- Pizza is baked without tomato sauce and when you order it, inside the box is a cup of ketchup.
- On every aniversary of a dead person during 7 years their family and friends, even small kids, eat bread soaked with wine and sugar.
- When men meet on the street they greet with a handshake. This is a salute only for men, if there is also a women she will not have a special greeting.
- On a birthday party you can find pieces of chicken and a big cake on the table, and you can eat it at the same time!
- At home it's not allowed and it's not nice to wear shoes, only homeshoes or directly on socks.
- It's not usual to put the car-belts in towns. In fact, cars have no belts on the back seats.
- It's more common to drink gas water than mineral water.
- There are a lot of pharmacies, and people prefers to go to the pharmacy than to the doctor because they can buy directly in the pharmacy antibiotics without a recipe.
- Movies and series are in original version on tv and also in cinemas, in both cases with romanian subtitles.
- Malls and mostly of the shops are open on Sundays.
Al :)
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Ten Hours For Blues
After your On Arrival-Training in the beginning of your EVS, probably you got more friends than before. And when you joined an EVS-Project for one year, it's very possible, that your new friends celebrate their birthday within this year. If this is true or not, in our case it came true, and we find a reason to went to Cluj-Napoca in december to have a good time on a birthday party. But let's start at the beginning of our nice trip:
First we went by bus to Bucarest, not just because it's the best route. We were also there because of the beautiful christmas time, which you can enjoy for example on the famous christmas market. A lot of little market stalls are strung together, equipped with creative, handmade and traditional goods. Your nose is flattered by the fragrance of sweets... in one corner by the scent of good meat, proffers by the first black man I saw in Romania. The air is filled with calm christmas music, presented by a mostly deep-voiced choir - and with a little bit of fantasy you can ignore the speakers from which the music flows.
Before we could see the market in bright lights, we had to wait until darkness covered the capital, so we explored the downtown of Bucarest. While we found a big treasure in a small, inconspicuous alley, Spoon found the biggest toilet in a shopping street: the shopping street. Our treasure is the knowledge about an awesome, comfortable pub: The Tiki Bar! If you want rattling good cocktails of a guy of south africa, who works as a bartender in the whole universe, you have to find this street (when you find this colorful graffiti, you are closer than you might think):
Some impressions of Bucarest (on the little stall I bought an old german pocket atlas of 1960):
We choosed the train to go to Cluj-Napoca, so we went the first time to the big train station of Bucarest - another big toilet for Spoon. As we were sitting in the train, we prepared ourself to get calm and sleep a little bit to process our new experiences - with the sweet muck of Mc Donalds. And suddenly we get a lot of luck! Dada went out to throw her rubbish and she wasn't to sleepy to listen to the station announcements: "The EVS-Volunteers are sitting in the wrong train!" (Well, this is not exactly what the speaker said.) She ran inside, made us easily awake and one second later we were rushing through the train station... after three or four hours of boring waiting!
Well, in the new, correct train we really could enjoy, and after a few hours of sleep we saw our first snow in Romania:
Now an important fact for all travelers: don't use trains for travels, they are more expensive than buses - and slower! We needed ten hours for around 440 km. Without a break. But at least we arrived in Cluj-Napoca:
Cluj was full of snow, and on the christmas market in a central square was also an ice rink, on which we did a few laps. But the first important step was to find a hotel, which allows dogs! We found really nice and cheap ho(s)tels, but the only hotel which offers us a room for Spoon was Hotel Melody... not cheap, but what should we do?! The good thing was: It was directly in the center of town, next to two christmas markets, the main streets and a lot of good pubs and restaurants.
Here you can see a few impressions of Cluj-Napoca, before I will present you a real reason for visit Cluj. Because to be honest, the city-style was too much european for us, and when you want to see beautiful "west european" cities, we prefer Brasov.
Now the worthwhile informations. ;-)
For me as a stranger the pub scene seems like dominated of a mysterious lady named "Janis". If I remember it right, there is a restaurant, a bar, a club and a special bar for jazz and blues music. And all premises are awesome! The birthday I wrote about in the beginning took place in the bar, and under this bar is the club, established in labyrinthine catacombs, full of sweaty, dancing people!
I have two favourite places in Cluj:
The Jazz & Blues Bar! A very inspiring place for drinking wine, eat amazing food (but you have to order early, because they need a lot of time to bring the food to the pub - and don't expect to be full, when you were very hungry) while watching live videos of good jazz and blues musicians (there are big screens in every room). You can also order music there. Unfortunately there are no dogs allowed... (but...). :-)
And this cozy place - an antiquarian bookstore - where I found and bought an ancient book of Heinrich Heine and a modern medieval map of Cluj-Napoca:
In one evening there were a free concert of Voltaj on the christmas market:
And with a lot of new experiences and knowledge about Romania we chose the bus to go back to Bucarest and Slobozia... :-)
(Now the moral of our trip:)
Now we don't want to make more trips like this! Our new opinion is: when you go far away to another city, you should take what you can get! Look for another interesting places in the near or on the way, or make a big circle! Don't spend a lot of money just for one place. And we don't want to spend more money in hotels, buses and surely not for trains. We registered us in CouchSurfing and we already traveled a few times on the hitch-hiking way. So, stay tuned for more fantastic posts in the future!
- Daniel
First we went by bus to Bucarest, not just because it's the best route. We were also there because of the beautiful christmas time, which you can enjoy for example on the famous christmas market. A lot of little market stalls are strung together, equipped with creative, handmade and traditional goods. Your nose is flattered by the fragrance of sweets... in one corner by the scent of good meat, proffers by the first black man I saw in Romania. The air is filled with calm christmas music, presented by a mostly deep-voiced choir - and with a little bit of fantasy you can ignore the speakers from which the music flows.
Before we could see the market in bright lights, we had to wait until darkness covered the capital, so we explored the downtown of Bucarest. While we found a big treasure in a small, inconspicuous alley, Spoon found the biggest toilet in a shopping street: the shopping street. Our treasure is the knowledge about an awesome, comfortable pub: The Tiki Bar! If you want rattling good cocktails of a guy of south africa, who works as a bartender in the whole universe, you have to find this street (when you find this colorful graffiti, you are closer than you might think):
Some impressions of Bucarest (on the little stall I bought an old german pocket atlas of 1960):
We choosed the train to go to Cluj-Napoca, so we went the first time to the big train station of Bucarest - another big toilet for Spoon. As we were sitting in the train, we prepared ourself to get calm and sleep a little bit to process our new experiences - with the sweet muck of Mc Donalds. And suddenly we get a lot of luck! Dada went out to throw her rubbish and she wasn't to sleepy to listen to the station announcements: "The EVS-Volunteers are sitting in the wrong train!" (Well, this is not exactly what the speaker said.) She ran inside, made us easily awake and one second later we were rushing through the train station... after three or four hours of boring waiting!
Well, in the new, correct train we really could enjoy, and after a few hours of sleep we saw our first snow in Romania:
Now an important fact for all travelers: don't use trains for travels, they are more expensive than buses - and slower! We needed ten hours for around 440 km. Without a break. But at least we arrived in Cluj-Napoca:
Cluj was full of snow, and on the christmas market in a central square was also an ice rink, on which we did a few laps. But the first important step was to find a hotel, which allows dogs! We found really nice and cheap ho(s)tels, but the only hotel which offers us a room for Spoon was Hotel Melody... not cheap, but what should we do?! The good thing was: It was directly in the center of town, next to two christmas markets, the main streets and a lot of good pubs and restaurants.
Here you can see a few impressions of Cluj-Napoca, before I will present you a real reason for visit Cluj. Because to be honest, the city-style was too much european for us, and when you want to see beautiful "west european" cities, we prefer Brasov.
Now the worthwhile informations. ;-)
For me as a stranger the pub scene seems like dominated of a mysterious lady named "Janis". If I remember it right, there is a restaurant, a bar, a club and a special bar for jazz and blues music. And all premises are awesome! The birthday I wrote about in the beginning took place in the bar, and under this bar is the club, established in labyrinthine catacombs, full of sweaty, dancing people!
 |
| ... pictures. |
 |
| Not... |
 |
| ... our... |
I have two favourite places in Cluj:
The Jazz & Blues Bar! A very inspiring place for drinking wine, eat amazing food (but you have to order early, because they need a lot of time to bring the food to the pub - and don't expect to be full, when you were very hungry) while watching live videos of good jazz and blues musicians (there are big screens in every room). You can also order music there. Unfortunately there are no dogs allowed... (but...). :-)
And this cozy place - an antiquarian bookstore - where I found and bought an ancient book of Heinrich Heine and a modern medieval map of Cluj-Napoca:
In one evening there were a free concert of Voltaj on the christmas market:
And with a lot of new experiences and knowledge about Romania we chose the bus to go back to Bucarest and Slobozia... :-)
(Now the moral of our trip:)
Now we don't want to make more trips like this! Our new opinion is: when you go far away to another city, you should take what you can get! Look for another interesting places in the near or on the way, or make a big circle! Don't spend a lot of money just for one place. And we don't want to spend more money in hotels, buses and surely not for trains. We registered us in CouchSurfing and we already traveled a few times on the hitch-hiking way. So, stay tuned for more fantastic posts in the future!
- Daniel
Monday, January 21, 2013
Draw week: faces-book
Buna!
On our draw week I wanted to teach our kids how to draw different faces according to an emotion. To do this in a funny and a creative way we made a complete faces-book with more than 15 kinds of faces.
First we divided papers in 3 parts so we had 3 piles of white paper, one pile for eyes, other for noses and the last one for mouths.
We started to draw different kinds of eyes according to size and drawing styles:
- big and small eyes
- cartoon eyes
- realistic eyes
And we also drew different kinds of eyes according to emotions:
- angry and afraid eyes
- happy and sad eyes
- dizzy and surprised eyes...
And finally we drew different kinds of mouths according to emotions:
- an open mouth for surprise
- a big smile with and without teeth for happiness
- an open mouth with the tongue out for a dizzy person...
When every pile was finished we attached it and we painted a cover for the book: carte de față.
With the finished book the kids can combine the different eyes, noses and mouths to have a lot of new faces!
The book also works like a model, so everytime that one kid wants to draw an angry face, or a pointed nose can look in the book!
Here you can see some examples of our kids book:
On our draw week I wanted to teach our kids how to draw different faces according to an emotion. To do this in a funny and a creative way we made a complete faces-book with more than 15 kinds of faces.First we divided papers in 3 parts so we had 3 piles of white paper, one pile for eyes, other for noses and the last one for mouths.
We started to draw different kinds of eyes according to size and drawing styles:
- big and small eyes
- cartoon eyes
- realistic eyes
And we also drew different kinds of eyes according to emotions:
- angry and afraid eyes
- happy and sad eyes
- dizzy and surprised eyes...
We drew different noses: big, small, fat, long, pointed, open...
And finally we drew different kinds of mouths according to emotions:
- an open mouth for surprise
- a big smile with and without teeth for happiness
- an open mouth with the tongue out for a dizzy person...
When every pile was finished we attached it and we painted a cover for the book: carte de față.
With the finished book the kids can combine the different eyes, noses and mouths to have a lot of new faces!
The book also works like a model, so everytime that one kid wants to draw an angry face, or a pointed nose can look in the book!
Here you can see some examples of our kids book:
Al :)
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