Paranoia and other pleasant things

Moldova, day 2 - who imported the friggin’ English weather?

It was raining and the air was mid-March cold when we left Agapia. The road was undullating through the trees, nobody behind us, nobody in front, just the car, the (incredibly well-maintained) road and the occasional pile of pebble deposited by the forest after an all-night rain.

We got to Varatec, another nun monastery and the place where Veronica Micle, poetess extraordinaire and tragic love of Eminescu, our national poet, lived her last years and soon after his death, poisoned herself.

Just like in Agapia, there was no photograhing allowed inside, so we took a lot of gloomy outside shots, wondered around a bit, listened to the cries of two peasants trying to wake up a nun (”Maica Modestaaaaaaaa!!”) and went on our merry way.

Next was Targu-Neamt, a small city with awful traffic. They had a fortress which I knew from my schoolbooks (where it is told how eighteen poorly armed peasants stood up for five days agains the siege of Ian Sobieski in 1686)

Yup, it was still raining and we had no umbrellas. But at least there were lots of walls and partial ceilings to protect us .

The medieval toilet looked rather .. erm .. interesting.

After we got back to the car, hopped in, waited patiently until we got out of an intersection where everybody claimed they had the right to go through first and honked accordingly and ate some breakfast, we got to the memorial house of Romania’s biggest childrens’ stories writer, Ion Creanga.

The interior was arranged to show the way it looked during the writer’s childhood:

Next to the house, there was some kind of Creanga theme-park with scenes from his memories and tales, reenacted by an army of stuffed animals (and I’m not talking about plushies - it was all carcasses, baby). My stomach revoled against the idea of entering, so we left.

We had a stop at the Veronica Micle museum (you know, the lyrical lass from a few paragraphes ago) - again, no photographing inside.

After that, we left for Suceava, where we were greeted by SUNNY! weather. There was no place to park the car in the center, so Robi snook it on an alley clearly marked “only for residents” and parked nonchalantly. We went to the local history museum, where we discovered that the Moldavian kings used Ninjas as part of their regular army…

…and Elvis lived in Moldavia after his American dissapearance.

Next on the list was the citadel of Suceava, where a medieval festival was held (souds familiar?). There were commercial banners and billboards everywhere, so we were more interested in the people that entertained the audience, like this fair beauty, narrating the introduction to a commedia dell’arte play:

Out of Suceava we went then, stopping only for a short visit to a Lukoil gas station ( “Probably the best toilet in town”) and headed for northern Moldavia, also known as Bucovina. The sun was shining, the air was hot and we were singing our hearts out until we saw that a hurricane was coming. No, really. There was this perfect blue sky with no clouds until the middle of the firmament, and from there until the horizon it was all black. As in lack of white. People, it looked friggin’ scary and we were heading right that way. 50 km later, we were in the ugliest storm I’ve ever seen, completed with thunders and lightnings. Figuring that we didn’t need our battery recharged by a jolt of electricity or the car’s shape remodeled by hailstones we parked under the roof of an abandoned gas station and waited. And waited. Then we waited some more. After almost an hour we got too bored to be cautios and left.

We didn’t have to go for too long until we saw that the ditches were full and water was all over the road . Saying a quick prayer we drove through it, hoping it won’t get so high that it’ll stop the car. Fortunately, a few kilometers later the terrain started to be shaped in such a way that water was back to the ditches, and we managed to get to Putna.

Putna is a monks’monastery, the place where Moldavia’s most revered king (Americans - think George Washington, substract some height, add more fighting) is burried. His name is Stefan cel Mare (”Stephen the Great”)

The church looke graceous, like a ship on the sea

and was in the middle of being painted with frescoes inside for the first time.

It also contained the cranium of some saint, put in a box with an opening where people could touch and kiss said cranium. Somehow, I didn’t feel the urge to immitate.

In the courtyard, we saw a lot of very heterosexually looking guys walking around in long skirts. We scratched our heads in amazement, until I remembered that you’re not supposed to visit dressed indecently, and that included men’s shorts. You could still go in if you put on one of these, given to you at the entrance of the monastery:

It was getting late, so we went to Sucevita where we were hoping to find a place to camp or a room at affordable price. Unfortunately, the prices weren’t exactly for Romanian pockets where they still had rooms, and where the price was fair, they were fully occupied. We managed to find one pension (”Casa Traian” by its name) where prices were low and only one other car was in the parking. Full of amazement, I wanted to pay in advance as a gesture of good will. After which, we stepped in Twilight Zone.

“Why do you want to pay in advance?” said the lady that shoved us our room.

“You know, in case you are not around tomorrow when we leave .. isn’t this the custom over here?”

“No .. moooom?”

Her mom appeared, and she explained what I wanted to do.

“No. What do you take us for? Who are you? What kind of people are you? Are you looking just for a sleazy place where you can fuck?” said mom, while angrily cutting some mushrooms.

“What?” said I, not being quite able to comprehend the sudden burst of hostility.

“I don’t think you are a married couple, at all.”

“But lady, we’re very much married, we even have a three years old” said I again, starting to lose my temper in the polite Transylvanian way.

“I don’t believe you, and I think you should leave. My house is not a place of perdition”

Meanwhile, Robi finished to park the car in the dark and approached the porch.

“What’s happening?”- him

“Craziness. She’s not believing that we’re married and wants us to leave. ” -me

“Yes. You should leave immediately” -the mom

“Ok, we’ll do so. No wonder you had spare rooms” -me

“I might be thought crazy, but.. ” - the mom

“That’s not a possibility, lady, that’s a fact” - me, not so sotto voce, while leaving .

“You have no shame!” - the mom

“Whatever, crazy lady” - me, getting in the car.

We found a camping spot where two other tents were put already, set up our tent at the light of the flashlight and went to sleep. Our faces were frozen by morning, but at least our bodies were more-or-less warm, dry and rested.

Posted under: on the road