Drive to Bran

 We left Bucharest and headed toward Bran.  

Cute, modern small houses.

There really aren't too many highways in Romania we found out.  Mostly you take 2-lane roads between towns.  But it looks like they are building one here.

Jumbo, a toy store, similar to Toys R Us.

This is like a Lowe's or Menard's store.

This sign says "After you die, you will meet God. Repent and believe in the Gospel!  Mark 1:15"

Most of the country attend Orthodox churches.

A quaint little house.

There were lots of brilliantly yellow fields of rapeseed.  We have canola fields in Kansas and Oklahoma that are a genetically modified version of the rapeseed plant.  They belong to the mustard family.

Along the way, we came across small "hotels" or perhaps B&Bs.

Village in the mountains.  People park on the sidewalks here.

I wonder what this building is?  Is it a college?  Dormitory?  Large home?  Hotel?

We drove through the forest in the mountains.  Ruxi called the curves in the roads "serpentines".  Makes sense.  

"...all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the LORD."                                                                                              Psalm 96:12

Someone asked what my highlight was.  Perhaps this.  We were listening to praise and worship in the van when we saw this majestic mountain with the rapeseed field in front of it.  We stopped and got out to give God the glory for His creation.

Glory to the King of Kings, Glory to His Name! 

"Evolution takes glory and praise away from the Creator." - Ruxi   Amen to that.

"Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God!"  Psalm 90:2

There were shepherds with sheep in the distance.

One of the shepherds was on horseback.

Wouldn't it be something to shepherd your flock with this view each day??!!

We soon turned onto the road leading to Elim House (Casa Elim), a Christian campground that the church in Galati uses.

We were shown to our rooms.  This was our room.

Reminded me of the Dick Van Dyke show.

We were served a Romanian dinner that evening.  Mici (pronounced "meechee" and translated "The Little Ones"), 2 variations of meat with mustard.  Except I used ketchup.  There were also fries.  And coffee and fruit tea.

The next morning, we had breakfast followed by worship time before setting out.

There were sheep at the camp.

"Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things.  His right hand and His holy arm have worked salvation for Him.  The LORD has made His salvation known and revealed His righteousness to the nations."  Psalm 98:1.2

Bucharest continued

 

After leaving the protests, we walked to a Mexican restaurant.  

You'd think we'd eat Romanian food, but Ruxi said we would get a lot of Romanian food, so she thought we should try out this place.

The drink cans are slim and tall

taco holders

The Cousins

We walked to some fountains.

They were just starting up the fountains after the ending of winter.

They light up at night but we didn't get to see that.  It would have been pretty spectacular I'd guess!

Fountains line the streets too.

I love to people watch!  I could camp out in one spot and just watch!

I wish this hadn't been blurry.  The conversation looked intense.

We walked by several shops.

Flower shops like this are all over the city!  The girls here love their flowers!

We tried to figure out all the services of this clinic.

There is a LOT of graffiti in Romania.  I looked up why that is and I read that during the repressive Communist regime, creativity and freedom of expression were suppressed.  Actually, graffiti is illegal still, but it is still done all over.  

Gas station.  Gas was fairly expensive.  About $6-$7 a gallon after converting from lei.

  

Entrance to the subway.  Lots of people walk and use that rather than drive cars.

Now for more pictures of architecture that I love!