Day: July 3, 2009

2 July. Five pictures from my Washington DC trip.

On this day, Sara, was kind enough to drive me to Leesburg to visit my childhood friend. That’s us there, myself, Becky and her son, Thompson. As you may guess from the picture, Thompson is about to have a new brother. It was a lovely visit, I hadn’t seen Becky since her wedding in 2000. I also really like this picture. Double thanks, Sara.
Becky gave us directions to lunch which we found quite easily once I realized that we weren’t lost at all, I was just reading the Mapquest directions incorrectly. I liked that the Hunter’s Head advertised Beef Liver & Onions right on their sign. As if that is something people often look for in a restaurant.

After lunch (I had Colcannon) we stopped to take a picture of this lovely church.
We drove to Oatlands, but were not super inclined to take the tour. We wandered the grounds but were not allowed past this point without tickets. So this is my picture of the house. You can see the actual house on the link.
Returning home, I got to go to Costco with Sara and Shawn. It was pretty interesting. They introduced me to the “spot the diplomat corps car” game, and the parking lot was one you had to pay to park, unless you got your parking stub validated. I’ve never seen that in conjunction with a Costco. Costco itself is always a bit overwhelming to me–all that large quantity of food–so that was a tourist attraction in and of itself.

What took the cake (took the chocolate slab?) was the large, solid chocolates molded in the form of the Pentagon. They had them in the shape of the US Capitol and the White House, which I get, but would you want a solid chocolate form of the Pentagon? That place where wars are planned and executed? It’s a little odd.

After Costco, the three of us attended Away We Go. Our ticket seller was perhaps part snail; he was the slowest clerk I’ve encountered in a long time.

2 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

Today was a very long day of travel across the Hungarian plain. We said goodbye to our host families in the morning, and climbed on the bus. The bus turned out to not really have air conditioning, and it was a very hot and long day.

Our first stop was at the Hortobagyi Pasztormuzeum. This is a small museum, but one of my favorites on the trip. Until the communist era, the area around the museum was a great range where different kinds of animals were raised by herdsmen. They have traditional costumes on display–including the very cool coats they used to wear. I am having trouble finding a picture of the coats, but have discovered what we had for lunch. It was delicious, and one of my favorite meals of the trip. I also learned at this museum, that there was a hierarchy of herdsmen depending on what kind of animal you took care of. I believe geese were at the low end of the scale and I think horses were at the top. Traditionally, the herdsmen were also great horsemen and they are famous for riding around and cracking their whips to get things moving. Ted, one of the youth really liked the whips and bought one, though everyone else who tried, seemed to be better at cracking the whip then he was.

We drove though the plain, crossing over into Romania. Our destination was Kolishvar, which is the Hungarian name for the city that is now known as Cluj-Napoca. On the way, we passed the gypsy houses with the fancy tin roofs. They are huge houses, four and five stories tall, with the most elaborate roofs. This group of Gypsies are known for their metal work and so they build their houses big, so as to maximize the roof area. The houses themselves are most often shells, with no windows, unfinished walls, open rooms. The family usually lives in a smaller house in the back.

Eventually we got to Kolishvar. Because I was traveling with ethic Hungarians, I will be using the Hungarian names for things. In Romania most cities/villages/towns have two, or sometimes three names. (Hungarian, Romanian and sometimes Saxon) Kolishvar was a major city in the Hungarian Kingdom, and today is the fourth largest city in Romania.

We were staying at Janos Zsigmond Unitarius Kollegium (which we called the Unitarian High School) in the dorms where the students live during the year. All of the girls on the trip were able to stay in one room. That is eight girls in one room, with room for four more. I could not imagine living an entire school year in one room with 11 roommates. Our rooms were on the top floor and they had skylights. At this point in the evening, we are all taking pictures of the Kolishvar skyline and each other.