Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Fan Fest/ Rosia Montana Part Doi

A couple of weeks ago, I returned to Rosia Montana, in the Apuseni Mountains, for an event called FanFest (Actually pronounced "fuun fest", but I don't have that Romanian letter on my keyboard. My mother actually alerted me to a PBS program which aired about two weeks before the festival about Rosia Montana. It seems to be a pretty fairhanded take on the situation up there, and if you want to check it out, I believe you can view it at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/romania/index.html. Oddly enough, living right here near the site, I cannot view the show with my European IP address, but I think in the US that it should be possible. I went there with my organization up there to promote our system of greenways in the Apuseni to the thousands of people there to listen to music and such. It was a great time, with lots of good music, Ursus beer, and mici. Following our visit to Fanfest, we went to our cabana at a place called Cheia in the mountains, to do some repairs and spend the week out of the city. It was quite relaxing, and good to get some hiking in. We went mushroom hunting in the forest (supposedly the best mushrooms in Europe come from Romania) and saw some of the countryside. It was overall a good week. To get to the bus to take us back into the city, we had to experience - not hike 6 km, part of which was actually in the river, which was interesting. Then, we actually missed the bus that would have taken us to the train station. So, we had to hitchike or walk another 18 km into the city. Well, we were lucky and a man in a truck stopped and picked us all up. A genuine Peace Corpsexactly a rarity in Romania, but not an everyday event either! Anyway, it was a fun experience, and I got to see some more of the beautiful mountains around here.