In which Ruth joins the group and describes the first couple of days

aving spent the past week progressing from Budapest through various Transylvanian towns to visit friends, I arrived in Sinaia by train to join the Festival Choir on Monday evening. Trains are subsidized by the government; I paid 13 RON (about $4.30) to ride for a little over an hour--and another 10 RON got me a 5 minute taxi ride to the hotel.

Sinaia is a picturesque resort in the Carpathians near what used to be the border between Romania and Transylvania. The buildings remind me of what one might see in Bavaria or the Alps --and it turns out there is a reason for that. In the lat 1800's when Walachia and Moldova united to from Romania, they couldn't agree on a leader. So, they sent off to Germany for a proper king.

Within the first 24 hours we had three rehearsals, and two more today. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we will sing through everything and then it's off to Sepsi Szt-Gyorgy, where we have our first concert on Thursday..On Tuesday, in addition to two rehearsals, we had a tour of Peles Castle, the summer palace of the Romanian royal family. In the afternoon free time several of us went up in a gondola to the top of the high mountain, and enjoyed some cooler weather, and seeing a shepherd and his dog with their sheep.

Wednesday: We visited Bran castle, built in the 1400's to overlook the main trade route to the east, on the border between Transylvania and what later became Romania. This facilitated collection of taxes on the merchandise. More recently the castle was given to Queen Marie, whose longing to add Transylvania to Romania's holdings was a factor in getting Woodrow Wilson to support this act in the Treaty of Trianon after WWI.

Bran Castle was also used by Bram Stoker as the setting for Dracula's castle. There is no evidence that Vlad Dracul, aka Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, ever visited this place, and I don't know if Bram Stoker did either. But the town gets a bit of a boost from the "Dracula's Castle" tourist attraction. Happily, the castle is pretty much as Marie left it, not at all spooky, but quite charming. There are plenty of Dracula souvenirs in the market outside the castle.

Recently the Romania government returned the castle to the heirs of the earlier owners, who live in NY now and want to sell it--it's going for $160 million if you know anyone interested. I haven't figured out how to download photos into the blog, but I's sure someone will post pictures of Bran Castle and you can see for yourselves whether or not you want to buy it.

After the evening rehearsal some of us went next door to a free concert with works by Brahmns and Tchaikovsky. And then we had supper on our own--I went to t a traditional Romanian restaurant, instead of the pizza and Irish pub options; I thought of you when I heard you can get Guinness at the pub. Anyway for 40 lei including tip and a beer, I had grilled bear meat and mushrooms, potatoes and tomato salad. I just had to try the grilled bear, because I'll probably never get another chance. It was actually very good--tasted a bit like steak marinated in pine needles and juniper berries.

Tomorrow we're off to Brasso and Szt Gyorgy and our first concert! I am having so much fun and I have to say, after practicing just the alto parts all these weeks, the music sounds ever so much better with all four sections. My friend Marko Laci, who took some photos while I was visiting with him and Maria, and posted them on my facebook page, will be videotaping the concert and putting it on You Tube, so in a couple of days you might want to look for UUPCC Festival Choir and see if you can find it.