Paste Fericit - Happy Easter!

Wednesday

Now you may think Easter was back in March, but in the Orthodox calendar it is this coming weekend, and we found this lovely greeting at the entrance to Cismigiu Gardens after we met up with Laura late afternoon. However, I shall start from the beginning of the day.
Laura had got approval for us to sit in on her class for the morning, and see her "in action"! This involved Roger and I getting the tram from our hotel to near her apartment, then walking her route to school. Fortunately this turned out to be quite straightforward, thanks to Laura having bought passes for us, and Roger having studied the route carefully on Google Maps ahead of time, so we would know when to get off! We met up with Laura and Jen at the school. She teaches Year 3 and has a small class of 14 students, mainly Romanian, and the majority boys! Towards the end of the morning Laura had a time when the kids could ask us questions about where we live, what we do etc. I think they were a bit bemused by the fact that we're British, currently living in France, with two children living in the States, and Laura in Romania - still, it made a good geography lesson for them! We left Laura to it late morning, and headed over ( by bus) to the Palace of Parliament, Ceausescu's mammoth megalomaniac project, which was never totally completed before he was overthrown and executed. We had almost an hour to wait for the guided tour, so this gave us chance to get a bite to eat for lunch from a nearby convenient store. The building is the second largest administrative building in the world, after the Pentagon. Ceausescu destroyed about a fifth of the city center to make way for his project, which encompassed not just the building itself, but a large avenue leading up to it, based on the Champs Élysées in Paris, but of course a little longer and wider, and lined with accommodation for the senior members of the Communist party. 19 Orthodox churches and 6 Jewish temples or synagogues were destroyed, and over 30,000 homes.
Some figures: "Estimates of the materials used include 1 million cubic metres of Transylvanian marble, 3,500 metric tonnes of crystal for the 480 chandeliers and 1,409 lights and mirrors that were manufactured, 700,000 tonnes of steel and bronze, 900,000 cubic metres of wood and 200,000 square metres of woven carpets, many of which were spun on site."
Whilst you wouldn't call the building beautiful, the interior craftsmanship, supposedly all Romanian, has to be admired.
By the time we finished the tour, during which they tell you that you cover 2.5 km and see less than 5% of the building (!) Laura was waiting outside for us - they finished early today since it is the Spring Show this evening. We walked to the Gardens and had a wander round, browsing the Easter market stalls and enjoying the boating lake, then continued on to a Tea house Laura wanted to take us to. Then it was on to the Theatre where the school show was taking place, and where we got to meet a number of her colleagues, and the Head of Lower school. After the show we went to a well-known historic restaurant serving traditional Romanian fare in quite ornate surroundings. by this time it was quite late, and we were ready for bed after a long day!

One year ago: Wisteria