My December in Romania

The 1st of December is Romania’s National Day. We didn’t attend the military parade in the morning, but we heard some nice concert at the Christmas market at Piata Universitate. Of course we drank some vin fiert meanwhile listening to the sounds of Maramures.

The Christmas market at Piata Universitate is very central and nice. There’s a very relaxed atmosphere, perfect to finish the day.

We also helped our association during one of their weekend seminars. I tried to catch some Romanian words. I learnt two or three. Quite a success for one weekend 😉

David and me can be found in the kitchen. We are eating all the time. That’s how I spend quite a lot of time: Cooking, eating, talking with the others. It’s quite cool in our kitchen. After that it is abiocco time.

One day I decided to start a geocaching tour. I found the first cache at the entrance of Izvor parc very close to the Palace of Parliament (as you can see in the background). It’s not a very special parc, however it’s nice to have some green around yourself. Moreover the view on the Parliament is pretty impressive.

In 99 percent of the time the Dâmbovița is ugly as hell. It’s more a dirty canal without water than a river. But during my geocaching tour it was almost beautiful. Bucharest is still surprising me.

I visited this little church in order to find my second cache. Of course I had look inside. It’s small, but very nice with a special atmosphere.

I’m too selfie-addicted…

It’s a pity that the church was covered for construtionary work.

Finally, after demolishing parts of the church, I found the cache. This street sign looked suspicious…

Juhuu! I was right 🙂 This cache was actually very busy. Meanwhile I was logging my visit another geocacher came and asked myself a lot of questions about the cache…

This parc is just awesome. You can have relaxed walks and your mind will recover from any worries and concerns you may have. Up to now it’s my favourite place in Bucharest (besides Geobar).

I also climbed a little hill that I discovered there.

In Cismigiu I found my third cache in a very calm corner of the parc.

Good for me that nobody was there, because the first rule of geocaching is to avoid the “muggles”.

I could walk alone with music in my ears through the parc.

Last but not least I found my fourth cache also in Cismigiu. It was nano-sized, but quite easy to find. A successful day: I found four cahces out of four!

The whole time here I wonder about the “Praktiker” advertisements everywhere. For years this company is bancrupt… I took that photo during my way to the high school (probably at Piata Unirii).

I also had a very intersting meeting with my mentor Dora. She showed me one very “girlish” places. But they had a lot of tea so I was very happy 🙂

I attended a Festival of Romanian traditions in Focsani in the east of Romania. I ended up there because I visited four awesome other EVS volunteers: Filipa, Martina, Ivana and Rafael. Thanks for hosting 🙂 I learnt that bears (rum.: urs) are somehow important for the Romanians. Probaly this is the reason why the beer “Ursus” is so popular here.

After one hour of listening to the same music and watching the same groups (everyone came from Maramures…) it treated me like Valium.

After the festival we went to the nearby christmas market where you could also do iceskating. I prefered to warm me up with some vin fiert. However, it was fucking cold and I had good luck that my toes are still allive.

Necessarily they had their christmas tree (brad). It was a nice one (although our tree in Bucharest is a little bit taller).

I loved the lights at the christmas market. a pity that they didn’t warm me up at all

It looked very cute, so alone it is standing on the square.

Before Nicole’s Italian club started I had a look outside of the CMON (our working place). Piata Romana was illuminated with lights. Especially in the evening it’s very nice to see. It also diverts the attentions from noise.

As often as possible I drink tea to warm me up and to remind myself of home. This time I didn’t want that much tea so I used Ania’s Efes glass to do my tea. Thank you for borrowing me your precious, Ania! 🙂

This is how it looked like after I added milk.

As last session before Christmas I went with my German club to the christmas market. It was very cool to talk with some Glühwein about christmas in Germany. After that we also went to a pub to drink another vin fiert. There I also learnt some new Romanian words 🙂 win-win situation.

That’s our group video :)