Transylvania from Above

Here's how it all started: clearing the cows from the field that would serve as our take-off and landing strip for our Transylvania Sightseeing Flight.  I have to admit that I was pretty nervous for my first-ever trip in a little four-seat sightseeing plane, but within seconds of take-off, I was relaxed and excited, trying to take it all in as we soared above Cluj, the 17th Century Armenian-founded town of Gherla, the Apuseni Mountains (part of the Western Carpathians), and the Turda Gorge.

The company and pilots: Skydive Transilvania (though I wasn't intending to Skydive this time around, we collected all the info for a possible future adventure.)  As usual, you can click on the picture to make it bigger:

   The plane (a Cessna, which I believe is American-designed):

The passengers (Adriana, the big winner of this sightseeing trip, who was kind enough to include me, and Terri):

And last but not least, the views (SPECTACULAR, to say the least):

All the factors combined to make a seriously memorable November afternoon in Transylvania.

In just two weeks I fly again, but this time it will be across the Atlantic and home for the holidays-- from Transylvania to Pennsylvania.

Multi-Cultural, Multi-Ethnic, Multi-Generational Thanksgiving

...and while we're on adjectives, the day featured an organic, local, fresh, farm-raised, corn-fed, 20-lb turkey that turned out amazing! 

Whichever way you want to spin it, Thanksgiving 2010 was a blast.  Some highlights:

-Adults: 9 (From Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, South Carolina, California, Louisiana, and Romania)- 5 of the 9 are professional basketball players; Two Kids, ages 3 & 5 (just to add to the chaos); Venue: two-room apartment (and every inch of counter space, chair, dish, and utensil was put to good use.)

-The first guests arrived at 1 p.m.  The last guest left at 1 a.m.  Now that's a full day of celebrating.  


-Gone in a Flash: Terri's Praline Sweet Potato Casserole.  Apparently, she got her recipe from the Baylor University Alumni Cookbook, but similar recipes are available online.  Mark my words: we will never have a Thanksgiving again without this side dish on the table!

-Second Most Popular Side: Terri's Homemade From-Scratch Green Bean Casserole.  I, for one, love the green bean casserole, and grew up having it at every holiday meal.  Of course, the traditional U.S. recipe includes 2 cans of green beans, a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, and a container full of  Durkee french-fried onions.  Sheer marketing genius on the part of a few smart food companies.  In a conversation back in 2004 with "real New Yorkers" about what's on the menu for Thanksgiving, I overheard the green bean casserole referred to as, "White Trash Casserole."  Instead of taking offense, I swore to proudly refer to it as that for the rest of my life.  I thought I might have had to change the name to "Euro Trash Casserole" after this Thanksgiving, but Terri's discovery and execution of a "from scratch" version of the dish has redeemed the dish entirely!  Why consume all the preservatives when you can just make it yourself, using sour cream, cheese, and real onions that happen to be fried?  If this dish starts showing up in traditional Romanian cuisine, we'll know why; we can credit our Romanian guests, who loved the dish and got into the American spirit of even helping themselves to seconds!

-In an odd twist of fate, Rob likes lingonberries better than cranberries.  Looks like we'll be making trips to Ikea to stock up on Lingonberry preserves (or having our good friends in Europe ship them over to us) before future Thanksgivings in the U.S. 


-After the second round of eating, which occurred around 9 p.m., all of the leftovers were officially devoured.  Finished.  Gone.  Gata (as they say in Romania.)  I guess that's what I get for inviting 5 professional athletes over for the day.

-Adina, my best friend here in Romania, was the quietest I've ever seen her during dinner.  As she told me later, Americans talk waaaaay faster (and much less clearly, and with a ton more slang, and even with different accents, considering the Southerners of the group) when there are a bunch of us together.  I also think that she and her husband were a bit taken aback at the sheer gluttony of dinnertime.  Since we were packed in like sardines around a small table with a lot of hot dishes to pass, we basically were offered a wonderful prayer and then said GO, proceeding to pile our plates high, and began eating (again, pretty traditional for Americans at Thanksgiving, but I can see how it would be just a little overwhelming for an Eastern European!)  Honestly, we are civilized people (sometimes.)

-Speaking of prayers, Theodore, the 3-year old son of not one, but two pastors (two of our guests for the day), had a perfectly rehearsed prayer which he recited once and then we all repeated, to his utter delight.  If I had had my camera ready, it would have been a perfect Thanksgiving Day video moment to capture and remember always.

-The day wouldn't have felt half as "real" without tuning into (via Internet, plugged into the HDMI output of the TV, live, but airing late evening through early morning over here ) Thursday's NFL Football Line-Up.  And then, of course (for those of us who were still awake- i.e. not me), some late-night Skype calls to family in the U.S. We're incredibly thankful for technology! 

-As evident from the last couple of posts, I put a lot of effort into planning this dinner.  It was a true labor of love.  Working with a limited amount of kitchen space and utensils, I thought through which dishes would go into the oven at what time.  I started making applesauce and pies a few days ago.  I carefully assigned side dishes for Terri and Adina to bring.  It was planned out to a T.  Dinner would be on the table at 2:00.  And then, one of Rob's teammates, who had, to my surprise, offered to make a Sweet Potato Pie, called us at about 1:30, complaining that the supermarket didn't have any pie crusts.  In his defense, apparently he'd found them there before, but knowing what I know about grocery shopping in Romania, I never would have expected that something specific would be there when and where I needed it.  Honestly, I never would have expected that Romanian grocery stores would sell pre-made pie crusts.  But anyway, as I was in the critical moment of deciding that the turkey was indeed done, Rob told me his teammate's dilemma and I told him I'd make him a pie crust.  Ten minutes later, he showed up at the apartment, and I went to work- food processor, butter, flour, stir the gravy, ice water, stir til the dough forms a ball, open up the cans of corn, rotate the casseroles into the oven, clear space on the counter top, cover it with flour, get out the rolling pin, oh and "Of course you can make deviled eggs," I said, as the same teammate proudly presented a huge carton of 24 raw eggs because "We always have deviled eggs for the holidays," he said.  Only then did we realize that he didn't have a pie plate either-- nothing to do except to painstakingly (attempt to) remove my nice, neat homemade pumpkin pie from the pie plate, set that pie aside, clean the pie plate, and fill it up with the crust and his sweet potato filling.  Somehow, I kept it all together and can even laugh about it now.

-By 10:00 p.m., as we sat around having a drink or two, watching football, talking, dozing, our stomachs stuffed to the brim, warm and comfortable in our cozy Romanian apartment, it dawned on me that I couldn't ask for anything more in life.  I'm thankful for my wonderful family back home in Pennsylvania, who I'll get to see in just a couple of weeks.  I'm thankful for my brother, who made the decision to move back to California after six years, and is happily (and bravely) setting his sights on a new career.  I'm thankful for my amazing boyfriend Rob, who indulges my desire to play Martha Stewart from time to time, who takes me with him (and/or accompanies me) to amazing places around the world; I couldn't be luckier, or happier.  I'm thankful that I've started teaching again, and that my tax business is gaining momentum year by year.  I'm thankful for the great friends that we've met in Romania, Rwanda, and elsewhere we've lived; they make this experience fun and without them, a professional basketball career, or an ESL career, would just be a regular job in a strange place away from our families and friends back home.  I'm thankful that we have a special day to sit and reflect on what really matters in life and all the blessings that we've been given.  Thanksgiving (whether multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-generation, or (d) all of the above) is about as good as it gets, as far as I'm concerned.    
      

Picture of the Day

Here's Rob and the Romanian farmer who raised our Thanksgiving 2010 turkey, earlier today on turkey pick-up day.  We're missing our families, but happy to be putting together a holiday feast.  It's supposed to be a high of 40 degrees Fahrenheit tomorrow, with a chance of our first snow showers tonight after midnight, so a great late November Thursday to hole up in our cozy apartment with friends and be thankful for all that we have.

Fifth Consecutive Thanksgiving Outside of the U.S.A.

This week, I'm in the midst of lots of planning, shopping, and cooking for my fifth consecutive Thanksgiving outside of the U.S.A.  It's become an annual routine of making the decision whether or not it's worth trying to attempt to cook a turkey and all of the trimmings.  If the answer ends up being yes, then the challenge begins: trying to track down as many "traditional Thanksgiving" ingredients (or reasonable substitutes) as possible.  Had I been living in the U.S. all this time, I never would have figured out that so much of what we eat for the holiday is specific to America.  I guess that makes sense, considering it's our holiday, but it sure doesn't make cooking a full Thanksgiving meal abroad very easy.

Take cranberries, for example.  There's definitely no "Ocean Spray" equivalent in Europe.  From what I can tell, there are few or maybe no cranberry bogs outside of North America (the U.S. & Canada are by far the leading producers and consumers of these berries.)  Through careful research (and help from my brother, who lived in Germany for five years), I was able to track down a very similar berry, the Wild Lingonberry, which is eaten throughout Europe with game meat.  It turns out that Lingonberries are seldom cultivated, but rather almost always collected in the wild.

As for the other staples of a Thanksgiving Day feast, many of them fall into the same category: hard to find overseas.  Sweet potatoes were originally native to the tropical areas of South America and started spreading north to parts of the southern U.S.  Although sweet potatoes and yams are now cultivated in a lot of different climates, it seems that they don't grow well in Europe.  In Germany, you can buy them imported from the U.S.  In Romania, when they are available, you can buy them imported from Israel.  The remainder of the ingredients can be found or substituted, though the short-cuts aren't available here: pumpkins don't come canned; there's no such thing as "pumpkin pie spice"; no Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup; no Durkee onions; no Stove Top Stuffing; no Cool Whip.      

Turkeys, which are practically given away for free in U.S. supermarkets this time of year, are also difficult to track down overseas.  It wasn't even an option back in 2006 when I was living in Rwanda; we cooked a pork tenderloin instead.  In Southern France, in 2009, we could have bought a turkey (or part of a turkey) if we had requested it ahead of time.  The French, like the Romanians, tend to raise turkeys for Christmas, so they're not generally ready in November.  Since I had no luck finding a turkey in the day or two leading up to Thanksgiving last year, Rob & I settled for a home-cooked seafood feast and lots of Bordeaux wine-- not a bad alternative, but definitely not Thanksgiving.

Here in Romania, you can buy whole, frozen turkeys (imported from Greece or Poland) in the major supermarkets.  In Medias, Romania in 2007, I purchased one of these 12-pound Greek turkeys and it turned out fine, but when I checked the dates stamped on turkeys around Cluj, I found that most of the turkeys available for purchase have been in the freezer since December 2009 (presumably for last year's Christmas.)  In 2008, also in Medias, we opted to cook two fresh turkey breasts instead of a whole frozen turkey.

Over the last week or so, I've been contemplating whether I want to fight the uphill battle to cook a Thanksgiving dinner.  I gained courage from a few close American and Romanian friends, who are willing to share in the cooking responsibility, and so, it's a GO, and Thanksgiving 2010 is shaping up to be the best Thanksgiving Outside of the U.S.A. yet, compete with (drum roll please...) a fresh turkey, picked out three days ago from a farmer on the outskirts of Cluj, who typically raises a couple of animals for his family's Christmas celebrations.  He even offered to slaughter and pluck the bird for me for an extra $7- the deal of the century, if you ask me!  As it turns out, Romanians never cook turkeys whole, so I'm sure this year's butchering process will be a new experience for this particular farmer.  It's a story for him, too, as he happily contributes to an American's holiday needs.    

It'll be an adventure; I'm hosting, and in charge of the turkey and a few of the sides and desserts for 8 adults and 2 kids.  As of two days before the big dinner, after countless trips to multiple stores and markets around town, I've found everything I need except: 1.) a meat thermometer (how irritating: turns out Romanian farmers don't add the little pop-up turkey timers when they butcher a bird) and 2.) cloves.  Pretty good, all in all (though the lack of a meat thermometer is really nagging at me; how did the Pilgrims know when it was done?-- ahh!)  Pictures and updates to come, but for now, here's the menu (and now I'd really better start cooking):

**UPDATE: Wed. noon-- I found cloves, but they were whole.  Tried a few settings/adapters on the food processor, and was able to grind them somewhat successfully.  The pumpkin pie is in the over (guests beware of crunchy bits of cloves as you enjoy your dessert.)**

****UPDATE #2: Wed. 6 p.m.-- I finally have in my possession a meat thermometer, so I'll sleep well tonight.  We borrowed it from friends who own a local restaurant.  We picked up the turkey from the farmer this afternoon- a 20 pounder that (most importantly) fits in my refrigerator for tonight and the oven for tomorrow.  I think we're good to go!**** 

******UPDATE #3: Wed. 9 p.m.-- One additional adult added to the guest list.  Good thing there's gonna be a lot of food.******

Veggies & Dip
Fresh, Romanian TURKEY
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce
Pralined Sweet Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Roasted Vegetables
Macaroni & Cheese
Homemade Apple Sauce
Corn
Bread

Pumpkin Pie
Sweet Potato Pie
German Apple Cake

Hot Mulled Wine
Terri's Special Autumn Tea

From My Balcony

Maybe I'm being nosy, but as a foreigner, it's pretty interesting (okay- I'll be honest-- it's endlessly fascinating) to people-watch.  As it turns out, some of the best people-watching happens from my fourth floor balcony, which overlooks a courtyard and several other apartment buildings.  I think people tend to behave a little differently when they're home, or close to home, as opposed to when they're out and about in town.  They're just doing normal things that they do to survive, to provide for their families, to live a good life, or to relax.  As a new blogger, I've started to get in the habit of having my camera handy, just in case something important happens that I want to document.  Here are a couple of favorite "from my balcony" pics:

Keep in mind that this is right out my window- a FOURTH FLOOR apartment in one of Romania's biggest cities. This guy is shaking the tree to try to harvest some walnuts.

Not a very happy picture, but an unfortunate reality here in Romania.  In this economy and also with a significant "Gypsy" (or Roma, as they're now called) population, the dumpsters are constantly being checked out and searched through.  Very sad, but true.

A piece of Old World charm (and noise): especially on Saturday mornings, you can almost always see and hear someone (old, young, male, female- you see it all) taking their rugs down to this special rug-cleaning-bar in the courtyard, beating them clean, the old-fashioned way.  It's one of the many frugal survival skills, (like preserving your own food or resoling your shoes) that has just sort-of gone by the wayside in the U.S.

Aside from the awesome sunset that we get to see from our balcony most nights, I love this picture because it sums up the complexity of Cluj and Romania: An Orthodox church, a much older Catholic church, an old-fashioned Communist-era apartment building, a modern apartment building, satellite dishes, and massive construction cranes, way off in the distance.  There is palpable growth here in Romania; things are changes and moving towards modernity, but so many elements feel Old World, Eastern European, distant and far off to me, like a glimpse into the past, where so much of the American blood and ethics and traditions stem from.  I can't get over how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to experience all this, without even leaving my apartment.

A Walk Around the Block

For an American, there are two glaringly obvious differences between a Romanian city like Cluj and an American city like, say, Pittsburgh: 1.) uniform, gray, cement high rise apartment buildings lining the streets for as far as the eye can see and 2.) "seriously old stuff." 

Wikipedia provides the following information about Romania's Communist Architecture: "Systematization in Romania refers to a program of urban planning carried out under Nicolae Ceausescu’s communist regime.  Ceausescu, influenced by a visit to North Korea in 1971, began the campaign shortly after his return.  Systematization consisted largely of the demolition and reconstruction of existing villages, towns, and cities, in whole or in part, with the stated goal of turning Romania into a “multilaterally developed socialist society.”  Respecting neither traditional rural values nor a positive ethic of urbanism, systematization is now almost universally agreed to have been a disaster for Romania and a major contributing factor to the uncommonly violent fall of the Ceausescu regime during the Revolution of 1989."

From what I can gather, the region of Moldova, and Romania's capital city of Bucharest got the worst of it, though every Romanian city feels its effects to some degree.  Here's a picture from one of the main avenues in my neighborhood of Grigorescu.   

Although systematization did affect the outlying neighborhoods of Cluj, the majority of the city and its center were thankfully not significantly altered during the Communist era.  And man, oh man, does Cluj have an interesting and old history that deserves to be preserved!  There are impressive examples of Medieval, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture everywhere throughout this city.  After walking past this building (which I've come to find out is the Cluj-Napoca Calvaria Church) nearly everyday for the last several months, I finally took the time to enter the church grounds and read a little about it.

 

Here's what I found (you can click on the image to make it bigger):

Turns out that these church grounds, located just five minutes from my apartment, were home to a Benedictine abbey built in the 11th Century (i.e. the Middle Ages), and were among the first group of constructed buildings in the city of Cluj.  Over the course of the next one thousand years, the site was occupied, bought, destroyed, and inhabited by the Tatars (aka the Turks), Protestants (during the Reformation), Greek-Catholics, Jesuits, the Orthodox Church, the Roman-Catholics, and even some rich Transylvanian lords.  The hill on which the church sits truly is a National and European treasure.

The Calvaria Church in Cluj was fortunate, but it makes me shudder to think about a not-so-long-ago time in Romanian history--the mid-80's-- when monasteries, churches, synagogues, theaters, and monuments were demolished; here today, gone tomorrow.  It's true that not all of us happen to live down the street from a centuries-old monastery, but little local treasures are sprinkled around each of our communities.  And I think it's pretty safe to say that we could all be a little better about remembering to slow down and to take a good look around every once in awhile.   

Second in a Series of Four: Endless, Numbered Days

A few weeks ago, I posted the first painting from my "Endless, Numbered Days" Series: http://leftside-rightside.blogspot.com/2010/10/first-in-series-of-four-endless.html

Here's painting number two in the series.  It's my second time painting with acrylics.  My instructor, Maya, commented that as my "painting skills & technique improve, I should take care to maintain the childlike quality of my work."  Her second observation was that the viewer can tell that both paintings (so far in this series) were produced by the same painter.  The painting experience has definitely helped me to see the world in a new light, focusing more on details and how those details can be re-created.    

Amateur Animal Photography Portfolio

I'm not a professional photographer by any means.  I take pictures for the same reasons that most people take pictures:
1.) to capture a moment that I hope to remember forever
2.) to share my experiences with loved ones, and
3.) to create an impression of something that has moved me.

That being said, there are some places on this Earth that would make any amateur photographer look like a pro.  I know it's not a coincidence that the Top 5 Coolest Animal Experiences I've had in my life happen to have produced some of the best pictures I've ever taken.  Trust me, I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have received dream jobs, not once, but twice, teaching English in what is (in my humble opinion) one of the most amazing places in the world: Sub-Saharan Africa.  I am unbelievably thankful for all of these experiences and for the photos they happened to produce. 

Keep in mind that the following pictures were all taken with point and click cameras, with no more than a 10X Zoom.  All of the pictures were taken by either me, my boyfriend Rob, his sister or his mother, or my mom (the brave souls who came to visit us in Africa; all of whom fit the "amateur photographer" profile.)  As with most pictures on this Blog, you can click on any picture to make it bigger. 

1.  Hiking to see the Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda's Virunga National Park:

2.  The Cheetah Conservation Fund, Namibia: http://www.cheetah.org/.
The Conservation rescues cheetahs that otherwise might die or be killed.  Some of the cheetahs are used to being around people and will never be reintroduced into the wild, while others are exposed only minimally to humans with hopes that they can be re-released into national parks in the future.  While we were there (in May 2009), we were able to see the cheetahs exercise and to get in on the feeding process (chunks of horse meat are thrown out of the back of a pick-up truck; cheetahs come and grab the meat and then head into the bush to eat it.)

3.  Etosha National Park, Namibia; (and while we're "in Namibia," another amazing spot for landscape/animal viewing: Sossusvlei sand dunes in the Namib Desert.)  Etosha is a self-drive park, which contributes to the thrill of making discoveries.  While in Etosha, we headed out on a night safari and stayed up through the night to watch a lit watering hole.  We visited Etosha & Sossusvlei in February and May of 2009.

4.  Diving with the Great White Sharks in Gansbaai (near Cape Town), South Africa
I went in the cage in April 2009.  When we returned for the second visit in June 2010, I declared myself "the photographer" and stayed warm and dry on board the boat.

5.  The Serengeti National Park, Tanzania and Kenya, especially for the annual Wildebeest Migration & Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania: http://www.sunsafaris.com/serengeti-migration-route.html

(I'll have to post pictures from Serengeti and Ngorongoro at a later date, since I don't have access to them right now.  I had the good fortune to get to see the very beginnings of the great wildebeest migration (I was there in May 2007), when the wildebeests were starting to gather, blocking the roads and filling up the savanna as far as the eye can see.  I can only imagine how impressive the migration is when it gets into full swing in the late summer months.) 

Honorable Mention: Akagera National Park, Rwanda.  Because this was my first safari experience (in November 2006), it will always be near and dear to my heart.  It's also remarkable because you are can rent your own SUV and you're pretty much free to drive anywhere in the park, with or without a guide, you can camp within the park (at your own risk), and you generally feel like you have the whole place to yourself.  Sadly, the park lost many of its animals during the 1994 Genocide, and shortly thereafter, when the Rwandan government was forced to give part of the park land to returning war refugees due to land shortages.  Still, we have had incredible times there, and try to make it back to support the park annually.

Though not an incredible destination in and of itself, there is an Ostrich Farm near Okahandja, Namibia (on the road to Swakopmund.)  It allows you the rare chance to get up close and personal with ostriches, birds which tend to be on the elusive side within the national parks.   

Also worth mentioning is the tiny Kragga Kamma Game Park (http://www.kraggakamma.com) and the much larger Addo Elephant Park, both located near Port Elizabeth, South Africa.