We used to Vacation

Last Tuesday night: cookout

I met the boys - Oti, Sam and Benji. 2 filmmakers and one poet. I made them tell me all about themselves and then said 'yeah, I'm going to do Chemistry'. I won't write too much about them because it seems a bit invasive, but they are very exciting and all that. Stayed outide very cold and late watching Oti jump around talking about a filmmaker who is very close to his heart. Can't recall the name, began with T.

Wednesday - Sibiu
Two hot hours on a dusty potholed road through mountains and ramshackle villages, south east in Transylvania.
Made our way through the very picturesque and conveniently named Large Square to a restaurant.










It was trying very hard to be traditional, like my dress . Underground, low ceilings and I could have sworn I saw a waiter in traditional peasant garb though maybe I imagined this. Liberal use of sheepskin and strange soup based dishes. I escaped lightly with fried Zander and mixed vegetables. Have I mentioned the wonderful Anna yet? V.A.'s daughter, who is my dream come true. We got on rather well on this trip, she would go so far as to say we fell in love. She's teaching me Hungarian, now I can count. Anyway we shared some strawberry pancakes as well as jokes. For example, the Hungarian word for camera is picture machine or some similar, and her mum referred to it as photo-taker. Also, computer is counting machine. So we make up lame names for anything technological.. phone is 'voice taker maker communicator' and laptop is 'carriable counting machine'. Everyone else was so serious, we were the comic relief.

Visited the Brukenthal Museum, full of still lifes (yes, like a bowl of oranges) and family portraits.
Watched a spectacular Faust in an old warehouse, specially converted into hell for our amusement. The cast was the size of the audience, and the leads were fantastic.
We took candid shots when we were ushered through the stage into hell behind by men in doctor's coats and pig masks. Or as Anna said, " Candy picks". Or maybe I just pretended to mishear her.