Transylvania and Dracula's castle

About two weeks ago, the whole high school traveled up to an area near the town of Bran for their annual retreat. This area is close to a part of Romania known as Transylvania. Yes, Transylvania is a real place, although fact and fiction have been mixed up quite a bit in this area. So, today I decided to give a quick overview and separate fact from fiction, as well as give you a little peek of what you might see if you go to this part of Romania.

The first thing we saw as we entered the village was this:

A funeral procession with an open casket. These are by no means limited to Transylvania. I have seen them in the middle of Bucharest, but I thought it was kind of interesting that this was the first thing we saw upon entering Bran, the home of Dracula's castle. A Romanian funeral procession is lead by a person carrying a cross, everyone wears black, and the casket is always open.

There is a lot of superstition related to death in this part of the world, and some of the vampire legends evolved from these superstitions. 

As I stated before, the village of Bran is home to Dracula's castle. I had the chance to tour the castle, and being a pretty big fan of both the history behind the real Dracula, and the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, I was very excited to be able to see the castle for myself. 

 The facts about the castle are that it was a stronghold built by Teutonic knights in the year 1212. It was used against invading Turks by the mid 1400s, when Vlad Dracul was in charge of the country. Vlad Dracul was a Romanian ruler who did a very good job keeping the Turks out, but he also used some very brutal tactics. He would impale his victims and leave them impaled lining the streets. However, he didn't just impale Turks, he was also very ruthless towards any of his countrymen and had a bloody reputation towards anyone who crossed him the wrong way.

Although there are some old secret stairways and all kinds of interesting corners, the castle at Bran isn't really linked to Dracula through history. It would have been part of his domain during his reign, but I don't believe that there is any proof that he actually lived there. The castle is actually furnished for the time period that Queen Marie lived there  around the late 1800s to early 1900s.

The novelist, Bram Stoker, wrote Dracula as a vampire based on the old Romanian ruler Vlad Dracul. He choose this castle as the inspiration of the castle that Dracula lived in, in his book. It's a very interesting castle, and it was pretty popular among tourists. I counted eight different languages being spoken by people touring the castle, which is quite a bit considering I rarely hear a language other than Romanian being spoken in Bucharest.

There are some Vlad Dracul ruins in Bucharest as well, and he is considered a hero in Romania.

Food for the winter

Late summer, early fall is the perfect time to be Romania, because tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, etc. are in season and dirt cheap. In the height of tomato season you can buy them for about 30 cents a pound! There are fruit and vegetable stands and markets all over the city selling produce for ridiculously low prices. If I had the time or knowledge I would definitely go crazy making jams, jellies, salsa, sauces, pickles, and whatever else I could keep in a jar. Since I don't really have the time to do that, I decided to just buy a little extra of all the vegetables that are in season and freeze some for later.

I like to go to the biggest market place in the city at Obor. It is massive and has many different parts. There is an indoor part where you can buy clothes, shoes, washing machines, household goods, sewing items, and so on. Then there is another indoor area that has mostly dry goods and pet food.

There's another area with clothes, another area with car parts, another area with.....well just about anything. It's a maze that keeps on going. The main section that I go to in Obor is an open building that has fruits and vegetables on the first floor. (I don't venture up to the second floor that has meats and cheese, but I did check out the fish section in the back once.)You can buy whatever is in season for very reasonable prices. Here's what I came home with a few weeks ago.

I chopped up the vegetables and ended up with a few bags worth to freeze for later on. Last year I made some tomato sauce and froze it as well. Now that the weather has cooled off a bit I might do that again. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of room in my freezer. 

School

I have just started the third week of school, and it's already been a whirlwind of crazy. The good news is I have my own room this year, complete with a computer and printer. It's pretty exciting to have my own area to decorate and organize my things. The students are back and definitely ready to learn. Today, however,  was  really a Monday and a few of my students did not seem to be able to stay awake. I have enjoyed getting back to teaching, however there are so many little issues to iron out to make sure the rest of the school year runs smoothly. So far I have had several scheduling conflicts including having a class and no room and having two classes at the same time in the same room. That was kind of a hassle. Needless to say I am really looking forward to moving to our big new school! Hopefully that will be in the very near future!

I've also had to contend with several interesting environmental issues. The first few weeks have been pretty hot at school, and my room is on the third floor with no air conditioner, so the windows are always open. For some reason, whenever I have something really important to say to my students one or more of the following occurs:

• a dog fight 
•  a rooster crowing incessantly
• a garbage truck idles on our street
• an old man yelling out for scrap metal walks by
• a horse and cart drives by

I'm not a very loud person, and talking over all these different distractions isn't my favorite thing to do. Hopefully the new school will also be quieter. 

This weekend I am going as a chaperon with the high school students for their annual retreat in the mountains. Last year everyone got food poisoning and was very sick. We are all praying that does not happen again.