11 Jun Iasi
Carol was up with the sun. It was cool and a good time to explore. First up the road at the side of the hotel - a mix of residential and small businesses. Then double back to the main road, but in the other direction. The tram runs down this street, along with buses. Plenty of small pastry vending windows, "gogoseries," cafes. As far off as Piata Unirii - fancy hotels, fencing limiting street crossings. Then back through the university to a beautiful church. There were plenty of women in smart business dress walking out at the same time.
Mike slept a little later. Finally, about 8 am, we went out to a place for breakfast spotted earlier by Carol. Carol chose a cheese pastry with delicious phyllo dough (5 lei). Mike got 3 eggs, fried, over easy (ochiura), the standard serving here (8 lei). Two coffees. You can ask for a latte (lapte), but all you get is coffee with an extra creamer.
We walked a block or two to the main pedestrian road, B-dul Stefan cel Mare. This road connects the Palas and Piata Unirii. Along this wide pedestrian walkway are government buildings and some very old churches. The first and grandest is the Church of the Three Hierarchs, built in 1637-1639. The exterior stone work was detailed, with each horizontal row having a different pattern. Lace made of stone - like nothing we've ever seen. The interior iconography was formal, with predominantly pictures of saints and few story paintings.
We found our first Schweppes flavored sodas. Carol tried the pineapple coconut. A white soda, flavor (meh).
We walked toward Piata Unirii and then Piata Eminescu. We had noted that there was a bus stop entitled "Cimitirul Evreiesc." We took a 46 bus there, arriving about 11 am, and started walking. Almost immediately, we saw a gate for the Jewish Cemetery. But then you walk and walk. Finally, after what seemed like a km uphill, we were at the cemetery. Entrance was 20 lei each. Strange to have a charge. There was an old woman there whose job was to collect money, but otherwise do nothing. There were over a dozen dogs lying around, also otherwise doing nothing.
We were looking for the grave of the Aron Bercovici who died in 1926 (there are many Aron Bercovici's buried there). He is Mike's paternal grandmother's father. Jewish Gen said the grave was in Division 8. Where was Division 8? we asked. "A long way that way," said the woman. Can we see a map? No. "Two kilometers!"
So we started wandering around. We found a memorial to the soldiers who died in WWI defending Romania. Also a holocaust memorial starting with a quote from Jeremiah: "I sat by the banks of the river and wept." Also a memorial to the victims of the 1941 Iasi pogrom. Nearby was a poignant gravestone with photos of 3 members of one family, killed in the pogrom.
This cemetery has 66,000 graves. The divisions closest to the front are 2 and 3 (and 1?). It took us a long time looking to see a division marker. Division 4 is probably behind to the north. To the north of it is 5, or so we suppose. Division 8 is, as the woman said, a long way, maybe one kilometer, maybe two kilometers away. This was a lot more than we had bargained for, or were up to in any fashion. Carol was exploring northward, through deteriorating conditions. Mike gave up and was back near the front gate. The old woman had gone somewhere for a minute or two. Suddenly, the dogs got agitated. One of them bit into Mike's pants, leaving four 1-foot gashes in the cloth, and destroying them. Luckily, the dog didn't get any skin. We showed the "pants" to the old woman, who shrugged, suggesting, "what do you expect from dogs?" It was now noon.
A Romanian family visiting the cemetery was nice enough to drive us back to the hotel. They were Romanian ex-pats, with her very spry, 90 year old father. We inquired about a vegetable and fruit market, and they mentioned Hala Centrale, a few blocks to the east of the hotel.
Mike changed into what now was his only pair of pants, freshly washed the day before. At 1 pm, we walked out to the Hala Centrala. It is a 3 story building, with floor 1 dominated by a Carrefour store. There is another Starnet on floor 2. It took us more than one trial to discover the open air market on floor 0.
We had decided to carry the torn pants, and we now headed off to the Great Synagogue. No one there, but we were directed to the connunity center down the street. It was closed, but we showed the pants to the guard. He shrugged too.
By now it was close to 2 pm and we hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. We decided to take a bus out to the suburbs and see if anthing struck our fancy. A 46 bus came along. After one stop, we passed the Greek restaurant we had declined to eat at the night before. We stopped and had lunch. Mike ordered a chicken sandwich and a frappe. Carol got a roasted vegetable plate with some gouda cheese and a banana milkshake. It was now about 2:45 pm. We got back on another 46 bus.
On the buses you validate your ticket by punching them. Mike took a transfer by repunching the tickets we had just used. The bus went southward toward Bucium. A bus controller got on the bus, and checked our tickets. He asked for our identity cards, and we handed over our passports. There was a problem here. Mike played the role of "dumb foreign tourist." Carol was indignant about the controller's refusal to just let us use two more tickets from the book. There were 6 - 8 other passengers gathered around, some of whom spoke pretty good English. Eventually, "dumb foreign tourist" was not specially fined. The agent explained how to use the tickets, returned our passports, and let us off with a warning.
We immediately took a 46 bus back to town. We stopped at the community center. Still closed. Time for some internet. Across the street was a small store, where we bought a liter of liquid yogurt, and 1.5 liters of mint lemonade. It shows how thirsty we were that we finished all but a little of the lemonade. After 90 minutes, as we left the internet cafe, we saw the best restroom signs we have ever seen. They depicted a man and woman in such obvious distress that their knees were shaking.
It was now close to 6 pm. Where did the day go?
A quick visit to the Hala for a little fruit, and to Carrefour for a bottle of Feteasca Negrea (15 lei), a local semisweet red wine, highly recommended. We still needed to get train tickets to Suceava for tomorrow. So we walked over to the Gara. After purchasing the tickets, we waited for a 3, 6, or 7 tram to go back to the hotel. A 6 tram came by. We got on. The tram cars are from Stuttgart.(second hand purchase). We know this because instead of a map of the trams and buses of Iasi on the walls of the cars, it has a map of the S-Bahn and U-Bahn lines of Stuttgart. Why wasn't this German language signage removed or painted over (clearly, too much to ask to have local information)?
At about 3 stops, we realize we are going in the wrong direction. We get out, in a busy commercial area, and find a very popular restaurant. They had a complete menu. Lots of different pizzas, traditional food, breakfast, beer, alcohol, etc. We ordered a Tochitura Moldoveanesca and an Ursus black beer (not a black bear). Good food, but too much cigarette smoke. We were too full for ice creams, after our meal.
We caught another 6 tram, this time in the right direction, all the way back to the hotel. The guy in the bar opened the bottle of Negrea, and we (mostly Mike) drank it up while watching a lot of Mezzo TV-a French station that plays classical music and jazz, nonstop and uncut.
NOTE: What Iasi needs is a Mayor Michael Bloomberg to clean up the pervasive "small disorder": old graffiti, lingering disrepair, clear street signage, old pasted posters not removed. It is not the people, but the place that is distressing. Carol does not like this town.
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