Romania...part 1

I have been asked to describe What Romania is like. As you see from my little red lines from paint accessory I have been around the country a bit. My first trip started in Bucharest, the capitol. Not the friendliest of places here but it is like many major cities, too many cars speeding around, Kenvelo, McDonalds and Sephora as landscape and of course the Palace of Parliament.
The history of this building is overwhelming. While standing some distance back from it the size of it is overwhelming. If you turn around the lined trees that go aways to another cemented area of importance. All of this was cleared to make the direct viewing available from the palace. The palace its self is the second largest building in the world in surface area. Towering high and wide and going down many meters in the earth. In the early 80's when so much struggle was for food and medicine Ceausescu started building. Something like 700 architects and a consistent work force of 20,000 people worked around the clock. People have told me the ornateness of the interior, which is still not completed to this day. The building is used for government things now but its presence makes a strong statement about life for many years.
Corruption and power struggles in stories of hotel rooms and politicians mixed with bread lines and lines for receiving a car and many more queue pepper my mind.

Away from the capitol to my first Roma village while here. (I started in Romania in July when I first came over, I just returned a few weeks ago for a second trip and part of the country). I was happy to be out of the city. Many people of not so many family names, lots of children and challenging living situations. I watched as they melted metal over an intense flame and then poured into a mold, which was packed sand in the form of a very large cauldron, in a box. It hardens, it is banged out of the box, sand everywhere, and sprayed with water from a punctured soda bottle to cool it.

Off to the Black Sea on the eastern coast for a build that was taking place in Constanta. Great people volunteering and working as usual! Jez, Chris and me went for a night swim, after cultural night with the group, and again in the morning with packed beach before hitting the road for a day of driving to our next destination. Many speedos and thongs. I'm not in Kansas anymore :)

On the move and sunflowers as far as i can see many times over. I want to come back in the season that they are all fresh, newly opened and vibrant.

At the next build I learned to speak, no to understand Barnsley and other such ways of speaking:) a great team with smiles and energy and delivery of the 70's afro wigs I finally saw in their intended use a week ago. It was the first steel frame building I had seen being done.

That was in july/august. On my recent return I was in the Carpathian mountains. Close to the boarder with Ukraine, and the town my grandmother and her family came from. I was mostly in Transylvania. It was very peaceful on the drive with Adi for 12 hours on one day as we moved locations. The leaves were changing colors and the winding road continued on and on. It made me think of home in the Fall, minus being at almost cloud levels.