Trip to Romania 2010 - in restrospect

We finally made it to Romania this summer. It was a great trip. Aside from the plane ride, Petru had an absolute blast. OK, he had a blast in the plane as well, we not so much.

We left US on August 31st, the day after I completed my first half ironman (yes, had to throw that in). We spent a night in Bucharest, had dinner with cousin Bianca, had a run around a lake (me) and a long play session at a playground (Petru), and left for Bran, 4 people and 2 dogs in a tiny car. The trip went surprisingly well. At Bran we were treated like kings by mom, who cooked, cleaned and pretty much did anything humanly possible to make our stay as comfortable as possible. There was a conference in Cluj for me, and Chris and I travelled together, while Petru stayed with mom (somehow, he managed to convince mom that he "needed" the biggest toy in the store, and she obliged, of course). There was a trip to the place where I used to go as a little girl to pick up raspberries. There were endless trips to Sanda's restaurant for pizza and fries. There were visits to Dracula's castle, and lots of time spent on the trampoline. There was lots of visiting, which Petru did not particularly enjoy, mostly bc of the language barrier. There was a train trip with Petru to nurture his fascination with railroads.

On Petru's part, there was frustration with smoking (P: "You should not smoke, it is bad for your health"), with people not carrying for the no smoking signs in restaurant (P: "There is a no smoking sign, you should not smoke"), with people crossing the railways in front of trains (P: "It is dangerous).

It was a great, relaxing trip. Petru even started to speak some Romanian. He even told Chris: "Daddy, I feel sorry for you because you don't understand when Buni, mommy and I speak Romanian".