COMENIUS ROMANIA

Lucía Gutiérrez Aja and Montse Conesa Alvargonzález

In general, we think that this experience is one of the most awesome of our lives. We had the chance to know more things about different cultures, now we have friends all around the world and we know that if we go to Romania, Rome, Turkey, Lithuania, Poland or Bulgary we will always have a house where to stay.

Our trip started the 6th of October. We drove to Bilbao, where we pick up a plane to Rome. We stayed there for 8 hours, and we had the chance to visit some of the most importants sights of the city. We could throw the money in the Fontana di Trevi, we've been in Piaza Espagna, and we walk through the amazing streets of Rome.

Then we went back to the airport where we had to wait for two hours because there was a storm. Finally we arrived to Budapest. The next morning we coundn't visit anything because we had arrived so late and we prefered sleep just a little bit. In the afternoon we met the romanian teacher who will take us to Satu-Mare. We stoped in the airport and we picked up to the italian boy and his teacher Mimo. In less than five hours ( the driver looked like a Formula 1 driver) we arrived to Satu-Mare, and we met our romanian friends.

Next day we went to the school and we visited the classes where we realized that they are pretty different from us. In music class they sing and they practice to sing in the church because the most of the boys will study teology and they'll become priests. In fact, the first thing we did was go to mass.

There, we met a very important person in the religious romanian world. He was the ortodox bishop Juistine of Maramuresh.

When at 6 in the afternoon they said to us -"Come on. We're going to eat something." we thought "well, maybe the have dinner soon", but then we realized that this was only the afternoon snack. The snack was a steak and French fries. Two hours later we were eating again. We went out for dinner, where we met all our Comenius friends and we start to talk with everyone.

The next morning we woke up with 0ºC. We went to the school again and we had the presentations about the typical weddings in our country. We talk about the religious, the civil and the vaqueiras weddings. We spent a lot of time with the Italian boy and with the Romanian guys.

The 4th day we had an all day tour around the city and to some villages near Satu-Mare. We visited a village where the neighbours competed between them to build the biggest house. There we had an snack with bread and fruit. It was 11 in the morning when we tasted that. We visited a cemetery called “The happy cemetery” where all the graves tells the history of the dead’s life and how he or she had died. It was so so so beautiful.

We also visited a monastery where all the buildings were built with wood. The gardens were amazing. Everything was full of flowers, grass, there was a little river... It was incredible. The countryside was very similar to Asturias. Mountains, green, lots of trees...

In our last day in Romania we went to a Orthodox cathedral and we celebrate a mass officiated by the orthodox bishop. We spent the rest of the time with our families, we did some shoppings, and in the evening we went to a central park, where each one with his host, throw to the sky a kind of paper ballons with a candle. They floated and they raised to the sky. In those little lanterns, we had written our names, our country and the wish to be all together again some day.

It was so sad to say goodbye to all our new friends. We promised someday we will meet all together. It doesn't matter where. We drove from Satu-Mare to Budapest with Valerio and Mimo and we spent our last day of trip in Budapest. We visited the central market of Budapest, called "living marketplace" and all the incredible monuments of this wonderful city, like the synagogue, which is the second biggest in the world.