Day Five. Guests.

Way back in day two, Aurel suggested as the weather was so nice, we should have a barbeque, everyone agreed, and invited themselves to his house!

We loved the idea, the chance to experience Romanian hospitality in a real home.

It is traditional to take flowers or chocolate when you are a guest in Romania, I looked out for some on my recce to the train station,but it's Sunday, and almost all the shops are closed.

Crina and Dan  kindly picked us up to take us to Aurel's home, so Carolyn asked if they could take us some where for flowers.

Fortunately it was "flower day" and Dan knew just the place.

Flower day is the last Sunday before Easter, and if you have a flower name it is considered your birthday.  Crina means lily, so it was Crina's birthday today.  More here: CLICKY

The flower market was bustling with people buying, sellers and cars.  Carolyn and Crina went to look for flowers, myself and Dan stayed with the car.  It wasn't long before a symphony of horns indicated it was time for Dan to move the car.  The horn is a familiar sound on the streets of Cluj, but is normally a indication of exasperation and not aggression.

I got out to tell the girls that we had moved, I found them enjoying the market, and with a bunch of flowers ready.

When we arrived at Aurel's house, he came out to greet us with his wife Corena and miniature poodle Oxey.

We had a tour of the garden whilst Aurel did the important work of barbecuing.  Aurel's garden is typical of many Romania gardens, in that it is mainly used to grow vegetables, we had all the different produce pointed out to us, and we swapped Romanian and English names for the plants.  You could see many other gardens all the same, but none of them were as well set up as Aurel's.

The food was fantastic, and plentiful, we were introduced to Mititei a kind of kebab, a tomato and pepper salsa, that has been semi fermented (which was lovely) and minced roasted Aubergine, unfortunately we can't remember the names of the last two, but we will be recreating them when we get home.

We spent the rest of the afternoon, chatting and eating strawberries.  Everyone was soon tired from the good food, the beer and the sun, so Dan and Crina brought us back to our hotel.

After a couple of hours back at the hotel, we had a call from Lidia to say that Alin was on his way to pick us up to meet friends in a bar, and we had fifteen minutes.  It was a lovely surprise, but did mean we had to be quick to be ready.

Alin took us to a bar by the river, we met his 5 year old daughter, a charming little girl and their friends Dan and Anna. We drank, ate pizza and compared British and Romania life, another wonderful evening and fantastic treat.