Day 3- Monestaries, Gardens and villages

If you didnt recognize me, this is me & D's cousin on the top of the valley on the way to the Monestary.
You can see the blue roofed Men's Monistary in the distance. Stephen the great build a monestarry each time he won a battle. He build 47. We couldnt go in because I didnt have a long skirt, long sleeves & a head cover. It was beautiful on the outside.

When we were up on the top of the mountain, probably 3 or more miles away, we could hear the men singing. It was beautiful, and I wished D & I were there alone. I could have sat on the top of the hill looking down & listening all morning.

The monestary was in a village, so this was my first experience with dirt, rutted roads. Hoy Vey!



This picture is from the 2nd monestary that we went to. This is a female monestary and it was really cool to hear the musical difference from the male monestary. This church offered wrap skirts & head wraps, but we didnt see them until we were leaving the grounds. Beautiful.

THis is the new monestary that they are building.

After the monestaries, we went to the village where Anna was born. Here we met up with D's youngest Uncle's family. It was very interesting. Although the uncle works as a bus driver, they live solely off the land. Gardens, chickens, pigs, wells, everything.

Everyone spoke Romanian, so even D had a hard time following.

They had a neat custom where the host (the son) had a pitcher of wine & one glass & everyone would share that glass as it was passed around the table & we all had to say a toast. For some reason this made me want to cry.

On the way out of the village, we stopped at Anna's parents grave. We put flowers, candles, etc.

This was the most BEAUTIFUL graveyard I ever saw. Again, I would have liked to cry... but all of d's cousins were laughing and telling jokes...

This is the graveyard gate. D said the metal gates were "fancy."

That evening we ended up in a small town outside of the village with D's other uncle & his family. We had a picnic in the forest. It was great!

Pictured are Uncles Afernasy (sp?), Andre, Vitoli, me, D, cousin victor, wife tanya & aunt maria.

Wonderful people.

We will go back here on Thursday & Tanya will take us to visit her family on the Romanian border.

All along the main road people just pull off, light a fire and start cooking. It is great. No wonder they dont need McDonalds.