A Morning in SIghisoara, an Afternoon in Sibiu (Sunday, March 14)

This morning I jumped out of bed to get the phone when the wake up call summoned. OUCH.

Advil with a not so fantastic breakfast helped, however. We went to the Dominican Church for services and soon realized that their actual serices are not held in the church, but rather in a small meeting room upstairs. This was not what I wanted, so we ended up going to the new Catholic church (really new...1984) for their 10AM mass.

I probably haven’t mentioned how much I enjoy going to church in other countries. I don’t understand any of what is going on (except the time I went to mass in the oldest cathedral north of Mexico, which is in Quebec, and the mass was in French, so I understood every third word). I feel as if going to church gives me an opportunity to see people who live in that place, and to observe people worshipping in a place where people have worshipped from hundreds and hundreds of years (usually). There is a continuity about the cycle of life and the history behind all those people who sat and worshipped in this place that I find fascinating as a historian and a member of the human race. I think about how people’s prayers may have changed, from the 1300s or 1400s or whatever the church’s founding date is, onwards…that is what I envisioned with my Dominican Church experience. The Catholic mass in Romanian in a church constructed in 1984 was nice, bc I was still able to observe, plus I always feel good going to church, but the surroundings weren’t exactly inspirational in a religious, historical, or aesthetic sense. Still, I prayed the prayer of someone grateful to have a body that functions as a healthy body should.

Afterwards, some of the souvenir shops had opened so I browsed. I had seen an oil painting that I liked and really hoped that shop would open but of course it is not open on Sundays. Not meant to be.

Now we are on a train from Sighisoara to Sibiu…it is the first modern train we have been on and initially was very peaceful and quiet.

Then a group of gypsies boarded along with a group of gypsy children who of course didn’t have tickets. The group of children were chased off by the ticket man at the next stop but the other group of gypsies remaining has twice sent one boy around to beg. It isn’t nice to see, and I must say that the smell permeating this train car is very unpleasant…not as unpleasant as my first experience on a second class Ukraianian train bathroom, but unpleasant. There is a very small child, about 2, that just wandered down the aisle. He is a cute little guy, and even his gypsy lifestyle hasn’t yet corrupted a certain pureness that only children that age posess. I considered snatching him, putting him in a bathtub, and taking him to America before I realize that would be illegal. Because there are stair step children in the group, one of whom just returned to beg some more, the little guy’s future seems a known commodity, and I wonder how much longer before even he is taught to beg as well.

Sibiu on Sunday

We arrived around 2pm and walked the 5-6 blocks into town. It was sunny but very windy, which made it cold. Initially, Sibiu did not impress. The buildings were totally dilapidated and the town seemed dead. I finally got to a huge public square with buildings that had clearly been cleaned up rather recently. Sibiu was the 2007 European Captial of Culture and so it received quite the overhaul in preparation for that year. Three main squares and a pedestrian boulevard that are all connected comprise the center of the city on top of the hill. I walked down the hill to the pensione I had initially selected. They were full. What? This is the first time this has happened. Usually places are completely empty. So, I walked back up the steps to the upper town to find the Casa Luxembourg. This walking did not make me happy bc my tailbone was hurting and I thought Sibiu was pretty run down outside of these squares.

I had lunch at this pizza and pasta place called Spice very close to the casa. Their veggie lasagna was good. Again, it is a treat to be able to make out the menu. Then I went to the Brukenthal Museum, Romania’s nicest art museum. It is housed in the former palace of Samuel Brukenthal and while most rooms simply displayed his collection other rooms displayed some of his furniture, which included some beautiful pieces with inlaid wood. I saw a special exhibit of Arthur Couler’s works and then saw the permanent collection, which included some old masters. My favorite pieces were by Martin Meytens and included a painting of a young Marie Antoinette and one of Empress Maria Theresa before she became crazy fat from having 16 children. Seriously. Back in 2005, Mom and I went to Bratislava Castle in Slovakia. The steps were so wide and I asked why. The guide told me it was so the Empress' horse could take her upstairs bc she was too obese to walk.

Photos of Sibiu:

American hot dogs...so exotic!

After the Brukenthal I checked out the Biserica Evanghelica, but couldn’t get inside.

I also walked up and down Street Nicolae Balcescu and around town.

I had some gelato (Romanians love Italian food) and then decided to grab some street food for dinner bc I was still somewhat full and just wanted to get some rest bc our flight to Bucharest was at 6:05AM, and we needed to be at the aerogare a few minutes after 5. We found a chicken sandwich and we were going to split some fries but in the communication process things became confused and then I remembered that Europeans love to have mayonnaise with fries and they frequently just put the fries on the sandwich. Well, that is exactly what happened. So, we had 2 pieces of bread with mayonnaise, chicken, lettuce that wasn’t really lettuce but rather uncooked cabbage, and french fries inside. It was actually delicious. And, I was able to procure a Coca Cola light (not possible in Ukraine). Far from a healthy meal but it served its purpose.