Welcome Readers

We are making our way through Eastern Europe, discovering wonderful people who are enterprising, caring, struggling with today’s changing times and yet doing extraordinary things.  We invite you to meet some of them and see some of the sites we’ve encountered.  The focus we’ve adopted, “People first, places second” is a mantra that has really helped us center on learning more about the people here and sincerely try to get to know who they are and what they do.  But the fact that the people, the places where they live, and the history in which they exist are all inexorably linked means that from time to time, we try to link the place and history as a way to add background and context.  (Click on photos to see the captions.)

Aron in the Fundata Valley showed us the meaning of true friendship!

The youth of Cluj were abundant and curious about their changing world.

Lucian in Tulchea took us to meet his mother and share his family.

Our guide in Bucharest was full of hope about Romania’ future, but realistic about its challenges

Natalie in Brasov showed us how they are fighting to save the traditional values and customs of the Fundata Valley

Ioana was one of the sweetest friends we made. Our adopted Romanian daughter struggles with helping at home and building her own career in a changing world.

On market day near Bran, the old meet the new.

Michael tells us that the litter we observe is only a surface problem. The real problems are the lack of infrastructure to deal with waste and toxic runoff.

Our guide to a tiny museum in Enisala spoke no English, but she was able to communiate the importane of local history.

A man near Breb demonstrates his tiny saw mill.

Elena embraced us and welcomed us into her farm.

A woman advertised her house as a museum. When we stopped, we found so much more.

Kindergarteners in Cluj enjoy making a connection with other kids.

Ion in Breb milks the cow so we could enjoy the freshest cream on Elena’s pasteries later that evening.

Rebecca, my partner in the blog (and for life!) has really been the heroic one in this blog.  She faithfully writes every day in her journal, providing a dateline and the documentation to our daily activities.  It is from that diary and my personal memory (which for those who know me is not that good!) that I write, often starting at 4 or 5 am.  Rebecca’s words are in italics; mine are not.  I hope this dialogue is complimentary rather than confusing.

I’m slowly getting used to the WordPress software.  I now have the blog entries set up in order of the most recent blogs at the top, oldest ones at the bottom.  (I plan to leave this one at the top as an introduction.) For those of you new to the blog, you may want to start at the bottom and go up.  Also, rather than showing each post in its entirety, there is only an introduction, so you don’t have to scroll through the whole post to get to the next one.  Just click on the one you want to read and it will expand.  Hopefully, this way, it will be easier to choose what you want to see.  I have begun at the request of a reader to add captions where possible.  If you don’t see a caption, try clicking on the picture.

We love getting feedback. Please follow us by clicking at the bottom of the blog.  There should also be a place for comments at the bottom of each blog entry. You can contact us through the email at fridaefamily@wavecable.com, or Woody Fridae or Rebecca Gildart Fridae on Facebook.  We will respond to any questions, suggestions or comments you have.

Thank you for joining us.  Knowing there are followers of this blog motivates us to dig deeper and uncover the amazing jewels along the way!

Oh, and one more thing. We’re staying with my second cousin, Geta Pop, in Timisoara right now, and Geta is letting me use her real laptop, (as opposed to the tiny Tab E that I’ve packed along in my backpack).  It’s nice having a full-sized keyboard and a text window that is larger than a sticky note.  And on it is a full-fledged spell check.  And guess what, I reviewed all my old posts and boy am I a bad speller!  So I apologize for former posts in which I have either overlooked typos and misspellings. If you want to reread any, they should be a bit more ready for prime time now!

Woody and Rebecca Fridae