The 10th Day

Day 10

Definitely time to do laundry!  How does one move from one country to another, unable to speak the language in either country, needing two different currencies, get laundry done?

Oh, just keep driving and something will work out.

We finally stopped and bought that watermelon.  NS's German helped with that purchase.  We also got some nectarines and peaches at the same roadside fruit stall.  He told NS, several times, they were from Hungary.

We were a bit surprised by the line at the Romanian border.

Other antics at the border... Where we listened to "Harper Valley PTA" on the radio, NS seemed somewhat alarmed that we knew all the words to it.  We were equally alarmed.

Our passports were taken, the car documents were asked for (we have the title with us), and we were told to pull over to the right.  NS wondered if this was another case of "oh, cool, American passports!"  While we waited, we looked at the map and planned our route.  Documents were returned with a "have a nice trip."

We'd been warned by countless people that the roads in Romania were awful and that was from the people who were supportive of the trip.  I saw a picture on the internet that showed flowers growing out of the long unprepared potholes.  Thus, it was a pleasant surprise to find the pavement in such a condition that it was quite easy to maintain a 60 km/hr rate, and easy to understand why those who prefer to travel at 130 km/hr would report the roads were awful.

My first impression was that everyone builds their house next to the road, no one makes the front yard the front yard bigger than the back yard.  And those back yards are HUGE gardens, as in growing vegetables.  There seem to be fruit trees everywhere.  One stretch of road included about 10 people spread out along the road, each holding a basket up, that appeared to be full of ENORMOUS mushrooms.  There was also a newer house that looked like some sort of modern Roman palace.  At least the facade appeared to be like that.  Many buildings appear to have peeling paint, various crumbling features, and clothes hanging out to dry.  Laundry!!!  We weren't making much progress there.

Hunger got the best of us and we stopped at a town square for a bite to eat.  No picnic tables, just a bench, so we ripped into that watermelon and ate what we could.  Not seeing a gracious way of giving the rest away to some one, we wrapped it up and continued down the road.

Our guide book reported a cemetery along our route known as "The Merry Cemetery."  So we stopped for a look.  A local wood carver started the tradition of these colorful headstones, and his apprentice continued the practice after he died.  It certainly was a place with a lot of character.  The church was under renovation with wooden scaffolding covering it up.

And the dozens of souvenir stalls showed me just how many people stop to look at this.  We were the only non-Romanian car.

With the change in time zone (we are now 10 hours from KS), it was time to start looking for a place to stay and take care of that laundry!  

We ended up in a classic new enterprise venture.  Hotel (8 rooms) each with their own bathroom, banquet hall, restaurant, pension in another building (shared bathroom), swimming pool, and tennis court.  The various workers knew enough languages between them (French, German, Italian, Spanish, English) that S2 was able to communicate we would take the honeymoon suite (complete with jacuzzi) and one of us would sleep on the floor (only one volunteer there), eat at the restaurant, use the pool, and managed to convince them to let us use the washing machine.  The next challenge came trying to convince them we did not want the standard 90 minute wash cycle.

It was after 11 when we got to bed, after a good meal, a great bottle of wine (they don't sell it by the glass), and drying laundry spread out everywhere!

How could I forget!  NS giggled immensely while watching Winnie the Pooh and Scooby Doo (the same episode she watches every time she visits Grandma) in Romanian.  Children's shows were dubbed, but the other western shows appear to be subtitled.

While swimming in the pool some local men appeared to gather for their weekly game of tennis soccer, played on the tennis courts.  Three to a side, the ball can only bounce once, three hits to get over the net, no hands allowed!  You should someone put spin on a soccer ball, with their back!