"Hey, remember when Jen tried to be gluten-free in Central Europe?"

{Ed. note: this is directed at search engines producing results for words in the subject. I didn't really find much guidance online earlier this year, so I thought I'd throw my own experience out there. In other words, if you *can* eat bread and/or don't plan to visit this part of the world, you probably won't care about any of this...}

A year and a half ago I found out I was potato- and wheat-intolerant. So when I told people our first Phase Two stop was Central Europe, the land of bread and potatoes, it was always with a laugh... and also a tiny prayer to The Universe that I wouldn't wither away from malnutrition.

Our first few days in Poland I meticulously avoided everything wheat- or potato-related. Armed with a Polish translation food list, we would carefully scan ingredients on grocery store packages and restaurant menus. It wasn't too different from being back home, actually.

Turns out that "no potatoes no wheat" in Central Europe really is a pretty ambitious endeavor. At first this meant a diet of corn flakes or oatmeal or yogurt for breakfast; a salad for lunch (pre-packaged from the grocery store or from a cafe); rice/rice noodles and veggies/canned tuna/kielbasa for dinner; fruit (fresh or dried), carrots, peanut butter, peanuts, and chocolate for snacks.

our intro to Warsaw

his: pierogies

hers: chef salad

... sooooo not fair

sausage:

welcome to Prague!

... now that's fair

Eating the same things over and over again got kinda boring. One day a guy at a hostel made eggs for dinner, and that opened up a lot of new ideas for us.  But even that got boring after a while.

also boring?

"English" breakfasts in foreign lands

I was thrilled to find rice cakes, rice vermicelli, bean noodles, dried soy products, and of course peanut butter in Polish grocery stores. Up until we got to Turkey these items were actually pretty easy to find in all the countries we visited (though for some reason the rice products got more expensive the further south we went, and peanut butter was more scarce in Romania).

sometimes the labels
were even in English -

neat!

A chain called Carrefour - kind of like the Safeway of Central Europe, slightly overpriced with a decent variety of food - carried everything I needed and their markets were in all the major cities. Even tiny markets in Bialowieza and Nemcicky had rice snacks and dried soy.

Bialowieza makeshift dinner by tea kettle:

rice noodles, rehydrated soy, mystery spices

Fruit stands were also easy to find; plums and apples during fall harvest season were fantastic.

Krakow fruit stand:

part one

Krakow fruit stand:

part two

Nemcicky rule:

pick one, eat one

After a few weeks in Poland I got curious and tried bread. Nothing terrible happened so I continued to experiment. Turns out that for whatever reason, wheat has not been as offensive to my system here.

the first offender:

thanks, little old pastry shop lady

it was all downhill from there

It could be that the wheat strain here is more pure. But my guess is that it's everything *other than* the wheat, yeast, salt, water and sometimes egg that goes into packaged wheat products in the US that caused me the real trouble. (I'm talking to you, potato starch, guar gum, xanthum gum, and everything I can't pronounce!) Here, I can't always read the ingredients but when there are just three or four listed on a package, that's a good sign that the product is not going to have too negative an impact on me. And bread is baked each morning, sold so fast that it's not even individually wrapped, and stale by day three.

we must've eaten 847

of these fresh-baked rolls

in Central Europe

Wheat products are not always fun on my system but they are almost always tolerable, and this has made life so much easier. Leftover hostel breakfasts of bread, cheese and meats became free lunch.

whereas pierogies become

not free lunch...

... so did dumplings

Cheap eats from doner kebap stands became viable snack options.

our first kebap -

thank you, Olomouc!

our 53rd kebap -

thank you, Bucharest!

So did bagel carts and pastry shop snacks, which ended up being lifesavers in some cases. Like that day in Budapest when we were starving and a two-mile walk from any signs of a supermarket. Of course, they weren't exactly the tastiest options...

best when purchased at 6am -

otherwise, for them there birds

... or the healthiest.

as the was the case

in Brasov

and Olomouc

and Krakow

But with all that walking it really didn't matter.

Pasta (which I can mostly also eat) became dinner. And garlic bread was often involved too.

Budapest hostel livin'

Lisinia farmstay livin'

Bucharest homemade pasta livin'

And all these lovely cheeses and jams now included bread accompaniment!

homemade cheese: even better

And beer was back on the menu!

Prague beer

Olomouc beer

Brasov beer

... you get the point.

Sometimes I even got to make AND eat bread made from scratch - something I have really missed.

There is still the mysterious yeast/potato connection... But I'm not doing a science fair project, I'm just trying to eat pain-free. So whatevs, we'll just roll with it.

Have not tried potato yet... Not intentionally, anyway. It's hard to avoid in soups and for some reason doner kebaps often include a topping of "chips" ("fries" to you US folks). I definitely know when I have had it and I still suffer afterward. But it's much easier to explain a potato allergy to a new volunteer host or restaurateur than to rattle off the list of things I can and cannot eat.

I shouldn't eat bread with every single meal but I still do. BECAUSE I CAN. But less bread and less sugar (mainly via honey in my yogurt and tea) are in my future - I'm starting to need less weight so that I don't need more pants.

luckily, we are past Krakow's zapiekanki

unluckily we are still in the land of pide

(OK, this is not exactly a bad thing)

However. When we get to Vietnam, I dare say all bets on "less bread" are off... but at least I will be able to counter the bánh mì with loads of delicious vegetables!

Romania costs: $16/day. (Yep, you read that right.)

Romania on $8/person/day... wait, that can't be right.  I know we volunteered for two weeks, but EIGHT DOLLARS A DAY??  Wow.

Initial budget: 14 days at $1204 ($86/day, $43/person/day)
Actual cost: 21 days at $340 ($16/day, $8/person/day)

I really don't know why more people don't volunteer while traveling.  Here's the breakdown with some details...

these pie charts need some serious help

• Lodging: $185 - 6 dorm rooms at hostels and one night for a private room averaging $13/person/night.
• Transportation: $55 - trains from Brasov-Bucharest and Bucharest-Sinaia-Bucharest, nominal dollars spent on public transportation in Bucharest.
• Groceries: $42 - again I say, if we never eat bread again after Central Europe...
• Meals: $14 - most of this is lunch one day in Old Town.
• Tours: $22 - Bran Castle (Bran), the Village Museum (Bucharest).
• Alcohol: $13 - hooray for rotgut village wine!
• Gear: $0.
• "Misc": $10 - laundry, public toilets and various other randomness.
• Gifts: still $0.

Other fun Romania facts...

• Cities visited: 5 (Brasov, Bran, Sinaia, Lisa, Bucharest)
• Awesome provinces visited: Transylvania!
• National parks visited: 0
• UNESCO World Heritage Sites visited: 0

Now we say goodbye to Central Europe's impending grey winter and countless loaves of inexpensive white fluffy bread.  Hopefully, Turkey's cheese is just as good though...  To Istanbul!

Late Friday five: what we will remember about Bucharest.

Five things we will remember about our long weekend in Bucharest, in no particular order...

• The Village Museum - an open-air ethnographic museum featuring dozens of actual village homes transported to the city for display.  Most were transported back in the 1930s and 1950s.  So interesting to see how the different regions built shelters over the centuries and more impressively, how simply they lived.  

taking advantage of the earth

(in a good way)

ceramic fireplaces/stoves
the center of the home

• The funky Old Town area.  Bucharest doesn't seem to want to pretty up its historic center so you find beautiful churches and buildings intermixed with modern but dilapidated storefronts, scrappy pubs, trendy shops, cafes, and adult venues (one apparently in the former location of a library).  Very gritty, kind of bohemian, sort of reminiscent of NYC.

Stavropoleos Church backed by modern decay

• The sunsets.

amazing what a little smog will do

• Bed bugs at the hostel.  Yep.  It was bound to happen somewhere and at this point it's fitting that it was in Bucharest.  We didn't get bit but Jen found three by her pillow just before falling asleep (and immediately requested a room change).  Another guy in that dorm room got eaten alive.  This is the guy who started talking at 6:30am every single day and never, ever, EVER stopped, no matter how much everyone ignored him, so we can't say we had too much sympathy.  

• Awesome Romanian people.  We got harassed by bus ticket checkers on the way to our last hostel - a common scam we'd read about but had yet to encounter.  We had scanned the ticket twice as instructed by the ticket seller (who also tried to keep 5 lei of our change - a whole other bullet point for this list but "Friday six" just doesn't have the same ring to it).  For whatever reason the ticket didn't validate, but the automated fare validator gave us no indication of this.  So we thought everything was fine until these two menacing bus ticket checkers got on a few stops later and after a bit of an exchange, tried to scam us out of 50 lei for an invalid ticket.  At that point about six helpful Romanian youth, men and women who had seen us scan our ticket started to yell at them and continued to do so until they eventually got off the bus.  We didn't have to ask for help, these folks just gave it.  Lesson learned: Question authority, trust your fellow man.  (And woman.  And teenager.)

Food notes:

• lunch at Dristor Kebap - a lot like the Soup Nazi place, pay up front and know right away what toppings you want or NO DELICIOUS KEBAP FOR YOU!

we made it through the line alive

• homemade (well, "hostel made") pasta! the Aussies made some in Lisa so we were inspired to give it a try one night after looking up a Mario Batali recipe... a few more batches and we will have a winner

a little chewy

but we'll get there

Lodging notes:

• Umbrella Hostel was fine for three nights...  Except for the bed bugs.  To their credit they moved us immediately, apologized profusely and shut down the room shortly after we reported the issue.  We had no other issues during our stay except for the tiny coed bathroom with absolutely no privacy.  (And the aforementioned-annoying-bed-bug-bitten-nonstop-talking guy who ended up moving to our dorm room our last night due to aforementioned bed bugs in the other dorm, and our dormmate Sir Snores-a-Lot Sergio... But those are not the hostel's fault.)  The kitchen and common areas were great.  Breakfast included bread, meat and cheese (we call this "lunch").  And the whole place was kept pretty spotless.  Except for the bed bugs.

• Vila Gabriela for our last night, because it is close to the airport. So far we are the only ones here, the owner is really nice, the garden is pretty, there is an adorable kitty named Kitty, we can hear roosters and pigs off in the distance, and we have our own room so unless one of us spontaneously starts to snore, we may actually sleep well tonight.  For once.

soooooo comfy

Bed bugs and stupid men on buses aside, we did not love Bucharest.  But we didn't expect to so it's all good.  We would love to come back to Romania someday and when we do, we will avoid this city as much as possible.

This time tomorrow we will be in Istanbul (fingers crossed).  Crazy.  Just crazy!

Well worth a visit: Brasov, Bran and Sinaia.

Braşov ("Brash-ov") was our intro to Romania a few weeks ago. We rolled into town early in the morning, having survived our overnight train from Budapest with no losses other than sleep, while the fog hovered in the trees and everything looked all Sleepy Hollow and mysterious.

The fog lifted and it turned into a beautiful day so after checking in to the hostel we fought the urge for a nap and instead, took a hike up Mount Tampa to "Brasov's Hollywood" sign.

still don't know why they have this

Rasnov has one as well

wonder which one came first

The next few days showed that this town was just what we needed after five days in Budapest. Tons of comfortable green space, quiet and clean city streets, subtle historical fortresses, old men playing chess in the park, a wonderful outdoor produce market...

leaf-lined paths...

"Central Park", where we sat for a few hours...

Strada Sforii

Europe's narrowest street

or is it?...

We did no free walking tours, we did not seek out Romania's finest cuisine, we visited no museums, we happened upon tourist attractions like the Black Church accidentally instead of on purpose.

It was just what we needed.

We did get up to Bran one day to check out the castle. Despite the myths it's not really connected to Vlad the Impaler, but the castle itself was really fun to explore and we ended up staying longer than we expected. So many nooks and crannies, comfortable rooms, and beautiful ceramic fireplaces!

Patrick wants one

Lots more pictures start here.

We didn't do any real hiking in the Carpathians while we were in Brasov. We also didn't get to see Sibiu's cobblestone streets and pastel-colored houses or Sighisoara's secret passageways. Next time for sure. But while we were in Bucharest we managed a day trip to nearby Sinaia ("Sin-aye-ah") for a little hiking. Best idea we had all weekend! Open air, gorgeous hills, hardly any people on the trails.

our lunch
(Jen couldn't wait)

not our lunch

One of the few hikers we encountered was an older Romanian gentleman leading a group of tourists up the mountain. After learning we were from Oregon, he asked a question many other Romanians have posed to us - "All the way from the United States? Why did you come to Romania?" We motioned to the beautiful scenery and replied, "This is why."

(He then asked if we worked for Chevron; we said no and commiserated about their evil imperialism.)

Food notes: nothing of note, really, except this delicious pastry we ran across in Brasov and devoured.

we later learned that Gigi's was a chain

Lodging notes: Kismet Dao in Brasov was AMAZING. Super clean, really friendly staff, great location, a free drink a day (beer or coke or whatever), space to find a little peace and quiet, posters with Buddhist sayings and thoughtful poems throughout the hostel, and the best cereal selection for breakfast that we've seen yet.

Romania has been a memorable experience. We got a little taste of everything and we felt more welcome and comfortable here than most of the other Central European countries we have visited. We are so glad we came, and we hope to come back someday closer to shoulder season and rent a car for more hiking and exploration. In the meantime - you should visit!

Next stop... culture shock and crowded streets in Istanbul. Deep breath, here we go!

When in Lisa, Romania...

After a few days in Brasov enjoying amazing fall weather, Bran Castle, and the amazing Kismet Dao hostel, we headed south to Bucharest. We knew we wanted to see the countryside of Romania during our visit so while we were in Budapest we reached out to Deborah, a former Canadian who moved back to her husband's home country with their family to open a B&B. With the profits they plan to start "an organic farm to offer financial support to the needs of a pay-as-you-can center for the elderly" in Lisa, a small village about 50k west of Bucharest. Deborah said they could always use help so we signed up.

the future elder center and garden

Our Romanian volunteer experience was not quite what we expected but it was memorable nonetheless. The elderly have it rough in small villages, especially without family nearby, and Deborah's family's dream is impressive - housing, medical care and a self-sustaining community garden for a dozen or more elders in need of help. Because Deborah's family is funding this from their own pockets and with volunteer help, progress is slow... Even slower at the end of the season when we arrived. Work on the house and land had pretty much wrapped up when we got there so we spent some time planting onions for spring, extending the garden, clearing and burning leaves and brush, transplanting walnut trees, cleaning out the new house before it was closed up for the winter, and cutting/stacking firewood.

onions galore coming soon

burn baby burn

(part I of V)

delicious walnuts coming soon

(if the other trees are any indication - yum)

Otherwise, unfortunately, there wasn't much to do and not much room for improv projects given the late season. So after we finished our daily chores we read a lot, and sat a lot. Late into the first week we waffled a bit between heading back to Bucharest early to check out more of Romania or just enjoying some down time in a small village. Our flight to Istanbul was set for 11 November so we didn't have much time to play with, and with the tourist season ending and no reliable internet connection in Lisa we weren't sure what our options would be for transportation and lodging around the Black Sea or the Danube delta.  We opted to stay put, help out where we could, contribute to the local economy, and otherwise "just be" in Lisa.

(Some of you might imagine that this "just being" thing was quite difficult for Jen... Patrick will attest that it was definitely an interesting experience.)

hello Lisa

Lisa, Teleorman, Romania has about a thousand residents who live partway between old and new. Cars whip around donkeys pulling carts on the main road; satellite dishes adorn homes where just out back hundreds of ears of corn are stocked for winter and turkeys roam free; elderly gentlemen and women dressed just as you would expect Romanian villagers to dress intermix with youth in fashionable clothing on the streets; the town's four markets have all the modern conveniences but purchases are totaled on adding machines.

We learned a lot about Lisa and Romania in general from the local project manager. Among other things, the country has prospered better under democracy/capitalism than under its previous communist dictator. However, the future of its membership in the EU is unclear due to unresolved financial and security issues. As for Lisa, the main source of income is agriculture. We spent several afternoons wandering up dirt roads through beautiful fields either just harvested or just planted to germinate over the winter. Farmers would go by with their donkeys/horses and carts and nod hello. Sheep and goats wandered fence-less around the land. The morning fog hovered over the dirt roads... Every so often we would ask ourselves where in the world we were.

fields of gold

(and green and brown)

We explored the town streets where homes ranged from run-down to pristine (most were somewhere in between).  Loud gaggles of geese meandered down the roads, random dogs joined our adventures (well, joined farm dog Isi on her adventure), and the locals greeted us with a polite nod or friendly "bună ziua" ("good day"). Many of them would sit on benches in front of their house and chat with a neighbor or just watch the cars (or donkeys) pass.  It seemed that every house had a garden, and any self-respecting farmer would be incredibly jealous of the quality of the soil in this town.

goose conference

farm dog Isi enjoying a stroll with her new BFF

We also visited the Sunday market in Piatra (~2k east of Lisa) twice. Local farmers sell their vegetables and fruits in bulk; also for sale are clothing, furniture, hats, electronics, trinkets - practically anything one might need. This is where we bought most of our fruits and vegetables for the coming week. Because we were buying in such small quantities it wasn't unusual for the farmers to wave our money away when we held up two tomatoes or one small head of cauliflower. Even the staff at the local shops gave us a few candies when we bought staples from them.

We don't usually spend a lot of time thinking about, or describing, accommodations at farms (we are always grateful for whatever we are given) but these were worth a mention.  Our accommodations in Lisa were rustic at best. Outdoor plumbing, a propane stove, a jerry rigged styrofoam box functioning as a refrigerator, laundry detergent made of pig fat (it works! actually, really well!) were our daily rituals but we did have a wonderful, warm bedroom all to ourselves during our stay so technically it was higher-end than most of our camping experiences. The weather was fairly nice while we were there, so the cold showers weren't so bad - not that we bothered taking many. We didn't really need to other than to get the burn pile smell from our hair.

We didn't get to socialize much with the local villagers other than random hellos on the street; most of our interactions were with people on-site.  This was our first volunteer experience working with other volunteers. We arrived the week two young Australians were wrapping up their volunteer time in Lisa. They shared stories of hitchhiking across Europe, camping 15k from Lisa on the Danube river, being invited into the homes of locals who plastered them with wine and food, hanging out in the pub having awkward fits of conversation with non-English speakers... Not things we felt we needed to experience, but more power to them!

When the project manager told us about a neighbor who sold homemade wine for 4 lei/liter (~$1.30), on the other hand - that was something we were interested in experiencing.

and experience we did

(... it's a long story)

Unlike previous volunteer experiences, we were responsible for our own food preparation. Some food was from the garden (onions, garlic, squash, potatoes), some was provided (usually just AMAZING locally purchased sheep's cheese, eggs, some veggies and basic staples) and we were given money to buy food to supplement. We experimented with soups, pasta sauces, egg dishes and even tried crepes.  Holy cow WHY has it taken us this long to make crepes??  Almost every meal included onion, garlic, the aforementioned AMAZING sheep's cheese and a loaf of bread from the local shop. Simple, filling. When in Romania...

garden fresh

Our time in Lisa wasn't a romanticized dirt road quiet farm living experience though - as romantic as all that can be. There were three things that caused mild discomfort during our stay, and none of them had to do with the accommodations.  (We're campers after all.)

One was the constant noise - everywhere in the village there were dogs barking, geese honking, roosters crowing, turkeys making odd non-turkey-like sounds, donkeys braying. Occasionally a cow who sounded like Chewbacca would let out a wail. During the day there were chainsaws and tractors. Constant noise. Constant.

Two was the alcohol consumption. (Not ours! We learned our lesson fast.) Walking down the main street at 9am on Sunday morning, the pub was already hopping. Granted, they do start their workday early, but... Later in the day, every day, ALL the pubs were hopping. Several times a local gentleman appeared at the house drunk. He knew the project manager and was harmless, but it was still a mentally draining experience. (Eventually he was asked not to return, and he didn't.) And the beer sold in 2.5L bottles at the shops... From the looks of all the bottles in the creeks, the town goes through way too much beer.

Three was the trash. Trash everywhere. Lining the small creeks alongside the dirt roads, thrown in to the fields, piled at the construction site (we had to dig through a layer of trash to get to dirt when replanting the walnut trees).

roadside junkyard

Recycling is not a priority in this part of the world, but reuse seems to be - where we volunteered there is a plan to use plastic bottles for a pipeline to fill the pond at the back of the yard. And we reused beer bottles for the fine wine from our neighbor. So there's that.

These things affected our moods more on overcast days than sunny days though. On a sunny day all you had to do was watch the late season butterflies or Isi flopped in the sun, and nothing else really mattered.

soaking it in

So say the naive travelers just passing through. Living here is a whole other story.

Yeah, we slowed down in Romania. It was a nice reminder to enjoy the good days and appreciate what we have - or what we don't have, as the case may be. No internet? Park a chair in the sun and finally fix that bag that's falling apart. No washing machine? Do laundry like 90% of the world does it. No work tasks at hand? Read a book. Or four.

Now we're ready for something a little more productive. Here's hoping our next volunteer experience in south-western Turkey will be busy and fruitful. But first... Istanbul (not Constantinople)!