Dracula's Playground

So, last week, our group ventured to Romania for 4 days to explore the countryside and to visit churches of different denominations. We went with a guide from a reformed demonination church group, I can't remember the organization's name, but our guide's name was Janos. (He will be leading 2 more of our trips, to Ukraine and Croatia.) We headed out at 7 in the morning in 3 really cool old fashion vans, 2 were Volkswagen vans from the 70s and the other was some van from the 80s or 90s, not nearly as cool in body style, but it was a bright mustard yellow, so that made up for it. The two VW vans were driven by Janos and Robert,who is another member of the organization. The yellow van was driven by Jordan, a Calvin student! Talk about an experience! haha. I made sure to sit myself in one of the VW vans, not because I didn't trust the Calvin student's driving, I just really wanted to ride in a VW van. : )

So we headed out through the crowded city of Budapest and onto the green and mountainous lands of Romania. We went through the border and all got a Hungary stamp and Romania stamp in our passports. After a while we stopped for lunch in a nice restaurant and then continued in our journey to visit our first church. The church was located in a very small village, and was up on a hill that felt very nice to climb after sitting in a van for a few hours. The church was basically a fortress created to prevent invaders from overtaking it. It had a brick wall which encircled it for protection and the interior of the church was quite quaint. Many embroidered textiles covered the front of the pulpit, the balcony, and some of the pews. It was very beautiful. (As we continued to visit other churches throughout our trip, we came to realize that many of the Hungarian reformed churches bear similar decorations. ) The pastor of the church told us about the church in Hungarian and our guide Janos translated for us. He said many of the embrodieries were from the communion classes.

After that, we headed off to another church and to meet our host families for the night. After a long day of travel, it was nice to be headed to an actual bed. I was placed with 3 other senior girls, whom I also travelled with in the van. Our host's name was Piri, I believe, and her husband was Yosef. As for the spelling of these names, I am really not sure. She was a cake decorator and had prepared us a large dinner including a goulash soup, a breaded chicken, pasta salad, stuffed cabbage rolls, and a cherry coffee cake. To drink, we even got to sample some of her and her husband's homemade cherry palinka. Palinka is usually taken as a shot, but our host family just sipped it with us was we cheered, "Egeszsegere!", Hungarian for "to your health". Unfortuanlely, one of the students in our group didn't watch to see how our hosts drank the palinka, so she just threw it back. We all thought it was so funny that we burst out laughing and our hosts had to leave to room to get their laughs out with out making the girl feel awkward. haha. It was pretty funny. Not to mention, palinka is around 40% alcohol and burns as it goes down your throat.

So after dinner, we were pretty tired and headed to bed around 9:30pm only to wake up around 6:45am for breakfast before heading out again. We walked back to the church to meet up with the rest of our group, took a picture with out host, thanked her, and were off again. We headed to another village to see more churches and then to a hostel near a castle. That night, after our group had dinner together, we played some games with our guides and our professor and his wife, who also came along on the trip. (Our prof. and his wife rode in the same van as me and talked to Robert a lot, so I got to hear some interesting stories and facts about Romania, particularly the Transylvania area where we were traveling.)

The next day we explored the castle a bit and a Saxon church inside the church walls, but this didn't last long because a celebration was occuring there. It was a celebration to bring the Saxons of Romania together with the Saxons of Germany, so I got to hear some people speaking German, which was a nice change, since I can understand bits and pieces. Then we headed of to yet another church and then on to a bigger city in Romania, that is the birthplace of Vlad "the Impaler" Dracul, a.k.a. Dracula! We got to explore the city a little and see the building that claims to be Dracula's birthplace, which is now a restaurant. (Not a bad way to make use of the tourism!) The bummer about our trip to Romania was, we didn't stop to see Dracula's Castle, which I hear is also a restaurant.

After our exploration and more sight seeing , we headed to the place where would bunk down for the night and had dinner in a really cool but really cold refurbished barn, dining room. Again it was a meal much like our host family's only the palinka was much stronger and supposedly plum flavor. Not a fan! The only upside to Palinka is the warm feeling it gives you after you drink it. And boy, can it burn. After this meal it was off to bed again and the next day we were to return to Budapest.

This tip was filled with many churches, about 9 or 10, many of different denominations. We saw Reformed churches, Catholic Churches, Saxon churches, an Armenian church, and we drove by some various Orthodox churches as well. The main purpose of our trip was to visit the land of Transylvania, which used to be a part of Hungary until after WWII, in order to learn about the various minorities that live there, such as the Roma (gypsies), the Armenians, the Saxons, and even the Hungarians, and to learn about the various types of religion that are in the Transylvania area. We learned about Transylvania's history and its connection to Hungary while getting to experience the land and the people first hand.

Overall, the weather in Transylvania was overcast and cool, and at times rainy or foggy, but the scenery was beautiful. It reminded me of West Virginia with its mountains and valleys and its trees. I really enjoyed every minute of the trip and it just so happened that we got to ride in one of the coolest vans ever made, even though I would have preferred it to be a VW van from the late 60s. Minor details! haha So I hope that gives you some more idea of what Transylvania was like!