Friday, August 19

Once in Bucharest, we picked up our car from Hertz without much difficulty.  If it takes less than an hour, it’s without much difficulty.  It was a Toyota Aygo, the smallest model they make. Despite its small size and wimpy engine, it was well-equipped, with CarPlay, a backup camera, and cruise control. We drove to a cheap hotel in the southeast part of Bucharest, and had a snack at a Turkish restaurant. 

We bought some Romanian stamps.  They required cash.  They are about 25 times as expensive as Lebanese stamps.  I think most of the cards will be mailed from Germany on this trip.

Later in the afternoon, we visited with our friend Bogdan, from the turn-of-the-century party days.  Bogdan is remodeling his house.  I am always sorry to hear that people are remodeling.  There is no difficulty in houses that is easier to fix than it is to get used to.  That goes for writing macros and shortcuts on computers, too.

Saturday, August 20

In the morning, we had Sea Buckthorn Juice instead of orange juice.  Cătină, they call it.  On the six hour drive to Iași, I discovered that if you aren’t in the Google Maps app, it doesn’t issue audible instructions, which is a real problem if you are on one of the very few genuine freeways in Romania, and the next exit is 25 km away.  After we finally got off the freeway, Dave plugged in his phone and discovered that the car was also equipped with CarPlay, the first time we’ve ever used it. From that point, we navigated with Apple Maps, getting a look at the Real Romania: honey, potatoes, onions for sale at the side of the road, horse carts in the road. 

It has been my hope on this trip, to see some of the real Tourist Romania which we always seem to miss: all our trips end up hanging out on terraces drinking coffee and eating mici.  Only now that they all have young children, the hanging out has been in playgrounds.  But usually, when we get to Iași, going for a beer seems like a better idea than all the World Heritage Sites in Moldavia.

Using all the modern communicators, we got in touch with Radu and put all our stuff into the room next to Andrei’s apartment.  The gang showed up next.  Dinner was at a roadhouse out west of town, tripe ciorba and duck confit with celery purée and jam.  Stef’s kids are cute and they kept wandering off.

Sunday, August 21

The best tourist days happen when Stef is driving.  Not literally, as he was in a different car with his wife and two sons, but he chooses the best places.  Today, we drove out to Mănăstirea Dobrovăț.  After we had poked around and regretted not taking the Old Church Slavonic option for the Foreign Language requirement, a monk approached Stef and asked if we’d like to eat.  Yes.  They sat us down in a big plain monastic hall and came out with plates of fried carp, and soup, and pilaf, and bread.   They don’t charge for this, but of course we left money.

Later that day, we joined with Radu and his kids and went out to the Danube Delta.  It’s on a road that Hertz probably wishes we wouldn’t drive, a kind of fishing retreat plus playground.  Luca and Nicolas were gripping each other in such a way that Nicolas smacked into a pole and started crying and then pouting and when he pouts he looks like every D&G and Armani model who ever glowered from a magazine.  He could make a career out of that, if he never cheered up.  At least the Abercrombie and Fitch models, back in the day, looked like they enjoyed having penises.

Dave and I left the party and went for a walk on the dirt road along a lake.  We saw lots of birds we didn’t know.  There were masses of birds flying around, but rather than swifts they had bluish and greenish long pointed wings. They darted past and occasionally skimmed the water.  It might have been chromatic aberration in the binoculars, something that Merlin doesn’t take into account.  Merlin is Cornell’s bird ID program.  I just downloaded it, on advice of a friend, and am learning.

Monday, August 22

Today was the day we went out to visit the Churches of Moldavia World Heritage Site.  It didn’t go very well.  Waiting to see if your friends want to come with is a mistake for everything, including birth and death.  So we got off to a late start.  There was an interesting traffic jam, which we avoided by spontaneously, and without any input from Google, following cars who theoretically knew what they were doing, onto a succession of dirt roads through cornfields and sunflower fields.  It worked. 

We arrived at the main road at the same time we would have if we’d stayed in line (per Google Maps), and we got to see some more real Romania on the way.  All the sunflowers are pointing down now.  Somebody will come along and gather all the seeds up for oil, soon.  The corn is dried out, too, harvested.  There’s heat and drought through most of Europe, now.

We got to the Mănăstirea Voroneț around 3:30 in the afternoon. 

The Golden Hour does not suit it; the color they are most proud of is Voroneț Blue and it doesn’t show up well in the reddening light of sunset. 

Fortunately, clouds gathered.  Less fortunately, they started raining a great deal, just as we were about to head into the next monastery on the list, Humorului.  An alert appeared on my phone, in English, sent out by Romanian Meteo, saying that thunderstorms were imminent — apparently they haven’t got the memo from Orban that warning tourists off bad weather can get you fired.  So we headed back to Iași, slim pickings for a day of driving.  Naturally there was nothing to do but eat, and the rain caught up with us on the patio.  The waiter was disinterested, despite the fact that the majority of the table were his regular customers from down the street.

Tuesday, August 23

        Today was kind of a working day.  Radu has a fast internet connection, and Dave took the opportunity to update massive amounts of source code, sometimes even twice.  In the afternoon, we went to a nice restaurant on our own, Casa Lupu, after meeting Stef and his kids for sweets at Cuptorul Moldovencei.  They make the best pastries in Iași, much too good for kids who launch after the first bite, so I ended up eating them regardless of what it would do to my appetite.
        Afterwards, we were invited to join the gang at a sauna in the basement of a friend of theirs.  Andrei was surprised to find that Radu had invited his go-to endodontist, who had consulted with him about Dave some years back when there was a question of a hole in one of Dave’s root canals.
        Saunas are too hot and the pools are too cold, but it’s a social thing.  I always wondered what happened when straight guys were in baths.  Turns out they talk about their dental patients.  Apparently it’s really difficult to work on people who have inflated their lips with chemical stuffing. 

Wednesday, August 24

        In the morning we said goodbye to Andrei and Ingrid and Radu and Alexia and Luca and Nicolas, and drove to Doina’s house to say goodbye to her and Fanel and drink tea, and Butza drove by with David in the back seat, completely by coincidence.  He was on his way to get construction materials for something involving pipes and ditches, in his house.