5 Reasons Why Romania is Better Than You (Probably) Think

1. Argatu & Subcarpati

Listening to underground Romanian folklore artists such as Argatu and Subcarpati will change your religion. Not that I was a good Christian before, it’s just that I’ve turned into a Pagan after hearing and feeling it. Codrule, marite domn, one of my favorite song can be translated as Forest, Gentle Prince. Listen to it!

2. Become a pilot

Due to a communist regime heritage in which raising future pilots was necessary, young Romanians (aged 16-23) can attend FREE lessons and obtain various air-traffic licenses: 1.Private Pilot License (PPL-A), 2. Ultralight Planes Pilot License, 3. Glider Pilot License and 4. Skydiver License. If you are really eager to fly a plane, you can do it before getting your driver’s license at the age of 18. Amazing isn’t it?

3. English

I have no clue about the rest of the country but people in Cluj are nearly fluent in English language. I am not only talking about high school and college students but also about bus drivers, ladies in cigarette shops, muay thai trainers and taxi drivers. Some of them also speak German and even more Hungarian, which makes living much more easier; especially if you only know how to say little cat in Romanian (pisica mica). Don’t ask.

4. Spending time in a broken car can be fun

While coming back from a trip to Sighisoara, Transylvania’s historical gemstone, we experienced how it is to face a slippery road and involuntarily change the lane, almost checking the depth of a ditch. Nobody was hurt except for the car who suffered a flat tyre and was leaking oil. We waited nearly 5 hours for our rescue vehicle to take us back to Cluj and although it was as cold as a Romanian winter in a broken car, we enjoyed ourselves playing truth or dare, 20 questions and imagining how warm and nourishing a tea can be – and eventually it really was.

5. Chance to explain to an International relations student Slovenia is part of the Balkans

Even if the fancy books are saying something else, even if you’ve been thought differently, even if a pretentious Slovene tells you we are central Europe and even if the title of this blog entry has nothing to do with this particular paragraph, Slovenia is part of the Balkans; if you don’t believe me, just put some wine and a guitar in front of a Croat, Macedonian and a Slovene and observe the magic of music, instant friendship and juicy language. Based on a true story.

*. Closure

Allow me to finish this entry with a cliche or two. During this EVS experience I’ve realized people should travel more, not because of experiencing new cultures is “in” but because I have been seeing too many cases of people being amazed how similar we are to each other. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel the excitement of two Slavic people finding out they actually don’t need English in order to communicate, even if one is Polish and the other one from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It’s the people who never realize that I’m worried about.

Second (third, fourth) cliche could go something like this: I had a really good time staying in Romania, I’ve met wonderful people everywhere I went, I am going to visit Cluj again etc…

All the cynicism aside, I really did, I really have and I actually will.

Jaša Prajnc

THE HAPPINESS OF EVS :)

Hi again,

After we spent many good moments in first month, finally we jumped the second month which is our last month in Cluj Napoca. It was not good idea to count the days but ı counted the days left, every day because ı have not really wanted to leave from Cluj. Anyway, I still have many good and interesting things to explain to you, before explain the sadness of leaving.

December activities

On December we partcipated trip to Alba Iulia. The small  beautiful city where the new Romanian state was founded. There was a parade of vehicles, historical and present too. After that we visited national museum of Romanian where I spent a lot of time about watching on small car models. Bery had to take me out, cause I was very curious about these models and everyone was watinig for me.. The trip was good, but the weatjher was terrible, fortunately hot wine improved my mood.

After that new volunteers came. They seem to be a cool. They are from Finland, Armenia, Belarus and Macedonia. 2 girls and 2 boys. We organized party for them in the office.

We had a lot of free time, but we organized lot of actions too. By chance I can mentioned International World Cafe, movie nights about different topics and finally Internatinal night where we presented our culture, national cuisine and drinks, habits and music to another people.

Finally last weekend we were on trip to Sighisoara with new volunteers. City was pretty, but on way back another car (not ours) had a little accident becaused of slippery surface of road. Fortunately nothing happened to anyone. But the oil cistern was broken, so they had to wait for another 4 hours in nowhere for help. But everything has already fixed.

I didn´t have any planns for Christmas. I was watching some Czech fairytales, eating biscuits, drinking beer and listening some carols. Of course we had a traditional Christmas Dinner with different types of dishes. The potatote salad from France and Schnitzel were very good. Afterthat it was followed by Christmas party.Tommorow my girlfriend is going to visit me on 27 of December. We are gonna to visit countryside near Cluj, maybe some hitchhiking and visiting another cities. Afterthat we are going back together on 4 of January at home.

Second month in Romania

Buna! Hello! Cześć!

High time for the second post, as our interesting experience in Romania is coming to the end. We saw here completely different face of land of Dracula, meet new friends, travel and had possibility for volunteer work in interesting topics. I hope we could also let some Romanians to learn a bit about our cultures, by organizing our Intercultural Evenings. In last week in our Organization Support for Youth Development people could experience in sequence: Polish & Czech Evening, Croatian & Slovenian Evening and Turkish & Spanish Evening. We organized in this month also another International Word Cafe, Movie Nights, Workshop about Paint and Draw and some integrating evenings and parties.

We could explore the country more by some interesting trips. We could participate in Celebration of National Birthday of Romania, what happened at 1 December in city Alba Iulia. We saw there military parade, visited interesting museum of country Romania, nice old town and learned a bit about politics.

I liked much trip to Sighisoara, city where Vlad Dracul was born. We had luck and with very nice weather we could enjoy this medieval city. Small streets with colorful little houses and stone pavements are good models for photograph lovers. You can’t miss there old Clock Tower from where extends amazing view at whole city and covered staircase from 1642 year with thousands of stairs. 🙂

In the second post I would like to write also little bit about our great city Cluj-Napoca. It is one of the most pretty cities in Romania. We can find here old town with interesting architecture. I’m personally big fan of it. The style of buildings, especially roofs, looks little bit like from fairytale. The places must to see are two main squares Piata Unirii and Piata Avram Iancu surounded with many climatic streets. Recommended places are also Cluj Botanic Garden, where you can have a green rest from noise of the busy city and hill Cetatuia, good place to admire in peace panorama of whole city. In my next post I will put some more photos about this topic :). But what Cluj is famous the most is its night life, center of the city never sleeps, bars, pubs and clubs in huge amount welcome you at every corner. It is a dream place for young people who are searching for fun and parties.

Now time to celebrate Christmas together 🙂

See you in the next year 2015!

Lucy (Ludwika from Poland)

Activities in Romania

Hello everybody! Greetings from Romania!

I have to write article about our activities. We had a lot of activities. At first we had an on arrival training organizing by hosting organization Support for Youth Development. It was good, especially free lunch.:) I liked it, but next time please without tripe soup, stomach from cow it´s not my cup of coffee. After that we had some days off and after that we visited Connector – non formal learning process. There was a lot of workshops, I choosed Jogling and street animation. I expected more, especially from the teacher and his attitude. But at least I learned some new tricks with the „magic staff”. But I mostly liked the performance of drumming. It was so rytmic!

After that we had an on arrival training in Predeal near Brasov. This location had a beautiful mountainview and with some snow seemed to be like in fairytale. But we met a lot of new faces from all Europe. We were busy. We heard lot of information about EVS, role of volunteers, sending organization, hosting organization, AXA insurance and so on. Most of the time we spent indoor, but on Thursday we finally left our apartment and went to the trip to beautiful winter nature.  I really enjoyed it. But the training was very teoretical for me.

To be continued….

From Poland to Romania

Hello everybody,

My dear friends wrote already about our activities in Cluj and Predeal, about cool trip to Bran, and Romanian culture in general.

I will try to add a little bit of experiences from mine-polish point of view.

At first some general impressions about Romania as a country and about its culture.

I came here with many bad stereotypes. I really don’t know why, but people in Poland identify Romania with very poor land, full of gipsy people, pickpockets and stray dogs. Everybody, who I spoke about my plans, dissuade me to spend here few months of my life. I imagined this place as very dangerous zone, where I will be afraid to go out of flat alone. But as I ascertain many times, it is always better to create your own opinion instead of blind trust to rumors.

First impression about Cluj-Napoca was very positive. The city has so nice architecture, beautiful old town and many cool bars and clubs. The people are very polite, kind and hospitable, also as guys said girls are very pretty here. There is almost no gipsy people or stray dogs on the streets, at least not more that in Warsaw.

However, as we heard Cluj is one of the best, or maybe even the best city in Romania, according to security, culture and level of life, so maybe some other parts of Romania suits better to some not positive stereotypes.

Impressing is the number of people speaking English language in Cluj, since I traveled a lot around Europe, I must say that, I didn’t meet so many English speakers yet. People selling vegetables, cashiers at shops, waiters or passers on the sidewalk, all of them were possible to communicate in English. I didn’t see it other countries like: Spain, Italy, France, Turkey or Croatia. Maybe it is just specificity of Cluj, I don’t know.

 

Quite extraordinary thing on the streets is, when we rise our head above, we can notice the huge mess in electricity wires. I have never seen such a  thing before. From one electricity column can pass around 50 wires. What you can see on the picture below.

Nice information for polish people, 1lei is almost equal to 1zloty, so we don’t have to count money during shopping. There is also one interesting thing about Romanian bank notes – they are made with plastic, any rain or washing machine can destroy them, almost impossible to tear up. The prices (at least in Cluj) are very similar like in Poland, drinks in bars are less expensive than in Warsaw, but have similar prices to small polish cities.

And what we have learned here until now? We had 2 arrival trainings, one for few days just after our arrival to Cluj and next one in the end of November for five days in beautiful city Predeal. We learned a lot interesting things, about our EVS stage, about problems that we can face, how to be a leader, how to work in a team, also about Romania and its culture and our lovely city Cluj-Napoca. During 5 days of Connector event, which took part in Cluj we learned many methods of non-formal education, which can be useful during work with kids and youngsters. Working in our organization Support for Youth Development give us chance to organize and take part in events like: educational movie nights, discussions about youth problems with a cup of coffee, prepare intercultural evenings about our cultures, Buddhist meditations and much more. Every day we learn something new, what spread our horizons and give a chance to help others.

That would be enough for the first time 🙂

I hope you enjoy with us our Romanian adventure and see you after two weeks.

Lucy (Ludwika) from Poland

MI EXPERIENCIA PERSONAL

Yo quería salir de Barcelona,lo necesitaba lo tenía muy claro; y como caído del cielo encontré a mi fundación de envío la cuál me enseño este proyecto. 2 meses lejos de Barcelona, Catalunya, España y todos sus sinsentidos, el trayecto y la estancia cubierto por la Unión Europea, con un proyecto de crecimiento personal y desarrollo de los jóvenes… QUE MÁS PODÍA PEDIR ?! 🙂

Llevo 1 mes ya aquí y la verdad es que es MUY difícil describir con palabras todos los sentimientos, emociones y experiencias vividas en tan poco tiempo. Para que tengais una pequeña idea: estoy viviendo un sueño 🙂 Estoy conociendo a personas increíbles, según mi punto de vista claro, personas con mentalidades totalmente diferentes con las cuales estoy acostumbrado a tratar, y eso me esta haciendo crecer como persona a pasos agigantados. En cuanto al inglés lo mismo, el verme “obligado” a mantener conversaciones en ingles dia a dia… aveces me supera y necesito mis momentos de desconexión pero el resultado, a mi parecer esta siendo asombroso 🙂

Mañana lunes 8 del 12 del 2014 D.C.  empieza una nueva semana, la cual presiento que va ha estar cargada de actividades y proyectos, y no hay nada que deseé hacer más. Estoy muy feliz porque tengo motivos por los cuales levantarme por la mañana y decirle al mundo:

GRÁCIAS ! 🙂

Eight Things I`ve Learned in a Month Living in Romania

1. Transylvania does not equal Romania

Everybody I`ve talked to said people here are more progressive and much more relaxed than those living in the South. Cashiers remind me of that every time I have to wait in line of one (me) for 4 minutes in order to pay.

2. Romania does not equal street dogs and poverty

Even in the 21th century and even within Europe (especially Europe), there is a stereotype which portrays Romania as a smelly land with excessive amounts of dangerous Roma people gangs, street dogs and only gray buildings. The truth is buildings can also be brown or green.

3. You will not spend a single Lei for data roaming

According to various internet sites and resident people (and now me), Romania is one of the best countries in the world considering internet speed and accessibility. You can connect to Wi-Fi everywhere; most of the bars don`t even have it password protected. Not that the internet is the most important asset in life, the thing is you would probably put at least 50 countries before Romania on that list, even North Korea.

4. The girls are beautiful

My current relationship status prevents me from saying anything more. But oh my God they are.

5. Cluj-Napoca is the place to go

Everybody will tell you to visit this rightful successor of the European Capital of Youth title. More than one fifth of its population consists of students and the nightlife is following the all-around atmosphere of the city perfectly. Let`s put it this way: I`ve read a couple of days ago on the (easy accessible) internet that London was selected as the world`s party capital and I felt offended by it.

6. Get used to chicken and potatoes

Maybe it was only Predeal, beautiful ski resort in the mountains – like Switzerland but eight times cheaper, and maybe it is just a coincidence but I feel like chickens in Romania are experiencing genocide at the moment. The future does not seem bright for the nation of Potatoes as well.

7. It is safe if you`re not an idiot

Two fishy occasions happened. One time a couple of guys came into our unlocked apartment and sprayed something (probably water) underneath the sink and requested a signature along with 120 lei (approximately 30 eur). Of course we did not pay; we were stupid enough to let strangers into the flat. Second time my friend and I missed the main street and ended up getting lost in a twilight zone (the real one, not the one with vampires, bad plot and poor acting) near the train station. After a guy who was walking a dog showed us to go to the left, which led to a dark alley, started to call out for his friends saying “Englezi! Sunt englezi!” we`ve decided it is probably best to follow the light on the right and we were right.

8. The music is everything

And everywhere. I have travelled most of the Europe and never heard music on the (trolley) bus station. More than that, the city in which I live, you`ve guessed it – Cluj, is closely connected to jazz. Finding live qualitative music never seemed so easy.

Author: Jaša

*EVS period in Romania*

Hi My Friends,

I have started to learn many things since I came to Romania. I started from Bucharest to discover the country.  I had a long and tiring trip for coming to my second home; Cluj Napoca. Before, ı came to Cluj, unfortunately ı had same prejudices about Romania because people were telling me some weird stories about Romania, but most them, did not even see theRomania before they get this weird stories. I knew that you should not talked about anything certainly which you did not experience it. However, ı was affected by their weird stories.

After I came to Cluj, I was really surprised. The city was so nice. Then, ı met with local people and ı saw, Romanian people are so friendly and nice. I have not had any bad experience about them till now. I have visited 3 cities of Romania and I saw almost all Romanians are so nice. It was really good experience to avoid of being prejudiced about something you do not know.

Moreover, I had to learn to live with people I do not know. I have lived with other people in the same flat before but it was not same situation which I had here. I had to stay with 5 other volunteers from Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, Spain, and Czech Republic. The first day, I was thinking that “how will I stay with them in same flat in 2 months?” The 6 different countries, 6 different cultures, 6 different kinds of habits and so on.  Fortunately, it was not difficult to handle this issue because they we really nice people. We have been having some conflicts for sure but we used to live together in a short time.

I also learnt many convenient things during that one month. We started to have some training at the beginning of our EVS period. We had some games and workshop about teamwork, culture shock, developing empathy, collaboration…etc. The workshops were so useful for me. Definitely, I will use most of them in my life.

Furthermore, we created some events for youngsters in Cluj Napoca, such as; International World Café, Movie Night, Buddhist Night. We had to work as a team for creating event. We created a schedule first then separated the tasks and worked in harmony. So, we had good events for youngsters. We are still working for new events.

                              

Then, I took apart in two events, two unforgettable events for my EVS period till now. Firstly, I participated in Connector Program 2014 in Cluj. It took one week and I had really good time. The program included 16 different workshops and I took a part in the workshop of Environmental Art. Our team had 20 participants and we created some projects together. We made artistic works in the park and we shared our environmental arts with local people.

       

Finally, the OAT (On Arrival Training)! It was so useful, enjoyable and great opportunity for me. Before we go to Predeal for OAT, I could not think that I will spend the best time of my life in that nice town. We spent almost 7 hours to reach Predeal, it was challenging trip for us but when ı see Predeal and our hotel, I was really excited about coming 5 days. We had workshops every day. We were waking up in the morning and spending all day by attending workshops but nobody was complaining about this. We had some workshops and games about culture shock, EVS, Youth Pass, AXA insurance, Romanian Language and Culture, SO/HO/Mentor/National Agency, and intercultural sketches of participant’s countries which are prepared by EVS volunteers in OAT. Moreover, the day before last day of OAT, we walked to peak of mountain in Predeal, our facilitator gave us some cases to solve during our walk. Then, we reached to peak and had lots of fun together J At the end of the OAT, I was so sad to leave my new friends. It has been one of the best times in my life. Personally, I had grown up during the OAT and I have gotten different kind of much practical and helpful information.

                       

                            

I hope, you enjoyed with the experiences I had during a month period of my EVS.

Thank you for your attention! / Multumesc Frumos!

See you again! and greetings from Cluj Napoca!

Cihan Coşar 🙂

Dracula`s castle!!!

My dear readers,

Greetings from Kowlun Pub in Brașov where your beloved author is now writing this post!

Today morning my dear friends Lucy, Jaša, Alex (a.k.a.  Sury), Cihan, Lukaš and me left winter paradise of Predeal, to visit Dracula castle.

In the train station of Brasov we met Gabriel, our angel of transportation, who took us with his car directly to Bran castle. When we got to the castle Lukaš had a some kind of salty donut with cheese and a lot of garlic, in order to protect himself from the vampires and other unholy forces that dwell in this castle.

“Very interesting architecture” Lucy said. Indeed, it was. Since I`m from Croatia, I found it`s aestetics similar to the old fortress of Varaždin

.

A lot of merchantdise is to bee seen near the Castle, including some wooden flutes, masks made of wood and sheep wool, and the classic stuff as shirts, fridge magnets etc.

Today we will take the night train to Cluj, full of some new experiences. I must say that people of Brasov were very nice and polite to us, and Romanian culture is very rich and interesting.

BUT!!! I believe that you want to know the answer to this question!

Is Castle Bran really so impressive?

While the castle itself is  interesting to the people who want to know more about history or about Vlad, I wouldn`t call it impressive. Decorations inside the castle are minimalistic, but if you are near Bran, Romania, you should definitely stop to see this famous castle!

Author: Mate