Day 5 - Tennis and Storks

Two great surprises in Macin today! A small tennis club, brand new with two clay courts. After seeing so many abandoned buildings, the old apartment buildings with peeling facades, the weeds popping through all roads and destroyed sidewalks, and the large number of streets paved with uneven granite blocks, I was happy to find two clay courts in reasonable condition.  They belong to a young guy who charges quite a bit for renting them, but he also teaches the kids from the Student's Club how to play tennis.  He built them on a house lot, thus the corn in the background. 

Next to the courts, on a wooden light pole, sat a beautiful, large stork nest with a family in it.  Today's pictures are not my best, but mom and dad stork are easy to distinguish.  I used to love seeing these birds when I grew up.  They'd be the good news that winter was over when they arrived in Macin from faraway warm places.  And when they took off for good in late August or September, I knew the summer ended, too.  

To end the short blog of today, here's a dahlia from my mother's garden, and of course a hard working bee...

Day 4 - Of Bees, Abandoned Buildings, and Heat

I perceive all the bees in one beehive as one body.   At least one truly Royal family!  Despite the heat (37C or 98F), they fly and harvest all day, then at night they buzz around the entrance of the beehive to cool off and ventilate it. My father has four beehives, but they are more like four pets to him. Years ago, he mourned when disease decimated his bees.  For a while he couldn't start his apiary activity anymore. Just a few years ago, he restarted with one beehive, then one more and then two more.  

Walking through the streets of Macin, whee I grew up four decades ago, I feel divided emotions of pride and disappointment.  The town's commerce flourished after the Revolution in 1989, but it's a trade of knickknacks, the stores are built in small houses and can be easily taken as mini bazaars.  Prices are all over the place. Some people had initiative and made efforts to start even other businesses, but overall the town is full of contrast. Many people also go temporarily to other countries in Europe, work hard to make money and then return to build big houses in Macin.  On one hand, I can see how some buildings are pretty and modern. On the other hand, many other buildings, some private homes and some old headquarters, have been left unkempt or were abandoned. Town sores like this litter Macin. There are no funds to restore and rebuild...  I am so sorry to see the cinema theater and even the bus station fall apart!  I remember them full of life, centers of urban activity... 

Another hot day, slightly humid, when everyone is hiding in the shade. Good time to read, write... or sleep...

Day 3 - Treats!

We're enjoying the best Macin and family have in store for us! 

My father's garden is THE cornucopia I believe. Here's a sample.

My mother's pantry partially filled with preserves and dried plants for infusion are an equal wealth. Everything comes from their garden, where even the bee hives reside. Yes, the jugs are filled with honey!

Not sure which preserve Chloe had in these scrumptious "clatite" (crepes) made by maitsa. 

Today's oddities were: 1) the church built in the school's yard; and 2) watermelon with seeds! 😂😂😂

Sadly, we had to go to the hospital today, and if I say it was depressing, everyone must agree with me. These pictures of a hallway and an exam room speak for themselves. Luckily, we're all well.  

Day 2 - at home in Macin

 Last night we arrived in Bucharest, Romania's  capital. First discovery? Men still use suspenders here, even for jeans! 

I'm lucky! My best friend, Elena, picked us up from the airport and hosted us. We played with Peanut, her dog, in the wee hours of the morning, ate fresh bread with fish roe, 😳, and then went to sleep.  One important picture from Bucharest: that of the University where I studied! 

This morning, Elena drove us to Macin. Of the almost two hundred miles covered, one fifth was on a freeway, and the rest on small roads.  Holes, horse-drawn carriages, trucks, very old Dacia vehicles and luxury cars -- these were testing times... Sadly, Romania has still a very small number of freeways and transportation is primitive.  

Lots of sunflowers embellished the often primitive landscape of the Romanian countryside. 

We crossed the Danube at Braila on a ferry boat. Same old one that transported us for many decades before...

Finally, we arrived in Macin!

Best way to describe home is to talk about my parents. Tata, my father, is a retired Biology teacher and active farmer. His garden is a corner of paradise, which I don't even know where to start describing! 

Here are his beehives! 

And here is his best helper, Neluțu! 

I'll go through the garden tomorrow! 

Noapte buna! (Good night!)

Travels of the 2015 summer

Day 1 - Frankfurt Airport, in transit to Bucharest, Romania

Encounter with "bretzels" and "currywurst," large planes, huge planes and lots of Asian tourists. 

My Australia Chapter: The End

My time in Australia is coming to an end. What I thought was a journey to a place became a journey to a place and back, as I am returning to live in the US. While I write this post, my head is violently filling up with pictures of tawny frogmouths and rainbow lorikeets, low blue sky or countless stars on a black night sky, red dirt and immaculate white sand, friendly reef fish, and blooming gum trees and grevilleas. My heart feels like an ocean of emotions. I see ourselves wading in a stream in the MacDonnell Ranges when the brown snake comes to meet us. I see my husband and daughter chasing the shingleback lizards in the Flinders Ranges and playing with tens of small jewel spiders in Western Australia. I see the biggest orb and orb spider spread like an umbrella over our heads in Northern Territory. We swim in the water hole to which the crocs didn’t make it yet, but where flying foxes flock in the tall gum trees. I hear the waves of the Indian Ocean breaking onto Penguin Island while dolphins grab the fish at an arm’s length from the boat. I taste the rose Turkish delight, Greek rose jam, Cherryripe and honeycomb chocolates, passion fruit and honey, tens of kinds of mangoes, and of course, the scrumptious burger with beetroot. Kangaroos hop and bearded dragons bask on the roads I travelled seated in front of the Land Rover Defender. Green ants, bull ants, cicadas, huntsmen spiders, locusts and katydids follow me in the insect memories I will never want to forget. My friends, my neighbors and my peers, ah, I will miss all of you so much! Australia is beautiful. I’m just kidding: this is not the end. I will come back.

Rottnest Island (Western Australia)

I don’t know what this island, which is 19 km from Fremantle and into the Indian Ocean, looked like when the Dutch discovered it about 200 years ago, but despite being surrounded by a reef and white sand beaches (check out the picture), it was given the name “rat nest.” This is what Rottnest means in Dutch. Why? Well, the island is small, about 4-5 km wide and 11 km long, and has thousands of quokkas, a marsupial the size of a cat rather than a rat, but the Dutch thought they were simply rats. Especially if the Dutch descended on the island at dusk, maybe seeing so many of these creatures made them also think they were “another “ invader… You can see from my picture that a quokka looks a lot more innocent and (hopefully!) larger than a rat. But the highlight of this boutique island (round trip ticket for adult, $72.5; bus ticket for the day for a hot bus that runs only every 30 min in a one direction loop, $10; cup of coffee $4.5) is its natural beauty, as always. The water is diverse shades of blue, turquoise and green as if it’s block colors being mixed on a painter’s palette, and snorkeling in the reef is a deeper trip into that palette of colors. There is life everywhere and highly dense, from birds to fish and of again quokkas. Speaking of fish, we stopped at the island’s information center as soon as we arrived on the island and asked where to go snorkeling. We were told that any bay is rich in reef and fish, but THE Information Centre omitted to tell us that the day before a 5-m great white shark had been spotted in one of the island’s bays… I am writing this post using both of my hands, so yes, we didn’t encounter any shark! From an ecological point of view the island is paradise, too, as no cars are allowed, just the lame tourist bus and bikes. Birds nest on the island’s shores and salt lakes in thousands. Only the museum reminded us of just another penal colony of Australia and fishing that led to the extinguishing of some species…