Celebrating Christmas together

Celebrating Christmas together

Our Romania road trip finishes up with a stop of three days in my home village named Sotrile, located in Prahova County. After we leave behind the beautiful city of Sibiu, we start driving all the way back to the more southern parts of the country, the journey by car lasting 3 to 4 hours.

Arriving at the my parent's house: a warm atmosphere 

We arrive at my parent’s house in the evening. They are welcoming and greeting us nicely and are very happy to finally meet my new Erasmus friends about which I story tell them so many times. Arrived in the house are also other friends who have met the girls before.

The atmosphere that is creating in our living room is, indeed, so cozy and Christmasy: there are lots of people talking and laughing around the house, but, in the center of attention are, of course, my family’s four cats which are kind and delighted to be pet by so many humans.

Having a traditional Romanian dinner 

My mother, who is a genius cook with blessed hands, invites us to serve dinner. She has prepared plenty of traditional Romanian dishes, most of each being specific to the Christmas Holiday such as “sarmale” with cornbread or “mamaliga” – how we called it, boeuf salad, pickles, good potato fries, smoked and fried pork, homemade bread.

Besides the food, we also drink a homemade green sweet walnut liqueur which is, as I notice, everybody’s favorite, Romanian beer, “tuica”, a strong Romanian alcohol made by my father, while the drivers are enjoying a cup of water or orange juice.  

As for dessert, my mother has made the traditional “cozonac” – a sweet cake we always have in Romania around great holidays like Christmas and Easter – and a weird but delicious tomato paste and plum jam vegan cake.

The abundance of food and drinks is extremely tasty and everybody eats so much, too much! Thank you, mama, for cooking and offering us these delicious preparations!

Getting to the accommodation: my family's hut 

After we have dinner and thank my parents for all of the goodies and kindness, we drive a few kilometers away to my family’s cabin. Each of us gets installed in a room and, because is late, and we are tired for making other activities, we just hang out for a bit, take shower and finally go to sleep after a full long day of travelling.

A fresh day: is Christmas Eve!

The next day we wake up fresh and energized. Is Christmas Eve and for today we have in plan to decorate the Christmas tree and the hut all together and also to explore more of the surroundings of this country side place, I mean, my friends have to get to know the village, because, when it comes to me, I grew up in these hilly locations, though, from my experience, there is always something new and interesting waiting to be discovered.

But first, breakfast. Other delicious traditional foods

At breakfast we get to eat other Romanian traditional foods and snacks that my mother prepared for us such as the classical “zacusca”, the boeuf salad, fish egg salad, the vegan version of the “cozonac”, homemade plum jam, a type of cheese that is called around the region “cascavea” smoked pork meat and so on. Ah, the Holidays and the food, such a perfect match!

Exploring the surroundings: getting to Paltinu Dam, where is situated?

After having breakfast, we get dressed up and drive to the closest city named Campina to get some more party snacks and finish the Christmas shopping.

On the way back to the hut, we make a small loop to see The Paltinu Dam, one of the – let’s say – tourist attraction, placed at about 16 kilometers away from Campina and situated near a very known commune – which also happens to be one of the largest communes in Romania – named “Valea Doftanei”, translated as “Doftana Valley”. Actually, the great river Doftana with its tributaries is the one flowing into The Paltinu Dam, thus, forming it.

To get to Paltinu Dam, from Campina you have to follow the DJ102l road which leads through a village called “Lunca Mare” and to the bottom of the dam from where there is a spectacular view: the tall concrete wall of the dam is standing proud between two steep forestry hills and looks a bit threatening.

Looking over the dam and beyond: not photos allowed?

The road gets up through same tight curves, but soon we arrive at the dam’s wall and bridge where we stop to admire the beautiful landscapes over the blue wide spread of the dam and all of the hilly and mountain regions surrounding it.

People are not allowed to walk on the surface of the bridge or on the dam’s wall, but there is still a portion on which we can stand and look over, in any direction. Although, it says that taking pictures or videos is prohibited and because there isn’t any guard or other people around, we spend same time here and take lots of photos, of course, we cannot miss this opportunity, plus, the place is worth to be photographed, it makes you to get your camera out and capture the wonderful nature around.

The traditional group photo is kept alive in this place too, even if my brother is missing. The strong wind is bothering us, thus probably, in all of the pictures our hair is just flying away.

Moving forward to a beautiful meadow

After we freeze, we move forward to a meadow that connects the road with the dam's lake. Now, the perspective over the dam has changed completely and in the foreground we get to see the meadow and the turquoise water, while in the background, are raising from the water, hills with colorful forests.

I tell my friends that actually our hut is placed over the hills that they see in front and, at first, they are like: “really, but how?” so they are confused and probably cannot understand where they are, but in the end, they get to believe me.

Even if the wind is blowing, attracted by the charming landscape and nature which is opening up in front of our eyes, we cannot stay just in the car, but we decide to get down to the water.

We are the only people coming here on Christmas Eve

We enter the meadow, a spot that has been lately arranged with wooden tables and benches where people can come especially in the summer time, speaking of that, in summer, on weekends and around holidays, there are so many tourists in this place.

Right now, on Christmas Eve, the meadow is empty, it looks like an abandoned place, far away from the world and it seems like we are the only humans coming here today, but we don’t actually mind that much because the atmosphere is peaceful and quiet, just as it needs to be when you are in the middle of nature.

Cameras are out: let's capture what's around

As we get down, and finally reach the shore of the lake, the sun gives us a present, shinning warmly on the hills and water, spreading that “honey” light which is creating even more beautiful landscapes, so calming and nostalgic to rest at.

The sunset and its light is also perfect for taking perfect outdoor photographs, so, again, all of the cameras are out, let’s just benefit from the nature’s gift!

 Going back to the hut

When the sun sets, is getting colder and even more winder outside, so we have to leave this beautiful place. We get in the car and start driving back to the cottage where the Christmas tree and the cottage are waiting to be decorated. This is going to be such an entertaining and cozy experience!

Let's decorate the Christmas tree and create a cozy atmosphere 

The fire is slowly burning in the living room chimney, one of my friends brings the guitar and starts singing Christmas carols while the mulled wine is preparing on the stove spreading a sweet and flavorful scent all around the cabin.

I bring the Christmas tree and all of the decorations from the attic, so we begin by unfolding the tree and after that everybody starts hanging decorations very randomly, thus the first attempt in creating a beautiful or at least harmonic Christmas tree fails.

But is ironic, we have to do it, we are art students, aren’t we? A friend comes to the idea of arranging the decorations in layers of colorswhich turns out to be a saving idea: the tree doesn’t look like a mess anymore, but it appears quite nice and we have lots of fun doing it. Is definitely a Christmas Eve atmosphere going on in the air. After same sips of mulled wine, everything works so much better and the Christmas tree is finally decorated.

A Christmas tree with photographs and good memories

There is no decoration much significant and impressive then the little highlights of our Christmas tree: the small polaroid photographs capturing each of us in funny spontaneous moments. We have a tree of memories and for that I have to thank my friend Sami who gifted a photo like this to each of us. Her tiny presents are so sweet and beautifully animate the Christmas tree.

The living room is no prepared for the Christmas day! We chill out in the evening, have same more of the delicious mulled wine and of the traditional food and snacks while playing games and waiting for my brother to come caroling with its friends.

Christmas carol traditions

Speaking of that, in my village, caroling in the Christmas Eve is a tradition followed by the teens and young men who are caroling especially to the houses where the young ladies are living. At almost midnight, a large group of maybe 15 young people are arriving at our house too and are singing loudly a traditional Christmas carol. We are serving them with plenty of sweetmeats, nuts, pretzels and, of course, drinks – although most of them are so drunk already - such as sweet homemade liqueur called in Romanian "vișinată", the traditional strong drink "țuica", beers and so on.

On Christmas morning, the ones who are caroling are the children, going from one door to the other and signing various carols about the holiday we are celebrating, the birth of Jesus. The hosts are usually serving them with "covrigi", a smaller version of the bagels, oranges, mandarins, "Eugenia" – a Romanian traditional dessert – and candies of various kinds.

I wish I could go caroling again!

Back in the days, when I was a child and a teen, I used to love this tradition and I would go Christmas caroling with my friends in every year and if it was snowing outside, we were even more excited to go although it was too cold outside. From early morning to midday we wandered the village from one end to the other, trying to not skip any household. Such good times, such good memories!

At the end of the day, the mulled wine gets us pretty sleepy and relaxed and because we are kind of tired of this day full of activities, we go to sleep with the hope of finding beautiful gifts under the Christmas tree in the following morning. 

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