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.