St. Andrew's day

The weather is humid and the city is crowded celebrating St. Andrew's day, the apostle who brought the good news of Salvation to this side of the world and came to Romania through Galati.
December 1st is literally around the corner, and this is a big day for the entire country, lots of fireworks and music and concerts, and boiled wine with cinnamon, happy people and the holiday season has started.

We go for long walk every day and we almost always end up on the Danube boardwalk... the road is closed and everybody is selling everything there, from cotton candy to mici to leather jackets, artsy pot and pans, jewelry, leggings, fur hats and wooden toys.

Falstaff

The city is starting to glow with Christmas lights, beautiful and intricate, playful and colorful, the best time to visit the city is at night. We discover this as we decide to go se a Shakespeare play at the Theatre www.fanitardini.ro "Falstaff" is a comedy, and even though it was played in Romanian, Conrad and Allie seemed to enjoy it a lot... the decor, the costumes, the animated acting.
Plus, the art gallery at the entrance, and the velvet red chars, the atmosphere, what's not to like?

Sunday in the sunny city on the Danube

We got so bored yesterday from being in the house for so long, and from sleeping so much during the day.
Today we decided to take it easy in the morning and leave the house at a reasonable time so we wouldn't get cold from being outside too long. To our surprise, today was warm and sunny, the perfect day for a walk along the Danube, in the park, shopping for random stuff, and eating yummy yummy food outside.

First expedition in Galati - a very cold and foggy day

We ate mici and drank boiled wine downtown... the city is getting ready for the national holidays.

Last sunny moments in Piatra Soimului, taking off to Galati

Piatra Soimului, the long walk though the village and the woods

First expedition in Piatra Soimului, Neamt

Lacu Rosu at sunrise

Traveling to Piatra Neamt by train O/N

in Cluj on November 24-25

Santa Claus comes early :-)

Deciding to go to Romania for a few months

Over a year of dreaming to spend the winter of 2009 in Romania... October comes around, and Conrad resigns from his Roaster position to pursue the path of graphic design, I lose my new job because my exciting project of training and traveling all over the world got cancelled, and our lease is up, so we decide to put our stuff into storage and go to Romania for two and a half months.
My first Romanian nephew is to be born this December - Luca Paraschiv, and I didn't want to miss this event for anything in the world.

Our journey before taking off to Romania has been very intense, and we felt many times the ground shaking under our feet... and yet, here we are, free to live our dreams, afraid and excited about the future, trying to live in the present.

This is the first week of being here, with my husband and my sister in law, and its fun to be together, but we are so tired. We keep taking long mid day naps... and we wake up at 2 AM and watch movies or play ticket to ride.
We've been in Cluj already, in Piatra Neamt and in Galati in less than a week. We haven't had the time to rest yet... and there is no snow yet. I am more anxious to see snow sooner rather than later, because I want to have a snow fight with Allison while she's here.

Tonight we may go to see a Shakespeare play at the National Theatre... if I can get those two to wake up from their afternoon nap.

I pray for snow... for Allison:)