Days 5-6: The Countryside At Last

Day 5:

Lazy day today. We spent the morning sleeping and lazing around and eating. Around 11 we headed off to the larger of Bucharest's two airports to pick up Em, Io's friend from Boston. Everything went swimmingly on that front.

I couldn't help but notice, however, that the people who run the airport appear to be vampire sympathizers, possibly even collaborators. Hmmm...

We brought Em home and allowed her to collapse, while the rest of us headed out to the "Metro" hipermart to buy a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. I just want to take a moment here to thank the owners of Romanian hipermarts for naming their stores so confusingly. The first one we went to is called "Auchan," which I guess is the name of a type of bird but is pronounced like "Ocean." So the other day Io kept telling me that we were going "to the Auchan," and I was like, What the hell are you talking about? That's hours away. And she's all, No, it's right down the street, and I'm pulling up Bucharest on Google maps and going NO IT ISN'T, etc. Then today she tells me we're going "to Metro," and I assume that means we're taking the train somewhere because the subway is also called the metro. So then we get to do this awesome Laurel & Hardy routine: "Where are we going?" "To Metro." "Right, but where are we going?" "Metro." "I understand that. I mean what is our ultimate destination?" "We're just coming home afterwards." "What?"

Overall the metro was a lot like the ocean, except with better salami. I'm becoming quite a salami connoisseur since getting to Romania, because salami is very popular here. I never used to eat salami, unless you count pepperoni pizza, but now I eat the stuff all the time.

Day 6:

Today was finally the countryside day that I've been teasing since like Day 2. We were headed out to "the countryside house," the family homestead out in Letca Noua. It's a ways away, especially considering that Romanians consider driving 50 MPH to be a breakneck pace, so we all got up super-early and then promptly fell back asleep until 11. Whoops.

On the road! We had to make a couple of stops on the way out there, first at the butcher to get ingredients for today's lunch. Giant entire head of a pig split in half, anyone? Fortunately that's not what we are actually having for lunch.

Stop #2 is at Io's maternal grandparents' house. They live on the outskirts of Bucharest in a house that has barely any electricity or heat. They grow grapes and various gourds in their front yard (I guess), and then there's like a storage shed that is full of all sorts of old electronics (including an awesome vacuum tube radio) and various bits of junk, like something out of Fallout 3. The main house has just a couple of rooms plus a root cellar and kitchen. Ioana tells me it didn't have running water until a couple of years ago, when her stepfather insisted on piping water into the place for the grandparents since they're now over 80. As you can see, grandma isn't going to have any truck with running water that she's done without just fine for eight decades, thank you very much.

Grandma and grandpa seemed super-nice, although like most older Romanians they don't speak any English, so our conversations with them were short semi-distracted translations from Io in between her Romanian conversation with them catching up for the past weeks. We said hello to them and picked up some stuff for the wedding, and then off on the road again.

After a long trip, we eventually arrived at the countryside house. This was like stepping back in time again, like going to the village museum. The countryside house has electricity run into it, but has no running water, no air conditioning, and no heat or gas. Warming and cooking is all done via a wood-fired stove, or outdoor wood grill. The house itself is beautiful from a historical perspective. It was built by Io's great-great-grandparents in the late 19th century, then renovated by her grandparents in the 1930's. They grow grapes and wax cherries, as well as hardwood trees for building. Nobody lives there now, though.

We spent basically the whole day out there. We got some stuff moved in there to get ready for the wedding, and then had a lunchtime barbecue of Gagi's famous mici, sausage, and mutton. Yum!

After lunch and a nap, we headed out to the local church, which is about a 10 minute walk away. This is where our marriage ceremony is going to take place. It's a beautiful old building with lots of amazing paintings, murals, and stained glass windows. The whole building is designated a historical landmark. On top of that, there's a painting of the Virgin Mary inside that supposedly started weeping one day, which led to the church also being designated the Location Of An Official Miracle (tm) by the Orthodox Church. So, they are pretty well covered against having the place demolished, is what I am getting at.

We went inside and looked at all the art, although this time I didn't even try to photograph anything, or wear my baseball cap, despite the fact that there were no gimlet-eyed babushka-wearing guards to be seen. I guess with the weeping painting and all, they figure there's probably someone else keeping an eye on the store and so they don't bother. I don't believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo, but, you know, why take a risk when you don't have to?

After a long lazy afternoon and evening out in the countryside, we eventually piled into the car and headed back home, where we all collapsed into bed. Tomorrow is the start of Wedding Madness. The actual wedding isn't until Saturday, but relatives from distant parts of Romania begin arriving on Friday. So it'll be 48 hours of madness. Fun!