Rain, sunflowers and my infallible intuition

or: how I get to Oradea...

I wrote that I was happy that it wasn't rainy or windy or stormy and… suddenly the weather changed. The evening in Timisoara was quite cold and rainy, windy, stormy. But my tent survived! Which means I'm not so bad in pitching a tent:) Actually, nothing really happened to me or the tent, it just got wet and there was no time to let it dry in the morning. Never mind.

When I got to the station I was quite surprised that I don't have to wait 3 hours for the train to Oradea. There was a train in less than hour but I didn't know that as the online schedule didn't inform me about it. I knew how to ask for the ticket in Romanian, but then I didn't understand the numerals (the hour, price). Of course, I know how to pronounce the basic numbers, but the lady was speaking quite quickly and I didn't get anything. So she had to write it all down, as she didn't know English or any other language, which didn't surprise me at all. I think I need to improve my Romanian:) Or better – just start to learn it more efficiently:)

The train to Oradea passed through many small towns and villages, through fields with corn, cereal and sunflowers. Sunflowers! A crazy amount of sunflowers! (Btw- my favourite flowers:) I read somewhere that sunflowers are quite popular among Romanian and especially in rural areas they tend to eat a lot of sunflower seeds. So far I've noticed only one lady eating the seeds – in a small shop on a train station in Timisoara.

After 3 hours I arrived to Oradea. This time I just had to walk about 20 minutes to get to a school that functions as a hostel in summer. Of course, I didn't book anything or didn't e-mail them to make sure the information written in the guide book is still up to date. And it wasn't. I talked to a man I met in the school (again – Romanian only) and he said there's no chance to stay there overnight. It seems the school was being renovated. Whatever. I just kept on walking. I knew there was one more school but it wasn't on the map. So I asked a girl on the street if she knows anything. Well, she just knew I had to cross the bridge and probably go to the right. Fine for me. I walked down an empty street, looking for anyone who could give me some more information. But here was no one. I just followed my intuition and... suddenly I noticed the school. It was exactly on the street I'd been walking down for the last 5 minutes. Good luck and divine providence were with me.


It seems the place is not popular among tourists. The man at the reception was thinking and talking a lot with another man before he told me about the price (10e) and gave me the key. Well, I don't care. I got what I wanted (I dare say: “as always” :)

About the city itself: I must say I'm bit disappointed. Yes, it's nice, yes, it's quite calm and yes, there are many interesting places. But most of them quite neglected – old palaces that need to be renovated, a damaged synagogue, old tenement houses. There are of course many renovated and colourful buildings and fairy-tail-like palaces but somehow they didn't catch my attention. The main square was quite empty (because of the rain), the cafe gardens were waiting for new guests and tourists that disappeared suddenly. The city seemed to be frozen or rather washed away by the rain. I realized, you don't need more than 3 hours to see everything that is worth seeing here. If I had known that it I wouldn't have stayed overnight here, but it was too late. Anyway – where would I go? I was suppose to go to Cluj Napoca on Monday evening to meet Zofia the next day early in the morning. And there was no point to spend more time in Cluj than 2 days an not enough time to visit other places, bit far away from Oradea. So after all, I was quite happy to stay overnight in Oradea. At least I had my own bed. What a luxury:)