The romanian (mis)adventure 

The local train station, dawn, Friday morning. A group of sleepy students are gathering around the bus and talking quietly, as if they don’t want to wake up the city. That’s until I arrive.

For some inexplicable reason I can never stay calm before a trip, my adrenalin level jumps way above average and I usually end up bursting out with laughter every single time I see a bunch of people with colorful suitcases standing next to a vehicle.



~A small fact~

This is an exchange between our and two of the romanian high schools: one in Bucharest and one in Campulung. The first part of the exchange was in October when the Romanians came to Novi Sad and now we were going to visit them.

Since there were two high schools in Romania who have applied for the exchange, our group had to divide in half; 20 students were going to stay in Bucharest, the capital, and the other 20 were supposed to sleep in a village of 30 000 inhabitants, Campulung. Can you guess where have I been listed? Oh yes, to the countryside. Nevertheless, I could not complain because both juniors and seniors were put there and the younger ones were honored to stay in the capital. 

The first thing I’ve noticed about the Romanians is that they are really similar to the Serbs in character. They are as crazy and free spirited as were are if not more. Guess that’s why we got along with them so well. The second thing was that they have a really melodic language, not quite as I’ve expected. Of course later they explained to us that their language belongs  to the same language group as italian and that is the only reason it sounds so appealing to the ears but still they got me pretty amazed. The third thing had something to do with food. Of course. They have some very similar local dishes that are even called as ours and they persistently claim that they originate from their culture. We almost had a fight about that. And they eat their dessert with yogurt or sour milk. What a combination!

Anyways, the first day we visited the Dracula’s castle in Bran. The rest of the group was fairly disappointed that the castle had only one torture room and that count Vlad was actually just a human being, but to me it was an amazing experience, with the view from the castle and the and furniture in it.

Later there I stumbled upon a few shops that were selling hungarian specialties declaring as theirs so after I bought them all I came to the conclusion that Romanians love to steal local dishes from their neighbours. And I had nothing against it as long as it was delicious. ;)

The second day was reserved for Bucharest. What a beautiful city it is! A slight combination of Athens and Budapest but still with its own style and charm. We spent the whole day visiting a handful of museums and establishments with the teachers and our guide after what we had a couple of hours free to grab something to eat and wander around the city. I have ended up with two of my friends in a park drinking coffee and I can say that it was amazing.



 

The last day we went around our small city with the Romanian teachers, but since we’ve seen almost everything the previous nights we were mostly concentrating not to get sunburned. Or burst into flames.

Fortunately for us, the tour was soon over, so we went on a barbecue to one of the Romanian exchange students. Actually I haven’t seen much of the barbecue, because it was gone the second it had been taken of the grill, but at least I had a great time dancing with the others to the romanian hits.

The last morning began sad and rusty, nobody wanted to go home. I can still clearly see everybody wrapped in their sweaters nervously waiting for our bus to leave. I promised my exchange student that we’ll see each other one more time and that we’ll party in romanian style. Because there is much more to Romania that the developing cities. It is the people who live in it that make it amazing.