Romania, day 5 – Sibiu

Manhole covers in Sibiu.

One thing I noticed about the pigeons and sparrows here was that they’re all very thin. I’ve never seen such emaciated birds in my life. The ones in London and Taipei, and all the other cities I’ve been to, are so rotund they practically can’t get off the ground. The sparrows in Taipei positively look like Snitches or blowfish, they’re so fat. In the future, I will use this as a standard to determine whether a district is wealthy or not – the skinnier the pigeons/sparrows, the less well off it must be.

Witnessed England being crushed by Uruguay yesterday, which I watched with the girls in our kitchen last night. I don’t need to turn on the TV, or go on facebook, even, to tell when a goal has been scored. The noise last night was something dreadful. I didn’t realise that the World Cup would be played during my masters year in London, but it is a fortuitous twist of fate, and one I’m happy to have been privy to. Did I mention how interesting it was, being in Romania while the madness of FIFA began spreading itself like rabies? In our Brasov hostel, a bunch of guys would huddle over the television set every night. My first real shock came when the invincible armada of Spain turned out to be not so invincible, suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of the flying Dutchmen. And then there was Portugal against Deutschland on the 14th, which was…whew. And so begins the Decline of Iberia.

We spent the whole day walking around Sibiu. It’s a very picturesque little town, idyllic yet bustling with energy, which won the much-coveted title of Europe’s Capital of Culture in 2007. Our hostel (about 8 pounds a night) was located slap bang in the middle of the old city centre, the Piata Mare/Piata Mica (pronounced like “piazza,” with a wee sound of “t” right before the z). There’s always some sort of event going on there. When we first arrived, there was some sort of concert/festival/carnival, which went on and on for the duration of our stay. Joanne was very excited about this.

This reminds me of the Wizard of Oz

We rented bicycles at the Hotel Ibis, about ten minutes walk from our hostel, which cost 8 lei for two hours and is a LOT cheaper than renting it at the tourist office in the piata. We cycled for about forty minutes to a lake, which was beautiful, but a bit crowded.

Not the most beautiful lake I've seen, but it does have a certain je ne sais quoi

I don’t think I mentioned this before, but it’s also one of the major defining parameters of our Romania trip. The people here act like they’ve never seen East Asians before. Everywhere we walked, people would slow down and stare at us, and even point at us. Some of them would even take pictures. The teenagers would, in some instances (once in every town at the very least) jump in front of us and call us names. I felt like we were a walking zoo, or as if there were horns sprouting out of my forehead. Both of us found this VERY unamusing. It can really ruin things and your whole travel experience per se when all the people do is stare, stare stare. I do not think Romania is too high on the tourist friendly scale (again, thanks to the negativitybias effect of bus 780 – you’re going to haunt me till the end of my days) and the environment is especially hostile for people who look noticeably different azn. During the whole of our trip, we did not see one single black/Indian/Muslim/any other race/colour other than white. The teenagers are plain xenophobic. Then again, their adults are wonderful (except again for the ones on the bus). When I was in Rasnov, a man told me that I was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen in his life, and that he had lost his heart to me. I was flattered, although sceptical – I don’t think I looked my best after a whole day of climbing and sweating.

So, yeah. If you look Asian, or not white, you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb, and boy don’t they let you knowit. We’ve had people coming over to us at restaurants and approaching us on the street, asking where we’re from. (“China? Japan? The land of the chopsticks? Chopstickland?”) I personally would not recommend Romania to anyone Asian, unless you’re travelling with a group of at least 7 people or you have a burgeoning desire to challenge yourself and push your limits. It’s not a trip for the faint of heart. Even then, you will be gawked at, but at least when you’re in a large crowd, the teenagers probably won’t be so inclined to use google translate to call you a slant-eyed monster in Chinese and Japanese (apparently these are the only two countries in East Asia) while you’re on the bus, minding your own business. I’ve never had a problem with my race before. Hell, I LOVE being so ostentatiously Asian azn. But in Romania, when people consistently look at you like you’re some character from Hellboy, it’s really annoying. To be honest, me and Joanne were relieved to be going back to multicultural, melting-pot London after 8 days of being goggled at. I actually think I could write a whole blog post on the racism we encountered in Romania. Even the people who mean well can come across as very offensive. One of the people who came over to give us the Spanish Inquisition in a restaurant told us that he’d worked in the States for ten or more years, that three of his ex girlfriends were Asian sinophile and that he still couldn’t tell the difference between all of us. I had a cow or three when he guessed Vietnam and the Philippines after China and Korea fell short. The ball really dropped, though, when he excused his ignorance by saying, “Well, you all look the same, you know – the Chinese, the Filipinos, the Viets and the Koreans. Exactly the same.” I felt so insulted, even though I knew he didn’t mean any harm, and retorted rather stiffly, “Well, we can say the same about you people, you realize – you Romanians, Serbs, Slovaks and MAGYARS all look alike to us azns, too.”

Back to Sibiu. The old town was beautiful. This is their main church. Note the colourful tiles of the roof.

This is the old town – see the windows, which look like peeping eyes? It’s a very common feature of Sibiu’s houses.

The Piata Mica.

On our way back, we were fortunate enough to encounter their parade.

 

See the "Banca Transilvania" in the background? It's a blood bank

And we got a lovely view of the piata bathed in the light of the late afternoon sun.

Dinner in a bar off the Piata Mare. I had polenta, again, and Romanian meat rolls (sarmale) – the vampires continue to dazzle me with their culinary skills. sparkle sparkle, glitter glitter.

Again, I realise this picture is really bad, and again I excuse myself by the fact that I was starving at the time.