Sublime Sibiu

Greetings from Brasov!



B and I have been very busy the last two weeks with a lot of travelling around Romania. Almost two weeks ago, we left Bucharest on a beautiful Thursday morning with some Fulbrighters for a conference in the Transylvanian town of Sibiu. The conference was organized by the Fulbrighter who is stationed in Sibiu and was also the last official gathering of all the Romanian Fulbrighters for the year. The bus ride up was beautiful and very windy towards the end. On the way, we stopped at a monastery and for lunch; 5 hours later we were in Sibiu. Sibiu is a small medieval city with heavy German influences and it was the 2007 European Capital of Culture with its sister city, Luxembourg. When it was named the Culture Capital, a lot of money was pumped into the city, resulting in a major make-over. The city center especially has been upgraded and is full of beautiful buildings, shops, restaurants, museums and a great fountain. After having a chance to walk around the city on our own, we all met for a great dinner at a local German restaurant, Hermania. The dinner was nice and B and I enjoyed having a chance to reconnect with the Fulbrighters from around the country we don't see often. After dinner, we headed to a village outside of Sibiu called Rasinari, which is where our pensiune (B &Bs) were. Since our group was large, we were split up amongst 4 or 5 pensiune. Folks got settled into their rooms and since B was presenting the next day, he took the time to work on polishing his paper. I briefly joined some of the Fulbrighters at the local disco, The Boby. It was sort of a dive with few patrons that served lukewarm drinks, including the beer. I stayed only for a little while and then headed back to the pensiune for some sleep.

We were up early the next day to head back into Sibiu for the conference. B was on a morning panel and the first in his group, so while going first can be nerve-wracking, he was also able to get done first and enjoy the rest of the day. B did a great job with his paper and the other Fulbrighters seemed interested in his information. Unfortunately, though several Romanian students attended the sessions, they rarely asked questions or made comments. Hopefully they found the presentations informative and interesting, as we did. The group was taken to lunch at a local restaurant, Gothic, by the American and British Studies department of Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu. We had an amazing, but enormous 4 course lunch and then headed back for the afternoon session, which was also intersting. Next? Back to the pensiune for ... what else? More food! B and I had been asigned to stay in the "main" pensiune, which was the site of our farewell dinner. The proprietor, Mr. Badiu, cooked us what amost everyone described as THE BEST meal we have all had in Romania. Aside from the fact that everything served was either from Mr. Badiu's own garden or a local farm, including the wine and liquors, what he made was not at all the "typical" Romanian meal, which we by now have all had more times than we care to count, but rather just very good food that is true home-cooking. On a personal note, I would like to offer special praise for the delicious and creative vegetarian food, which included a wonderful vegetable soup, some soy cutlets with some of the creamiest mashed potatoes and some lingenberry sauce. Mmmm... As the night wore on, the Fulbrighters continued to enjoy what seemed to be an endless supply of Mr. Badiu's homemade wine. Some in the group also especially enjoyed the homemade tuica (plum brandy), which in this case was especially strong. We all had a great time until one of the group began to feel ill. B and I, along with some of our fellow Fulbrighters assisted the ill friend until we could get him into our room and then bunked in with another friend. Needless to say, getting to the bus for site seeing the next day was a bit of a challenge, given the lack of sleep. Nonetheless, we set off on time and were taken to a fortified village outside Sibiu called Michelsburg. We climbed to the top of the hill and had a chance to see the fortification and the town from above- it was beautiful. Our next stop was the Village Museum outside of Sibiu. Unfortunatly, we were on a tight schedule and only had about an hour to walk around. The Village Museum of Sibiu is much like the one in Bucharest in that it is an outdoor museum recreating traditional village dwellings from around the country. The museum was interesting and well done, and even had paddle boats to rent, but we did not have enough time to see it all. After the museum, we went back into Sibiu for lunch, after which we parted ways with our Fulbright friends who made their ways home all over the country. B and I were staying in Sibiu so he could do some research in their archives. So, we checked into our hotel, The Hotel Levoslav, which as it turns out was the home of the musician Levoslav and writer of the first Slovac Opera. We were lucky to have found a very nice place just steps from the main square. The hotel has been completely renovated and was very modern and the service was great. It was a great find. After getting settled into our room and catching up on some sleep, we took a walk around the main square and then went back to Hermania for dinner. It was a very pleasant evening, but we were tired soon and got a great night's sleep in a very comfortable bed.



On Sunday, we decided to take the opportunity to do more sight seeing and walked around the square and city some more. We found a quaint children's park with lots of families enjoying a warm Sunday afternoon, and we visited the Natural History Museum, which was free that weekend in honor of International Museum day. We visited an ethnographic museum whose main exhibit is usually about the Saxon population that used to dominate the area, but the day we attended they had two visiting exhibits- one about traditional religious art and the other about the Roma population in Romania. We also noticed an Ethnographic library and another larger ethnographic museum. We learned the museum would be free the next day because of the museum day celebration, so decided to visit it then. We visited the inside of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, a survivor since the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When the heat of the day was upon us, we went back to our room to rest and then headed back out. Before sundown, we decided to climb one of the two towers in town, which was 111 steps. The climb was nice with several rooms along the way in which to stop and watch the gradual change of the view. The view from the top of the tower was very beautiful and gives a 360 degree birds-eye-view of the city and surrounding county. We ate dinner at a new Mediterranean restaurant and then walked around another area of the city, where we saw the Romanian Orthodox Cathedral, modelled on the Haghia Sophia in Istanbul. Unfortunately, at this point, B's dinner began disagreeing with him and we headed back to the room to turn in for the night.



On Monday, B headed to the archives and I relaxed in our room and took the opportunity to have a bath in the soaking tub- what a luxury! After B got set up at the archives and was able to request some documents, we met up for a late lunch and continued our tour of Sibiu. We visited the Franz Binder Ethnographic Museum and were given a guided tour as we were the only visitors at the time. Franz Binder's collection was based on the 30 years he spent as a merchant and plant collector in Africa and well as items from parts of Asia. By the time we finished at the museum, we stopped for a quick coke and bathroom break at Cafe Wien, which is just behind the Evangelical Lutheran Church and has a terrace that overlooks to city. Cafe Wien became somewhat of a favorite of mine for the remainder of our time there and I visited every day until we left. Not only is the atmosphere nice, but the staff are great, the coffee and pastries great and the prices reasonable. Its also not very popular with the local students, so it is quiet and uncrowded. After Cafe Wien, we visited the Catholic Church in the square and then relaxed on the bench in front of the fountain. This became one of our favorite things to do in Sibiu. It was a very relaxing place and it was fun to watch all the families with young children enjoying the fountain. The kids seem to genuinely love the fountain and B and I noticed almost immediately upon arriving in Sibui just how much more relaxed the atmosphere and people seemed compared to Bucharest. That evening, we tried a restaurant in a large hotel in town called The Balkan Bistro, which B was especially excited about because the menu boasted dishes from Yugoslavia, Turkey, Albania and Greece. Unfortunately, the meal and the restaurant were extremely disappointing. The decor was very late 1980s and 1990s with very mediocre food. I guess you win some and lose some. On Tuesday, B returned to the archives and after reviewing his documents and taking his photos, he was informed by an archivist that he could not pay the photo tax at the archive, but rather at another location across town. So, he made a trek across town to find the payment office, but the only thing at the corresponding address was block apartments. Frustrated and angry at the wild goose chase, the two of us met for lunch and then visited the largest of Sibiu's museums, the Brukenthal Art Museum. The museum was quite large and boasted quite a collection of Medieval and Renaissance art. Afterword, B and I met the Fulbrighter based in Sibiu for ice cream and a nice chat. Since we weren't quite hungry for dinner, we decided to talk a walk and I offered to help B find the office where he is supposed to pay the photo tax, so we set out. A long walk later, no office was located. Frustrated and hungry, we went to a steakhouse recommended by our guide book. The restaurant was fine, but not what we thought it would be, but as we took are nightly stroll in the main square, we bumped into our Fulbright friend again, who was having a drink with a buddy, so we chatted some more.



Wednesday was our last full day in Sibiu and B went to the ethnographic library we had seen that weekend. He introduced himself and his project, not expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised to be handed an entire card catalog relating to the Roma. He reviewed the options and requested some documents for the next day. Then he went to the archives for the last time. He explained his attempts to pay the tax at which point, the archivist closed the door to the reading room and told B it was not necessary for him to try more and made it clear she had been asking B to do her job. Shameless! That afternoon we climbed the tower of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which has 192 steps and the view was well worth it. We had gotten a recommendation the night before for a Swiss restaurant called Max, which was located in Orasul pe jos or The Lower City. By the looks we got, it was clear that few tourists go to this area of town, which is a shame because there are some beautiful and interesting, if rundown old buildings in there. The Swiss restaurant was great and a wonderful change from the ubiquitous Romanian and Italian food we couldn't seem to escape. On Thursday Morning, we woke up early so B could get back to the Ethnographic Library and I stayed in the hotel to get us packed up. B was happy to have found great stuff at the library, making the visit worth it. After he finished his work at the library, we ate a quick lunch and headed to the train station for our trip to Brasov. What a wonderful and pleasant week in Sibiu! -S