Saturday, September 23, 2006

Today we went to the monasteries! We got up pretty early and met the two taxi driver friends of Mario’s outside. We filled up both taxis to the brim. My taxi has two in the front, 3 in the middle and 3 in the back and was very tight. We drove for like 3 hours before getting to the first monastery and I took tons and tons of pictures because it was really gorgeous. We went through all these cute little villages with lots and lots of horse drawn carts and farms and farmers and it was so cute and so Romanian. Also, I think Ricky Martin will always remind me of this trip because our taxi driver literally blasted the same cd of his the entire trip. We had to have heard the same songs like 5 times. Before we got to the first monastery Mario surprised us and took us to a wild life reserve. We couldn’t talk much while we were there though (or at most of the places) because in Romania they tend to charge you more if you’re foreign. So we get there and Mario’s like “shh! Don’t speak in English!” Anyway, the reserve was beautiful. It was really intimate and you could get so much closer to all the animals than you ever would be able to in the US. Like, I was literally a foot away from a bear and I got to actually pet some deer and touch their antlers and stuff. After the reserve we went to our first monastery. It was really beautiful and interesting, but sometimes pictures speak louder than words, so you’ll have to look on my yahoo photos for it. We walked around leisurely and went in the church (which had the head and bones of some saint) and then Mario told us some of the monastery’s history. After that we went to another fairly close one. Out in front there was this souvenir stand and I bought some really yucky thick sugary strawberry jam and an awesome switchblade from China for Arron (my bro) who is going to absolutely love it. Only problem is that it might be illegal in the US. I know it’s illegal to sell them in the US, but it could be like the Butterfly knife where it is in fact legal to own one, just not to sell one. There isn’t much else to say about that monastery, because it was mostly the same as the first. Then, we went to one more monastery and this one was my favorite for a few reasons. First of all it was the most beautiful, by far. Second of all it had the creepyist, belongs in a thriller movie wooden cross with misty creepy forest mountains in the background. And third of all, we got to eat with the monks there! It was soooo cool. They took us in the dining hall and had us all sit down at this table with bread, soup and eggs and they served us. I really felt it was so random and cool that I was sitting there at a monastery in Romania being served by monks. Also, the food was pretty nasty. Like, the eggs were not only cold but partially grey and Holly found a squirmy sluglike bug one hers which sicked the rest of us out. It was kind of a problem because then the monks were like “do you guys not like the eggs?” We contemplated just telling them that Mormons don’t eat eggs, but instead we said they were really good and put some of them in the soup and strategically move some around on the plates and even eat some. Other than eggs they had soup and bread. I liked the soup, but apparently everyone else thought it was unsanitary. The bread, however, was amazingly good. Also, another funny thing was that the monks gave beer to Mario and the two taxi drivers who aren’t Mormon and then randomly gave some to Jenna too! Good good monastery. After our last monastery, Mario surprised us again by taking us to this really cool mountainside fort. We’d seen it on the hillside and thought it was amazing and we were trying to catch pics of it and then the taxi drivers turn and went up the mountain toward it! We went part way up the mountain with the car, but went for a beautiful hike up the rest of it. Don’t really know what else to say about the actual fort either, because you’d just have to see it. After the fort we just drove the two hours home and were all exhausted.