June/July 2004 Vacation

Before I begin, I'd like to take a moment to thank the two people who were gracious enough to chauffeur me wherever I chose to go during my June-July 2004 vacation. They are my sister-in-law, Elena, and her daughter, Andreea. Without their help I'm sure I would have been thoroughly and hopelessly lost during my vacation. You see, unfortunately, I do not know more than a smattering of the Romanian language.

Elena was thoughtful enough, however, to purchase a language instruction book for me. So maybe the next time I return, I'll be better able to communicate. Since Elena knows only a little English, it made for some interesting "conversations."

Of course, I hope you have the time to view all of the photos. But if you are just interested in certain parts, then I've split the photos into the following albums (links will open a new window and take you to my romerica.com site since GeoCities doesn't offer enough disk space to store the photos there):

Album: Churches

Go to the Churches album.

My main objective during this vacation was to visit many of the Orthodox churches and monasteries found in Romania. Of course, there are too many of them to visit them all in just one vacation, so the photos in this album are only representative.

Not all of the churches I visited and photographed were Orthodox, but the vast majority were. For my part, I am not Orthodox, so it wasn't done because of any religious prejudice. But the majority of Romanians claim the tenets of the Romanian Orthodox Church as their belief. In order to understand the Romanian people, I think you have to at least have a passing knowledge of the Orthodox faith.

Unfortunately, many of the monasteries have signs that prohibit taking photos inside the buildings. So in those cases, you won't find any interior photos. But the ones that did allow photos to be taken will show, I believe, the general effect of the interiors.

For those of you who have never stepped inside an Orthodox church, you'll be surprised -- and impressed -- by how, in most cases, every square inch (or square centimeter, since Romania uses the metric system) of the walls and ceilings contain paintings of different aspects of a religious or historical nature. Some of the buildings also have paintings on the exterior walls, though these are often faded due to constant exposure to wind, sun, rain, and snow.

Album: Cities

Go to the Cities album.

Of course, when you drive to all these churches and monasteries, you'll pass through a great many cities. I've included photos of a few of these cities in this section.

Album: Buildings

Go to the Buildings album.

Every so often a building caught my attention enough to point my camera in its direction. Sometimes they're in a city and, unless I have many photos of the building (such as the People's House in Bucharest), may be included in that city's section above. Other times they are located outside the city limits. The latter buildings are the ones included in this section.

Album: Roadside

Go to the Roadside album.

These photos include an assortment of some of the scenery I saw while traveling. Unfortunately, these photos are some of the worst snapshots of the bunch.

Many times they're blurry because they were taken while flying along the roads, which are often notoriously bumpy and in bad repair. Anyone who has driven in Romania can attest to this. You have to get a psychological evaluation to be issued a learner's permit to learn to drive. I suppose it's to make sure the road conditions don't cause a flare-up of tempers. That, and the fact that you can be driving along the road at a nice, speedy clip ... only to suddenly come upon a horse-drawn cart, or a bicyclist, or pedestrian, or cows, or chickens, or any of a dozen other slow-moving things in the road.

Many times the photos are poorly composed because just at the moment the shutter clicked, we'd pass a tree or car or other object blocking part of the view. Normally these photos are thrown away (but I chose to keep them as a means of torture to the photo purists who might be viewing these albums).

Many times they show spurious reflections in the car windows or look hazy because they were taken through sunlit glass (and thus, look as if I had a soft-focus lens on the camera). Elena objected every time I rolled down the window because, I suppose, many Romanians are mysteriously superstitious of flowing air, thinking it carries all sorts of diseases and other harmful things. So I had to keep the windows rolled up most of the time ... with no air conditioning in the sweltering heat of the car, I might add. But I'm not complaining. At least she doesn't drive the most popular car in Romania, a Dacia (which would never pass for an automobile in most other countries <g>).

Many times it was raining so we had water or mud on the windows. Elena washed the car several times during our vacation, but many of the churches and monasteries were far removed from the main roads, which meant we had to drive 5-10 km on muddy roads with deep puddles scattered randomly enough so that you couldn't avoid all of them.

And finally, my last excuse for the poor photos in this section. I took most of the roadside photos with the still-photo setting on my movie camera (with its low 640x480 resolution) instead of with my nicer digital camera (with its higher 2272x1704 resolution). As a side note, I also used my low-resolution camera whenever we stopped and I was worried that the rain might ruin my nicer camera.

At first, I thought about not including these roadside photos, but then decided against chopping them out of the photo album. After all, even it they're not wonderful photos, they do show much of the vast diversity of the country. Like I said earlier, some day I hope to return so I can take proper photos of many of the scenes in this album.

Album: Other

Go to the Other album.

These photos include miscellaneous pictures of people and other things, often taken in various museums that we visited.

Next Level

At this point, you have a couple of options:

• Return to the Photo Department.
• Go to the Churches album.
• Go to the Cities album.
• Go to the Buildings album.
• Go to the Roadside album.
• Go to the Other album.

Enjoy your stay and have a great day!