion statue creeped me out!
We took the Transfagarasan Road, a 60 mile long, super curvy road that cuts through the Carpathian Mountains. It's usually only open 3 months out of the year because of snow.
Such beautiful vistas!
My favorite thing to eat in Romania was this dessert called Papanasi (pah pah nash). Fried donuts made of soft cheese, topped with cream and fruit jam. I could eat this literally every day.
In my hometown of Baton Rouge, there was a terrible and historic flood last week that affected nearly everyone we know from there in some way. This was both unprecedented and unexpected. An unthinkable number of people lost their homes in Baton Rouge and the surrounding suburbs. The latest estimates say that over 100,000 homes are damaged, though I would expect this number to rise as the flood waters in neighboring parishes continue to recede. Yet the city has managed to pull together to help each other, from providing food and clothing, to assisting in demolition, to watching a neighbors children while family members haul all of their possessions to the massive trash pile next to the road. After learning an important lesson from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, people of Baton Rouge didn't wait for the government to show up to rescue them from rapidly rising flood waters. Instead, regular people (including my little brother!) used their personal boats to save people. They have been dubbed the Cajun Navy! They are clearly the main reason that the death toll from this natural disaster is so low. I have never seen such devastation, and yet I've never been prouder of my hometown.
Brian and I were very upset that we were so far away; in fact, this has easily been the hardest week of my expat life. We wished that we were able to go home and help, but with work and school and extraordinarily expensive last minute plane tickets and the general cost of visiting (rental car, gas, food), we decided that a monetary contribution would make a larger impact than our physical presence. It still hurts that we're not there to take some of the burden off our family and friends, especially my grandparents, who lost nearly everything in the flood.
If you feel so inclined to contribute, this is a good organization to check out, as 100% of the funds go to people at the local level (vs. national organizations that pocket a large percentage of your donation!). This one helps the school system I used to work for, the largest in Baton Rouge and the second largest in the state, to provide over 40,000 students with basic school supplies and support local teachers in creating a safe place for students to learn. This one helps the Baton Rouge Food Bank, which lost 500,000 pounds of food in their warehouse. And of course, there are many, many individuals who have lost everything asking for donations on sites like GoFundMe.
The road to recovery will be long and difficult, but the people of Louisiana are strong and resilient. Keep them in your thoughts as they begin to rebuild their lives.
Oman, our neighbor to the south. Oman, with it's gorgeous, dry mountains and crystal clear waters was a welcoming relief after the hustle and bustle of the UAE.
First up was the region of Musandam, to a small area called Khasab. This part is between the UAE and Iran, but it technically belongs to Oman.
It's the little orange part separated from the rest of Oman, near the Strait of Hormuz.
We left from Dubai early one morning and drove the 3 hours to catch our dhow boat cruise around Khasab. Because we were crossing country borders, we had to deal with passport and visa formalities, but thankfully our friends who had taken this trip already warned us of the extra time it takes to cross over into Oman. We made it to our boat on time, but there were a few ladies who did not and the boat left without them! They paid for a speedboat to catch them up to us, but they missed about half of the cruise.
Khasab is famous for fjords and dolphins, and luckily we saw both!
As we set off in our traditional dhow boat, we were greeted with this gorgeous view.
A shot of a traditional Omani dhow, similar to the one we were on.
Brian spent a little time jumping off the side of the dhow in between stops for snorkeling and swimming.
On the way back to the port, the captain and guide got serious about looking for some dolphins. I mean, the tour was called Dolphin Khasab Tours... I was going to be a little disappointed if we didn't see any. Here's where we saw the first few.
Our boat and another sailed together and the dolphins really loved playing in the waves. The guide made dolphin noises and clapped his hands a lot... apparently that works to get them excited.
Soon they were jumping and playing right near our boat! Photo courtesy of zoom lens and burst mode.
Brian and the captain
Happy about seeing the dolphins!
After Khasab, we returned to Dubai and finished up the rest of our trip to the UAE. From Dubai, we flew to Oman proper and spent a few days exploring Muscat, enjoying the UNESCO World Heritage sites, and reveling in the natural beauty of the country.
Our off-roading vehicle, the Nissan Sunny.
The Sunny and the UNESCO website took us to this coordinate in the middle of nowhere, where there was supposed to be a World Heritage site.
On the way out, after driving through a giant dry riverbed full of big rocks (PS, don't ever buy a former rental car), we found what we were looking for (I think).
Another World Heritage site that was much easier to find were the beehive tombs at Al Ayn. We were literally the only visitors.
Archaeologists don't really know what they're for... tombs is just their best guess. They're about 5,000 years old!
Another UNESCO site included the aflaj irrigation canals, which use gravity to provide water to much of arid Oman.
The aflajs help these dates ripen!
The aflajs mean all this is lush and green instead of dry.
We visited a souk where Brian got a traditional Omani hat.
We also saw the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat.
I always enjoy the architecture in these big mosques.
We spent a day hiking in Wadi Shab, a canyon dotted with turquoise pools, great for cooling off in the hot Oman sun (it was surprisingly hotter than Saudi Arabia!).
Wadi Shab pro-tip: bring better water shoes than $5 ones from Academy. I felt every single rock under my feet for the entire 3 hour hike.
We finally reached the last pool and hung out for awhile before the hike back. I was still happy and not throwing up from heat exhaustion at this point.
It was a really pretty hike though!
Our last boat excursion of the trip, which proved to be most excellent (and my epic Wadi Shab sunburn!).
There were baby sea turtles!
And big sea turtles!
And lots of fish and coral!
And even a WHALE SHARK!
This was apparently a baby whale shark, because it was "only" 15 or 20 feet long. Brian and I were the only ones on our boat to see it, so luckily we got photographic evidence. Though we felt really bad because a lady on our boat had been talking about going diving all over the world in an effort to see one... Womp womp.
The people in Oman were super friendly. We stayed in AirBnBs run by both locals and expats and met some really nice people. Our Omani host had us over for coffee and dates and was happy to tell us all about her family and Omani culture along with where to get the most delicious Omani food. Some of the places we went did not seem to get many Western visitors. When one gentleman working in a small market asked where we were from we responded that we were American. He responded with "Masha'Allah!" which is an Arabic phrase that expresses appreciation or joy in what was said. This was the first time in two years we've gotten this response. The people of Oman made our vacation very memorable.
We're finishing up Ramadan here in Saudi Arabia and looking forward to our next adventures... Romania, Sweden, and Denmark in July!
