Goodness! It seems like people keep writing about Romania and Romanian things!

First off we have an American (in USA) who has never been to Romania but decided to cook an entirely Romanian meal, including mici.

I will say that it seems the mici came out more or less okay. As for what “mushrooms on toast” or the apple dessert have to do with being Romanian food, I have no clue. I’ve never eaten either one of those while here.

Then I found this blog written in English by a Romanian who lives in Bucharest. The writing is rather bland but he (she?) has a metric ton of photographs of Bucharest on their website and some of them are spectacular.

Speaking of photos, I found this blog by an American living in Dobrogea who is apparently married to a Romanian. The link goes to an outstanding series of photos she took of homemade crafts and artisan Romanian objects she saw for sale at a fair. Gorgeous!

I also found this blog in Swedish of a return visitor to Romania who unfortunately got sick within a few days here. Get better soon!

Speaking of getting ill, apparently (previously mentioned blogger) Paper Girls author spent two days in a Romanian hospital by herself and lived to tell the tale:

SO here I was, in my spiffy hospital Johnny, Daniela has said good night and off she goes with my clothes, my keys, my passport, and my money. I-AM-TRAPPED. Bleah. I can’t explain the strangeness of this situation. You had to be there. I just have no words. I am feeling very alone and sad at this point, but decided to focus on getting better…on how this all would pass.

Yikes!

Meanwhile this author reflects to her past and a visit to Romania and painting gypsy children’s fingernails:

When we couldn’t understand what they were saying they would teach us new Romanian words to help us understand. I had some bright purple nail polish in my pocket that I had just bought for the kids at the hospital (they love having their nails painted) and so I pulled it out and the girls eagerly came forward, holding their fingers out for me to paint. Their little fingers were so grimy! After each painted nail we would exclaim, “Oh, frumoasa!” (Oh, beautiful!).

See folks? There you go. A Romanian would never think in 1 million years to paint random gypsy children’s fingernails :D

Peace Corps do-gooder Sarah got to attend a high school style dance (misspelled in her post) and describes it in delicious detail. Sadly I see via an earlier post that she missed out on Let’s Do It Romania. Why? Because of her poor (Romanian) language skills :(

Speaking of poor language skills, I found this American Do-Gooder‘s blog and s/he apparently cannot handle whatever kind of local fresh cheeses they are feeding her/him. Yikes! Probably some of the best food ever made in Romania but I gues it’s too strong for some people’s tastes.

I simply had to borrow a few quotes from this post on cultural differences (between USAmericans and Romanians):

Ok, first off, the language barrier. I say barrier because that’s exactly what it is. Not being able to be understood and even more so to understand is as hard as running through a brick wall, and I know exactly how hard that is (if your confused ask one of my friends or family).

I’ve definitely been there – oof!

The good news is s/he likes the food:

Soup. Is. Amazing. There is no such thing as canned soup in Romania. Every last soup dish is made from scratch, and it’s awesome. It’s called ciorba here (pronounced chorba) and there are 2 kinds, sour soup and just plain ciorba. Sour soup usually has vinegar or something of the like in it, but it’s still quite good. A Romanian classic soup is sour soup with pig intestine, yes I’ve had it and yes I like it.

I’m going to have to assume this is actually ciorba de burta which comes from a cow. I am totally unfamiliar with any kind of soup made from pig’s intestines although knowing Romanians, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did exist :P

But my all-time favorite observation:

PDA = Ok. Got a girlfriend? Wanna make out in front of the whole world? Then come to Romania folks, people do it here all the time.

Yes! I do and I do!

Meanwhile this missionary‘s blog is full of a thinly disguised superiority:

Romania is a third-world country. You would not believe yourself the things you see here. it rips your heart out and makes you speechless how people live, are treated, and everything in between. There are many many problems here, the list goes on.

Meanwhile elsewhere she mentions Jesus is more than just her boyfriend and will keep her company as she comes here to this Third World country :D

And last but not least, Romanian in USA blogger Romanian Dream posted some gorgeous photos of Sibiu. That city is so spectacular and these photos truly do it justice – makes me want to jump on a train right now and go back there!