Romania Travels

The trip here went so smoothly - the boys did great for the most part. During our second layover they reached their breaking point, and were incredibly hyper - and we were incredibly short on patience - so it was a little volatile. But after 14 hours on planes I figure they deserved a little bad behavior...



Conor doesn't really remember flying to Vegas last time, so he was a bit anxious. Kept asking if we were in the air yet, and wouldn't believe us when we said no... The first plane was the long one - 9 hrs - from Houston to Paris, and each seat had it's own TV. There were a ton of selections, probably 50+ movies, along with some games and tv series. We let the boys stay up late TX time so they could play with it - I think they both konked out about 12:30am. In Paris we had a one hour layover, which was particularly stressful since they start boarding the plane about 40 minutes before departure. We had to sort of push and shove our way off the plane, everyone was jostling for position, while herding the boys and the bags out. There was no feigned politeness... it was every man for himself. While I'm trying to get a bag down from the overhead and not whack either boy in the head with it, I still had people trying to shove me aside so they could get past. Our opinion of Parisians is not changed... The transfer went well, though - we left the plane, found our way to an escalator, got on a tram, went to a new terminal, went up another escalator, found our gate, and walked onto the next plane and had about 20 minutes until we took off. If you could guarantee that every time, the short layover wouldn't be bad at all.



Arriving in Bucharest felt decidedly more foreign. It's funny how each stop led to less people speaking English, less familiar sights and sounds, and layout / architecture / etc feeling less common to us. It was kind of fun seeing that transition in steps through the different airports. My only complaint was the lack of potable water - my throat was dry from the airplane air, and we were out of liquid. I wondered why all of the little shops were unmanned and closed up in the middle of the day, until I realized that it was 9:30pm on a Sunday. Jetlag begins!



Arrived in Cluj-Napoca with no incident... Aidan's eyes sagged close with liftoff - he couldn't fight off the G-force - and I had to rouse him for the last five minutes of the flight. I wasn't sure he was going to be able to walk off the plane on his own legs, and both adults arms were full with baby and baggage. We were last off the plane just to avoid the jostle, and when we got off there was a shuttle bus waiting for us - full of everyone on the plane waiting for us. The last shall be first! We loaded onto the bus, and then drove about 30 ft. Apparently there is a regulation that prevents walking directly from the plane to the terminal...



First night it took quite awhile to get the kids asleep. They were exhausted to the point of zaniness, and couldn't be reasoned with. Conor was nearly beside himself with hyper silliness, and had that look of desperation in his eyes brought on by being so tired his brain just couldn't compute it. All Amy and I wanted to do was lay down and pass out, and the kids just couldn't settle down. I think we finally gave in and let them work it out on their own.



Day 1 - A nice relaxing day. The boys slept late - until about noon local time. Amy was up at 10, i at 11am. or 3 and 4 am, to our bodies... My nephew Eli gave me a tour of the house... showed my their in-construction-phase pool. I asked him "will you swim in it", and he replied (and you've got to imagine a strong accent from a 4 yr old, almost italian sounding) "I cannot - there isn't enough water". Indeed - just a few inches from the rain at the bottom of a muddy pit right now! Can't argue with that logic... We played with the kids through the afternoon, nursing them and us along through the worst of jetlag. 4 in the afternoon day 1 has to be close to the worst feeling I've had -- it's remarkably similar to having a newborn after the first week. Everything in your body wants to sleep, and sleep doesn't even sound GOOD - just feels like the absence of this heavy burden you're carrying around. It doesn't seem possible that you are going to be able to keep yourself awake for another six hours, and the minutes begin to stretch into longer and longer timeframes.



At around 5 we drove to a mall where they were celebrating Internaional Children's Day, and as we turn the corner, what do my heavy eyelids see? A Starbucks... sweet nectar of the gods! They really are taking over the world... along with Pizza Hut and McDonalds. The mall was huge, and immensely impressive. Romania has changed a lot in the ten years since we were here last - it almost seemed like this mall was single-handedly trying to convince everyone that Romania was modern and current. It's quite different from the eastern-block feel of the older parts of town...



We ate at a traditional Romanian restaraunt, and ate Bean Soup served in a bread bowl (and this bowl was probably a two-pound-loaf) - it was a lot of food that apparently I ate most of and Amy "helped a little" (you can ask her about this one). My meal was a beef stew served with something like mashed potatoes, except made with corn meal. It was quite tasty... The restaraunt was very fun - with servers in old fashioned white linen outfits, and rustic themed decor... Amy and Cristian assured us that the food was some of the best in town, and they didn't just bring us here for the touristy goodness.



Back at home we photographed the boys, attempted to upload the photos to facebook, and fell into bed, exhausted. Beginning of adventure complete... can't wait for more!!