Trip to Satu Mare, Romania!

This was a trip I made to Ana's hometown, Satu Mare in Romania in August 2019. It's one of the best kind of trips in my opinion- because I get to see what a local sees (since my friend is a local), live in a local's house, and go off the beaten track, and get to meet my friend's growing up years right in front of me. Personally, the people is what MAKES a trip meaningful to me. Getting to MEET locals. If you go somewhere as a tourist, you often tend to be centred around touristy hotspots, and the only local you really get to talk to might be the free Santander tour guide LOL. Anyway, enough of the boring talk, let's goooo to Romaniaaaaa! 

I flew directly from Luton to Satu Mare, and probably got other passengers wondering 'what's this random oriental girl going to Satu Mare for?' (since it's not Bucharest or some other major Romanian city)

Just a few hours after touching down, my first meal (Ok, pizza isn't exactly Romanian haha)
at the Sipos family's regular dine-out place

I finally got to meet Maxi Taxi!

 The main reason I joined Ana on this trip was because she was heading home for her cousin's wedding- and invited me to crash the party uninvited oops


Day 1: The Wedding

Thanks to Ana's parents for stopping at the sunflower fields
because this Malaysian girl had never seen a field full of them

Thanks to Ana's dad for taking the photo :P

Sunflower seeds are such a common snack but I've never seen it in its natural state

And...the next memorable thing I saw in Romania:

Stork nest! Look how huge it is, above the telephone pole!

We made a detour to Ana's grandma's village first before heading to the bride's place

Grapes @ grandma's house

Just pick and eat :)

Lovely lunch cooked by Ana's grandma
(chicken, potatoes, and really sweet homegrown tomatoes)

The village church

The wedding partay begins!

And then we headed to the church for the ceremony:

We headed back to Satu Mare to chill for the remainder of the afternoon, before going to the wedding reception

This is the 'letter box' for people to drop money envelopes in. So it's similar to the Chinese tradition of also giving angpaus to the couple, except that we hand them directly to them instead of dropping it off in this but i think it's a great idea!

XD

Day 2: Roadtrip to Maramureș

pitstop on the way

We arrived at the famous Merry Cemetery in the village called Săpânța:
In the 1930s, a local village artist started sculpting tombstone crosses but with a twist: he included short poems/stories, with a painting of the person (usually in his/her occupation e.g. carpenter, shepherd). 

Many were humorous as well, like this example from Wikipedia:
Under this heavy cross
Lies my poor mother in-law
Three more days should she have lived
I would lie, and she would read (this cross).
You, who here are passing by
Not to wake her up please try
Cause' if she comes back home
She'll criticise me more.
But I will surely behave
So she'll not return from grave.
Stay here, my dear mother in-law!

Then we went to the Sapanta Peri Monastery, which is the tallest wooden church in the world.

A classic fish + potatoes dinner :)

Right next to the restaurant

Day 3-4: Satu Mare 
There's no specific sequence to the rest of the photos now, just some sights Ana took me to see

I think something interesting for me was to hear stories of Romania's communism era from Ana's uncle and dad. Plus it only ended in 1989 so it's still relatively fresh and recent I guess.

You get to see glimpses of the socialist period from the architecture like this City Hall

Below is Hotel Dacia built in early 1900s, beautiful architecture but fell into wrong hands (?) and didn't have maintenance done, unfortunately..

Saw this couple in the park, so cute T.T

Visited Ana's high school!
She told me that statues weren't allowed during communist times so in the past,
that statue would've been covered up

Was really nice to meet Ana's friends @ the cafe too :)

Thanks to Ana's mum for the amaaaazing food and hospitality!