Thursday, July 5, 2007
While the town of Sibiu is lovely in its own right, it was made truly special by passing the time with a new friend. Standing before the train from Brasov to Sibiu, I saw a young lady walking down the track. It is funny how some whisper on the wind encourages you to make contact with others with whom you end up finding a true connection. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to speak to her as she was walking toward me, but I was and I’m ever so glad for it. The best word to describe Rebecca is lovely. Her accent is lovely, her face, her demeanor, her spirit. As it turned out we had plans to stay in the same hostel so the train ride conversation simply continued as we delighted in the fresh fruit we purchased at the little stand before heading up the hill into Sibiu’s old town center. We checked into the hostel, perfectly located with a delightful view of the charming Piata Mica, and then headed out to tour the town.
Sibiu is a picture perfect town – perhaps a bit too picture perfect. It was voted the European Cultural Capital for 2007 and has spent two years giving its self quite the spit and shine in honor of the occasion. New paint gleams in the sunlight, streets are polished, everything has a just-cleaned-up-for-company feel to it. Walk too far from the city though and you can see where the end of the budget line was drawn as the buildings and streets become their normal dilapidated selves. After all, if you are a few hundred years old, you can’t help but be a little worn around the edges. Rebecca and I actually both liked the lovingly worn look of the side streets around town more than the perfect paid-for polish.
Rather than setting out through the bright and shiny plazas, we wandered past faded color-washed houses with their sleepy-eye windows, through dirt paved streets, and down into the lower parts of town. A chalkboard sign that read Wireless Internet caught my eye and called us into a delightful bar (sans the blasting techno music) for a coffee break after the long train ride. Actually, Rebecca had hot chocolate with the most wondrous whip cream and I had a coffee delight laced with Bailey’s and Kaluha – mmm mmm. We chatted easily over coffee, sharing stories of the road and our lives back home before continuing our tour of the town. We wandered rather aimlessly, stumbling into the little hidden jewels of this cultural capital – the imposing Evangelical Cathedral, the 13th century Passage of Steps that connects the Upper and Lower towns, the Bridge of Lies named, legend has it, for the merchants’ disputes and the transitory vows of the young lovers who met there. We walked through side streets, past the Orthodox Cathedral, crossing the park that borders the town at one end, and found ourselves at the end of the pedestrian walkway, as colorful and quaint as the one in Brasov, though with a little less bustle. The pedestrian walkway led us back again to the Piata Mare.
The town is strikingly German. Postcards are marked with both its Romanian name, Sibiu, and its German name, Hermannstadt. Tourist signs are written in Romanian and German, or sometimes just German. There were German dressed folk dancers performing on the stage in the main square. The architecture was German as was much of the language spoken in the streets. Actually if you had dropped me blindfolded in the middle of the town then taken off the blindfold, I would never have guessed I would have thought surely I was in Germany.
After our mini-tour we settled into a little café on the edge of the Piata Mare for dinner. We decided to try the Romanian specialty of the house – a plate filled with the mămăligă, a cornmeal type porridge, served with a sweet, thick dressing of sorts and a pile of rich pungent cheese. It was one of the strangest meals I’ve ever had, but not half bad. It would be good comfort food on a rainy, blue day. I wish we had had a bit more spunk to face a night on the town together, but we were both tired from traveling and decided just to turn in early for the night.
Our plan to rent a car the next day and drive through the mountains and up to Peonari castle was thwarted by rain. Instead we made our way back to the coffee shop for more hot chocolate and coffee; actually I had a honey latte this time, and a hot chocolate! The morning hours passed quickly as we wrote postcards and caught up on emails, chatting about the road ahead and life behind and enjoying the slow pace that comes with rain. Before we knew it, it was time for my train. We thought it was a last good bye, but as luck would have it I was still in Sighisoara when she passed through a few days later and we were able to share dinner and a beer before parting ways again.
Just writing about our time together takes me to the soft, easy space I felt in her presence. She was a delight to pass time with and made Sibiu a special treasure. She has now made a couchsurfing profile (I wonder who talked her into that) and I sincerely hope we keep in touch until our paths cross somewhere in this world again. I am reminded once again of my friend Serena’s words in Vienna – what matters most is not the places you see, it is the people you meet.
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