Adela's Engagement Party

We all went to grandma's house - located in a very small town high in the Apuseni Mountains. We went to celebrate the engagement of our Peace Corps group 18 member Adela. She was born in Romania and left Romania when she was young. She grew up in the US, but somehow ended up in Romania again. She met Laurence during our pre-serve training and they decided to get hitched. So we came to celebrate and eat a lot of food...


This is grandma (bunica) who lives by herself all year round in the mountains. She has a cow, chicken, pigs, a small garden and fresh water spring from the mountain. She is probably about 80 years old but she manages all on her own, she makes her own milk, cheese, bread, the best sour cream you ever ate, everything! She has been managing for many years alone, even when the snow is several meters deep - she is such an amazing woman!







There was so much going on in the kitchen where Adela's grandma and aunts were making every traditional Romanian dish imaginable! I cannot emphasize how much we ate! And that it was the best food I ever ate in Romania!





Can you believe I slept in a barn with Curtis, a cow, and a chicken that came in from time to time to lay eggs... The cow and the chicken were cool but man, Curtis snores! It was my first time sleeping in a barn, it was warmer than sleeping in tents outside. The hay was soft and overwhelmingly sweet-smelling. Grandma was very worried we would start a fire in the barn. The impressions of the barn - outside of Curtis who snores but didn't sleep in the barn the first night because he couldn't figure out how to get inside - cow bell soft dinging, the crow of the rooster at sun rise, the soft warm lumpy feeling of hay...






Adela and Laurence in costume and what they look like normally...

Laurence gives the thumbs-up!