Transylvania

About three weeks ago my rotary club was nice enough to take the four Szeged exchange students on a four day trip to Transylvania with them. It was a blast!

So on Thursday (Transylvania adventure day 1) we spent 14 hours on a bus.

Along the way we stopped at a very interesting and inspiring school. It provides education, housing, a family setting, and many other types of learning for severely underprivileged children. Their grounds had fruit and vegetable gardens for the children to learn a little agriculture and were absolutely beautiful.

We also saw some incredible landscapes on the drive. I have never seen so many different colored leaves in my life!

On the road to our hotel I saw this and thought all you animated movie fans would appreciate it:

I doubt many people can actually say they have been to the real Hotel Transilvania ;)

Then, upon arriving at our hotel, the four of us (Mexican, Brazilian, Taiwanese, and Eurekan), who are none too familiar with snow, had a blast catching snowflakes and watching it fall.

The next morning there was actually snow stuck to the ground. It was amazing! We got really distracted by it on the way to breakfast and took a lot of photos.

It was a little chilly but the snow was beautiful. 

I saw one of the coolest things I have ever seen after breakfast that morning. I walked outside after breakfast and snowflakes were landing on my jacket. 

I looked at one a little closer and found that snowflakes are actually shaped like those pretty geometric things they are depicted as. I could not believe it!! I totally thought that was a lie. If it hadn't melted I could have stared at that beautiful little snowflake for the rest of my life (good thing it melted).

Then we were off to go tour what seemed like every museum in Transylvania. Some were interesting:

And some not so much:

... He was sleeping but woke up right as I took the picture.

We also visited a very old church that was built in the 13th century. The first of many wall drawings depicting the deeds of a hero names Laszlo, who died in 1095, were added in the 14th century. Later drawings were added depicting the life of Jesus (or Jezus in Hungarian). The ceiling, which is made out of what look like wine barrels and was my favorite part, was added in 1628. The alters and adornments were added in the 1700's sometime and the paintings on the organ were added in 1766. 

This was all told to me by a lovely, and very stereotypical looking Romanian woman who complemented my Hungarian. She was very sweet and fit exactly what I would have pictured an old Romanian woman looking like. You can't really see her very well but think Babushka.

Somewhere along the way one of the Rotarians gave us some treats :)

 Biggest chocolate bar ever!

We also stopped by an agriculture fair with some very tasty goulyas.

On the way to the next stop we walked out to see a very old (not sure exactly how old is very old but older that the US) oak tree.

And I saw some mushrooms and had to take a picture for Mrs. Baugh even if she will never see it :)

Then we went to a rotary banquet and bonfire with some more yummy goulyas.

On Saturday we spent most of the day on the bus

but we did stop at an interesting memorial to the revolution of 1848;

we also stopped at another church

Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for the tenth anniversary of the Transylvania rotary club that my Szeged rotary club is the mentor of, which was why we were there to begin with. They had very fancy food, traditional Hungarian dance, and a lot of nice rotarians.

And finally, on Sunday, it was back to the bus for our return trip. No stops (except pit stops) and we were home in just eleven hours.

Goodbye Transylvania! It was fun!