Saint Ana's Lake

Last to last Saturday, (20^th Oct) we took a road trip to Sfanta Ana Lake with Laura and a couple of @ Brasov alumni. The lake is situated in a crater that was formed by a volcano some time back. It’s a couple of hours outside Brasov and is a favourite picnic spot in the summer time. But since we won’t be here for the summer we decided to visit it in the winter.

While waiting for the bus to take us to where we were meeting the rest of the gang, we were approached by a fellow tourist. (I wonder what gave us away : P) He asked us where we were headed and us soon as he uttered those words I knew where he was from! I mean how could I get an Aussie accent wrong! : P After I inquired about that and he confirmed my suspicion, I told him where I was from. Immediately after that the conversation shifted to the recent Aus-India series and the trashing we received at home at the hands of the Aussies. Oh well, what can I say! :P

Our bus arrived and that ended our little chat, but it was nice talking to someone about cricket- it has been a while. We finally arrived at the point we were supposed to meet everyone else and after a quick pit stop we began our adventure. The car journey was hilarious, I mean any moment spent with Liviu and Andrei is a laugh out loud moment! Laura and I were just sitting at the back laughing away for most of the journey.

Romania is a beautiful country; and I am not sure how many adjectives I can use in one sentence before my sentence becomes grammatically incorrect, but it really is gorgeous. The colours of the landscape are breathtaking and inspiring. The winding roads that lead us to our destination were arched by trees of shades of yellow, orange and red.

It was around 7 in the evening and we were on the highway on our way back to Brasov and I noticed something very interesting. While driving at night in Gurgaon, the ‘universal’ signal for ‘dim your #@$%^ lights’, is flicking your headlights at the oncoming insensitive driver. But over here, if a car flicks their headlights at you, it means ‘look out, them cops are ahead’. What a difference, eh!?

Back to the road trip- Andrei was hit by a lightening bolt and came up with the idea of up pulling into the gas station and me talking to the clerk in Hindi. So we stopped at a gas station, Anca and Andrei went into the convenient store first pretending to be regular customers. I walked in a few minutes later trying hard to be this lost tourist who did not speak a word of Romanian or English. I was basically asking her directions to the sea side, which btw is the opposite direction of Brasov. She looked at me like I was a lost tourist asking her for directions in god knows which language and decided to call another person for help. They gave me a pen and some paper to draw what I was trying to say and I tried very hard not to burst out laughing. By this time the guys showed up at the counter to pay for what they had bought. I was trying every 70’s dance move that had to do with waves and water and then she finally said Apa. (water in Romanian) But that is as far as we got and I finally decided to walk out to the car. She saw us all get into the same car, so I guess she figured out we were in it together.

Anyway, it was a fun trip- a beautiful place and great company, I think in the end it is the latter that makes all the difference.