Photos!

Our photos can be found here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/markralf

Enjoy!

Dave

M20, England

We are home, or near as darn it.

We stayed near Calais for two days in the end, doing one big day of driving, and then sleeping in the same campsite for two days in a row (a first for us).

We ate in the restaurant, sampling some French cuisine (avec pomme frites) both nights. On our final day we visited the nearby ‘blockhouse’, a massive concrete bunker hidden in a forest (think Return of the Jedi, but bigger, and with big bomb holes in it) which was used for the production of the famous V2 rockets during WW2. It was bombed several times by the English during the war and no V2 rockets were actually ever launched from that location, but production continued.

We also played Ultimate Frisbee, Dad and me versus Mother and Stephen. They whupped us. It was really very silly.

Today we woke up, ate a bacon and egg sandwich and headed out, catching the Eurotunnel on time despite a ‘last call’ scare as we were still in duty-free!

We should arrive home at 12:19 (according to the GPS), and I will be uploading the omitted photos that we have taken (there are loads!) the moment I have a solid broadband connection.

I hope you have all enjoyed reading; it has been a very strange adventure.

Dave, your blogger, signing off.

Somewhere in Germany

Last night we wandered into Prague – we took the tram from just outside our campsite (which is run by the most lovely people and their big dogs – we seem to run into animals wherever we go…) We found our way towards the main square in the Staré Mesto (all Czech names are entirely unpronounceable) and saw the astrological clock and the surrounding buildings (This being the square in which Tom Cruise blew up an aquarium restaurant and ran away from the baddies in Mission: Impossible) and then took a trip along the historical Charles Bridge. In Staré Mesto we had seen beautiful churches, large squares, narrow alleyways and sprawling buildings reminiscent of Rome, but crossing the river and looking up the hillside to the huge palaces and cathedrals lit up in the darkness – this was something entirely unique.

We then went in search of the John Lennon wall (I’d been Wikipedia-ing in the van before) and with the clue from one of the campsite ladies that it was near the French embassy, we set off. We found the Serbian embassy near the Charles bridge, then the Japanese, Maltese and American embassies before asking two nearby policemen who pointed us in the right direction.

We found the French embassy (I was a little worried that the British embassy wasn’t easier to find) and across from it was the John Lennon wall. It looks, in the half light of street-lamped late evening light a soot-blacked old wall with a couple of stray pieces of graffiti, curiously left to read. As you get closer you see that the entire wall is nothing but graffiti built upon graffiti, with pictures of the former Beatle alongside excerpts of his lyrics, peace symbols, etc. There is even a sculpture of his face set out of the wall, and a hanging ban-the-bomb symbol made of branches. A bizarre sight in a beautiful old city. The group that owns the section of historic wall allow the graffiti to exist there and be added to. In 1988 the authorities tired of it and painted over the slogans and pictures. In two days it was already covered in pictures of flowers and messages.

Today, we are appreciating the Autobahns. The kind of roads that speed you along, and are so smooth you can still sleep through them. As long as you aren’t driving, of course. We should arrive in Wiesbaden, near Frankfurt around 3pm today. (We are only one hour ahead now, of course. We sorted the whole ‘time’ lark out pretty well, didn’t we?)

We stay in Wiesbaden tonight, either France, Belgium or Germany on Friday, near Calais on Saturday, and we catch a Eurotunnel train then drive home late Sunday morning.

Austro-Czech Border

It has been longer than I would like since our last post. We have not slipped off the continent, we are still battling through, I assure you.

Romania seemed like an ever-so-slightly tiresome film to some of us. To others it felt like we had already seen it once, and now we were watching it reverse.

Certainly it felt as if someone had their finger on the pause button from Brasov to Cluj. A short day's journey via Sibiu, the European city of culture was slowed to a crawl by on-the-kilometre-every-kilometre roadworks. The road was falling back into the earth.

When we did get to Sibiu we ate Mcdonalds, having driven through what looked like an industrial park. We were told that we had ‘missed’ the old town. Then we remembered that Liverpool had been a European city of culture. We drove on.

We stayed once more at Cluj Napoca; enjoying a meal in the restaurant that was run by the Dutch couple who owned the campsite.

Leaving Romania into Hungary was a breeze compared to leaving Romania for Moldova – as Romania is in the EU. Member states apparently feel that ‘whatever our neighbour has, we’ve already got’.

In Hungary we met the Tőroks, Mark and his mother Monika. We spent an evening at Mark’s uncle’s house. The uncle, Auguste, is an ex-headmaster and he and his wife, Mary showed us around the house that they had designed and built themselves. We ate a beautiful veal stew that had been prepared on an open fire, were offered more ice cream than it is possible to eat, and most of us visited the bathroom ironically decked out in communist memorabilia; red banners, photographs of Lenin and communist manifestos.

We then took wine and conversation in his front room/the Hungarian national library. The final anecdote began, as they all did, like this, “During the soviet era…” and continued:

…a heavy smoker who drank a lot of vodka went to the doctor. The doctor examined him and said that he had good news and bad news.
“Tell me the bad news.”
“We have to take your right lung out.”
“Oh no! What on earth could the good news be?”
“You will have more room for your liver.”

We had a short drive to Vienna yesterday before enjoying a thoroughly inadequate two hours in the city. We did eat fantastic pizzas (right continent, wrong country) and saw the beautiful Stadt park several times, walking between the van and the St. Stephan square, with the most amazingly huge soot-stained church. Stephen (my brother) has been noting with glee the number of European kings and saints of his namesake.

My parents were looking for a hose in Vienna. Our’s barely holds water and takes three people to wind it up. They walked into the Austrian Caravanning and Camping Association shop – a huge affair in a prominent place near St Stephan’s square.

Mark: Have you got any hoses?
Saleswoman: No, you want a camping shop…

Our souvenir fruits pressed on us leaving Moldova will unfortunately not make it home, so we are on the look out for more sturdy souvenirs in Prague today. There is a strange sort of tax-free Disneyland between the border control of Austria and the Czech Republic. We wandered around the factory outlets (drawn to a halt by the Styrofoam castles that tower over the connecting road) and ate crépes. We are now heading toward Prague.

The Nedelciuc's Apartment, Chisnau, Moldova

Today we left the orphanage feeling almost entirely successful. We were able to see the teachers from the orphanage, talk with the director and explain the sports and craft equipment we had brought to the respective persons. The Physical Education teacher especially seemed very happy with the various goals and rackets and nets and balls he (and the children!) now had to play with.

We also managed to leave without too many gifts being given the other way, although we have a huge number of fresh walnuts off the trees, and bags of apples and pears. The director also presented us with an amazing cross-stitch picture that the children had made. It is beautifully intricate - I thought at first it was a photograph of a painting!

We then drove to Chisnau, the capital, and have looked around quickly. It is an entirely different place to the northern villages like Vascauti. The large (communist-built) buildings tower over lovely parks - it is reminicent of a small-scale New York or a London, but the poverty here is still evident. Many houses are run down, and there is an obvious well-off / poverty-stricken divide still.

For most of the afternoon we visited Milesti Mici, the largest wine cellar in the entire world. It is just outside the city, it is owned by the state, and there are over 1.5 million bottles stored underground there. We tasted some of the wines (we had different favourites) and ate lunch before leaving for the city.

We have penned a letter to the Compudava Foundation regarding the pump motors for the boiler system. We feel this is a pressing issue and so are hoping to set the wheels in motion as soon as possible.

I must sleep. My eyes are heavy and there is much driving and customs and driving tomorrow.

The Orphanage, Vascauti (Part Two)

GPRS internet only - pictures are pretty much out from here on in...

It has taken three days for the customs officers to finish the declarations on our giving. We have not been the ones going into the two nearby towns (to be ignored, have the power fail of us, or be told to return tomorrow) because of the language barrier, etc. but we have today finished painting the orphanage gate. So that is good news.

It is sad in many ways that it has been so complex to give to the orphanage this time around, because apparently it has been very stress-free when we have given through Compudava, the company with have links with through Norman Fraser, and Silvia’s husband, Vassily. Silvia has been a great force in getting things done, and she has worn herself out completely. All this being said, the director of the orphanage seems very pleased with the gifts and the assistant heads of the school seems excited about the craft materials.

Yesterday we saw about 30 of the children from the orphanage at their holiday camp. The camp itself is reminiscent of American summer camps that appear in Hollywood films, although the accommodation far more fun and quirky (small A-frame lodges) and the facilities, like everything are more or less run down. The children seemed pleased to see their assistant head of school. We told them that we had come from England in a big van (the younger children said they didn’t know where the UK would be on a map – we told them that most English people would not know where Moldova was!) and that we had brought them some sports equipment.

However, we later found out that the children had said to their teacher that they were unhappy and that they were not being treated the same as the other children on the camp. They asked her to take them home (to the orphanage) and asked “How big is these people’s van?” We only found this out much later, and it was so tragic as we had thought that the camp looked very good, and were positive about our look around. The director’s response was, I think very sage: “Whenever they go away they always say they want to come back.” Luckily, the vast majority of the children do have a place to go; to relatives, to friends, etc. over the break.

We also saw the boiler room, which, after much pressing, the director singled out as an area for great concern. Two of the three pumps that supply hot water to all the buildings in the orphanage are broken and sit on the floor. Two of the three boilers leak. There is a possibility of a gas pipe reaching Vascauti in the foreseeable future, but there is this winter to consider with what is now a failing heating system.

We leave tomorrow for Chisnau (“Kish-now”), the capital of Moldova with Silvia and Horia, to stay with them for an evening and see the city.

The Orphanage, Vascauti, Moldova

GPRS internet only – pictures are pretty much out from here on in...

We arrived at the orphanage 17 hours after leaving Cluj, having spent four and a half hours at customs! Our friend Norman Fraser suggests that it is all about patience. Prove that you are more patient than the custom officer and they give up. As it turned out, Silvia's advocacy of us won out, and we arrived here around midnight last night, had a late dinner/tea here in the school dining room, and as we settled in to sleep (in the caravan – we may sleep in a dormitory tonight) a tiny dog began to bark; a high pitched yap that did not cease until the early hours.

Today we have eaten breakfast and lunch courtesy of the orphanage with Horia and Silvia. We have been the only ones eating, and they have prepared beautiful meals for us in an extremely basic kitchen. Our mumbled thank yous (mes-u-mescht) don’t seem to do the hospitality justice.

We have brought a smattering of rain with us, but no one seems to mind – it has not rained here for a long time, unlike home! Unfortunately, that has slowed our first work – repainting the orphanage’s gates brown and white, because the brown and white paint is rather tired. This morning we attacked the gate with scrapers, screwdrivers and hacksaw blades to smooth it out after many previous coats of paint. Now we are setting to applying the paint.

During the rain we befriended the beast of barking from last night, a cute little bag of bones that everyone on site seems to have soft spot for – its excursions into the dining hall are lightly reprimanded, and then someone takes it some scraps. We have also learnt how to shell walnuts straight from the branch; for someone who can’t stand the dried nuts, I found these delightfully watery and gentle tasting. In general the food here has been delicious; the vegetables are really gorgeous.

Sadly, the customs debacle is not over. The head of the orphanage is off today in town trying to finish the declarations that will allow us to donate the sports equipment. Also sad is the fact that we see the orphanage so empty of children, but we are reassured; they are on holiday camp, mixing with other Moldovan children from all backgrounds. Hopefully they will return to some great new equipment.

Meantime, I should be painting!