My New Remembrance Day Earrings

Another pair of earrings that was damaged was my Remembrance/Veterans Day pair.  We found these on Etsy and they came all the way from Romania.  Not only that, I got a martisor in the bargain!

Iasi-ful Chinese

Our last trip to Iasi was in April.   We had Chinese, of course!  Mine's the one with the soup.

Lunch In Iasi

It was a holiday in April - right at Easter - so we went to Iasi for the day.  No overnight, just driving there and back.  So we ate lunch at the Chinese fast food place.  The one with the soup was nine.  It was obviously waaay too much food for me.

Pizza At Paradise

As usual on our way from Romania, we stopped in Birlad for pizza when driving back from Sighisoara.  The pizza and service were as good as usual, even though the summer terrace was closed.

Sighisoara Streets

 We finally made it to Sighisoara last month, and it might have been the cold weather or just the size, but we didn't find much to do.  The place was pretty dead too, with most things closed up.  If we spend time in Brasov in the summer, maybe we'll go up and see what it's like then.  On the other hand, we absolutely loved our apartment there.

Turning Over

Okay, so I am weird.  I have coveted a crepe turner for years.  This December, I bought this nice wooden one at the Cluj Christmas market.  It's so smooth and pretty!

Royal Times

The people of Cluj publish a newspaper on National Day showing the return of the royals to Bucharest on the first National Day in 1918.  Good way to remember history!

Pizza Place On Eroilor

Pizza 4 Amici is in the basement of a building on Blvd. Eroilor, and they make good mulled wine!  Their food is also very good.  I had the wine to warm me up.  Andreas had a banana milkshake.  No comment on the reason.  We, as usual, ordered too much food.  My chicken soup - was not zeama.  I am so going to miss zeama when we move to Luanda in the autumn.  Andreas had a cold plate and pasta and I had veggie pizza. All were very good and very filling.  The service was nice too!  The waitress checked on us every so often and told us that things would take a bit.

Beautiful Pottery

We saw these shallow bowls hanging on the wall in MolDeco when we were getting some framing done.  I fell in love with some of them, especially the one above on the right.  They're all hand made and painted by an artist in Transylvania.  Andreas decided to buy them all for me.  The whole set was under a hundred dollars. I consider it a steal.

Huge And ....

Cluj's Iulius Mall had this huge Christmas display.  It's two stories tall and seems to be of a Christmas tree with dwarves, but I'm not sure.  They look kind of scary.

Olivo Coffee Shop

 So, it wasn't our beloved Oliva Pizza in Chisinau, and the service was much, much worse.  This is a hipster, snobbish coffee shop in downtown Cluj.  Every step of our service was lousy.  If we had known how long it would take to get my cappucino when we ordered our food, we would not have.  The food was not excellent, but it was okay.  The burgers were overcooked and dry.  The bruschetta was the best part of the meal.  Not somewhere we would voluntarily go again, as it two nearly two hours - for lunch.  Most of that time was spent trying to get the waiter's attention.

Cluj Lights

The lights in Cluj were quite pretty despite the rain.  The tentlike lights were over the central square of the Christmas market.

Different From Moldovan

In Cluj, we had dinner in a place where we got out of the rain.  It was La Ardealul, named after the forest.  During this meal, we learned that Transylvanian food is very different from Moldovan.  I learned their chicken soup is -not- zeama.  Andreas learned the polenta is not mamaliga.  They were good, at least, if not what we are used to.

Steampunk Lunch

On a cold, wet, rainy day, we found Joban Bistro.  It was the reason we had decided to stop in Cluj.  The place is a steampunk bar, and it's cute!  On top of that, it has fried pickles.  Granted, not Texas type fried pickles, but fried pickles nonetheless.  They also had really good and huge burgers and a decor right out of imaginative Victorian times.  Their drinks were even steampunk themed.  Go!