My 26th Summer

My summer is not over, but the best part of it just ended - the summer holiday. If I could only have my share of the three months of "nothing to do in summer" that I used to have when in school.

2012 Summer Holiday:
Bucharest - Transalpina - Sibiu - Apuseni Mountains - Alba Iulia - Doftana - Bucharest

To get to Sibiu we took a special route - Transalpina known as "The Road of Kings". This is the highest and most beautiful road in Romania. The road is around 2000 years old and has been used both by the Romans to pass the Carpathians and the Germans in WW2. Its maximum hight reaches 2145 m and the view from there is spectacular.

We started with a well known festival in Sibiu - ArtMania. The festival is already an August tradition for the city, and the city is an island of non-romanian stuff in Romania. Sibiu still looks like the European Capital of Culture. Die Toten Hosen brought a lot of Germans to Sibiu, so for at least a couple of days we were surrounded by Deutsch blondes. I was also really happy to see Alternosfera (a small Moldavian band I've known since highschool).

The real adventure only started when we reached the mountains. Our plan was to visit Apuseni National Park, known for the glaciers that it hides and the wonderful karst fragments. We made as many routes as we could in the three days we had. We arrived on Sunday evening and had two nights of sleep in a mountain house (it was pretty modern so not the typical chalet) and were planning to sleep outside in our tents for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately in August, 40 degrees Celsius in Bucharest turn into 10 degrees Celsius in the mountains, with really low temperatures at night. So we spent one night in the tent and the other night in a trailer.

1st day
Cetatile Ponorului
(caves and top of the mountain views)

2nd day

Barsa Pit 

(glaciers, caves and lakes inside mountains)

The 2nd day gave us a story to tell forever. When we arrived at Barsa pit we heard a child crying inside the cave where the glacier is. A family was trapped...they entered the pit with no equipment what so ever to take photos, and the mother slipped on the glacier's ice and had a foot stuck in a crack. She was lucky she got stuck because otherwise the ice would have swallowed her into the mountains deep. It was really difficult for the boys to get them out of there, because she was freezing, almost hypothermic, and extremely scared. 

3rd day

The Yellow Gorges

(rocks, water coming out of the mountain's heart and top of the mountain views)

We ended our beautiful mountain trip with a long drive to Alba Iulia. This was my second time in the city and for the same good reason - Dark Bombasting Evening (DBE 4) - an underground music festival where you feel like home. While last year I focused more on the citadel - DBE 2011 this year I focused more on the festival.

A lot more people joined the festival, mostly foreigners, which was a really pleasant surprise. We all cracked on Friday, the first night of the festival, and then had to relax and recharge our batteries on Saturday. Great atmosphere, great music, great food and great people. It was a really nice way to end our holiday before heading for the city.

We got home more tired than we left, but much more relaxed. Unfortunately siting at the office is not as wonderful as climbing mountains...and it's even much more tiering.

My Summer of George has one more thing on the list...splash around the Black Sea...then it will be officially over :)

Hotul de carti

O mica teorie:

Oamenii observa culorile unei zile numai la sfarsit si la inceput, dar pentru mine este destul de clar ca ea combina o multitudine de nuante si tonuri, cu fiecare moment care trece. O singura ora poate consta in mii de culori diferite. Galbenuri ceruite, nunate de albastru patate pe nori. Intunecimea de nepatruns. In domeniul meu, mi se pare important sa le observ. 

O carte al carui povestitor este Moartea. O poveste care rasuceste moneda si analizeaza situatia nemtilor de pe strada Himmel (= Rai). O strada dintr-un oras nu foarte mare, prins in istorie la inceputurile unei noi ideologii - nazismul. Personajul principal, Liesel, un mic arian care interactionaza cu lumea prin ochi de copil si imbratiseaza Moartea celor din jur si in final pe a sa.

Hotul de carti

Markus Zusak

Teambuilding in Brasov

This weekend we had our first team building at Kilpatrick in Romania. Bucharest and Timisoara, along a small part of Milan met in Brasov for a weekend of fun. And needless to say it really was fun.

I left Bucharest later than everyone else and traveled by train to Brasov. I must say that I haven't been in a Romanian train for a long time...and I was utterly impressed. Clean, not crowded, restaurant wagon, air conditioning...that does not sound like the trains I used to know.

We didn't spend much time in Brasov, but I can say that we went to the best part of it: Park Aventura. I have heard about this place before, but it was my first and surely not last time here. Not very expensive for the fun you have: 39 ron/ 3 hours of adventures. You have different levels of difficulty: yellow (kiddie ride); green (very low difficulty); 2*blue (low difficulty); 2*green (difficult); red (very difficult); black (extremely difficult) and a zip line over a small lake.

In three hours we did 1 blue, two greens and the lake zip line. Not only our time was up, but we were also really tired and didn't have enough strength to do more. To do the difficult ones, you need to save up energy and maybe have a jar of honey like Yogy :)

Every "game" was different and exciting, and you were getting higher, and higher above ground. You cannot quit or stop, and you have to really push yourself even when you think that you can't do it anymore. For me one of the games really pushed my limits, mind and body. It took me half an hour to travel from one side to the other on 10 logs, but it was worth it...the others seamed piece of cake. For everyone in our team one game was the hardest...

The rest of the trip was really quality time spent together, unfortunately we were all too tired to party all night long and crashed early. But still we had walks and talks, we played games and enjoyed a cool weather from the mountains before heading back to the concrete jungle.