Spent a few days riding across the Hungarian plain - wow, is it flat. The only interesting note were the irrigation canals - made it all reminiscent of the Central Valley of California, or the Mekong delta in Vietnam (that was same temperature, but more humid).
The whole thing was apparently forested a thousand years ago, but the trees got cut down (for wooden forts by the Ottoman Turks) and never grew back, but once irrigation channels were dug in the early 1800's, farming became profitable.
Then we crossed into Romania, and the most dramatic change was the language. Hungarian is unrelated to any other European language (except Finnish) and so no words were decipherable by us - except for recent imports (diszcont).
However, Romanian iis an outgrowth of Latin. Many words are quite understandable when written, and some phrases look like Italian or Spanish. However, when spoken it sounds Slavic - maybe Latin with a very strong Russian accent - veni, vidi, strasvichia.
We had been warned about the Romanian dogs, and one did run toward the leader in a pace line - she slowed, swerved, caught Jean's front wheel and Jean now has a rather impressive bruise on her buttocks.
I had one dog that I didn't see coming, until he barked from about 3 feet away - he caught me in the wrong gear for accelaration so I couldn't outsprint him, but he seemed quite content to run along side me, barking ferociously, until I finally wore him out.
Talked with sister-in-law of owner of the motel where we were camping: leaving soon on short "mission" (not clear if religious), to one of the "poor" areas of Romania to help with housing - sounds sort of like a Habitat for Humanity, or New Orleans project ----but, missioning from an area where we would usually be offfering assistance, to go to assist an even poorer area. Interesting.
In Romania, we finally left the flats and have been climbing into the hills - foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. Still hot, but more interesting. The farms are small, but pretty - though obviously poor. Lots of nice flower gardens.
The town we're in suggests the stories that I heard of Romania before the fall of Commnism - very gray, drab - but with signs of things being spruced up - flowers, new construction, remodeling, new paint, and a climbing wall. And, the omnipresent cell phones.
In France and Germany, the churches were all in the center of the towns, but here they are often outside the towns - sometimes with nothing around them. South Dakota was like that - churches with no other building within miles - but, Lutheran rather than Orthodox. Rode up a couple of the side valleys (today was a short day) to see some small churches and a largery monastery.
The heat outpaces the Romanian air conditioning (camping is hard to find find here, so we only have 2 more nights of camping), so the hotel is stifling.
On into the mountains tomorrow, but still with predicted high of 97 degrees (94 today was bad enough, though I saw one thermometer reading 38 - that's over 100).
No comments:
Post a Comment