14 Jun 2014 Falticeni

14 Jun 2014 Falticeni
Today is Saturday.  If we are to see the interior of either the Suceava synagogue or the Falticeni synagogue, we will need to find a Shabbat service.  So we are off about 8 am on the 2 bus.  Suceava's bus service is very simple: there are three routes with good service (every 8-12 minutes) (2, 4, 5) and five routes with only rush hour service.  The 2,4,5 each serve the southern end of Suceava slightly differently.  The 5 goes north to the Suceava Nord train station.  The 2 goes north to the Suceava train station (Burdujeni) and the 4 serves Burdujeni and some of its neighborhoods.  Really simple.  Why can't Lonely Planet publish this info plainly?
(Note from Carol:  now you know far more about the local transit than you ever wanted to know.)
We reach the Suceava synagogue at 8:35 am and check the doors.  Locked.  Nothing happening.  So we walk a block and find an enticing restaurant.  Carol orders a special omelet with meat, cheese, and herbs.  Mike gets the standard three fried eggs with four small sausages.  We receive toast (no butter or jam) and a sliced tomato on each plate.  Two coffees.  Total less than 30 lei ($9.30).
After breakfast we check on the synagogue again.  Still closed.  Mike notices graffiti on a nearby wall: "Juden Todt."  We take time to visit a church at the edge of the town center.  Biserica Sf. Gheorghe Miranti is closed.
Back to the synagogue.  Still closed.  If there are Shabbat services, they are elsewhere.  Time to go to Falticeni.  On our walk we pass Origyn, a storefront with a little round egg-like figure that starts with something small and wiggly at the bottom.  Four circles later it is a baby face.  Origyn Fertility Clinic is very open in its advertising (a bit unusual for us - maybe the norm here in Romania).
We are off quickly to the bus and catch the 10:15 to Falticeni.  We were the only two passengers getting on at the station.  By the time we left the south end of town, the bus was quite full.  Falticeni is only about 25 km away, so we arrive about 10:50 am.  We survey our bags on arrival.  We discover that all of our fruit is calling out to be eaten.  So we polish off about 10 small, very ripe apricots.
We walk a block or so to where we think we will find the Falticeni synagogue.  It was indeed there, and looked exactly like the pictures we have seen online.  Closed.  A helpful local woman confirms that no services are held at the synagogue.  She urges us to visit a local art museum (We first think that she is saying "Museo de Apa" (water museum) rather than "Museo de Arte").  The town center lies just north of the synagogue.  We guess that the population of Falticeni is 20 - 25K.
Walking through town, we pass the agricultural market.  The vendors here sell greens with roots and dirt attached.  Whether this is the way (1) to improve freshness, or (2) provide an opportunity to replant the greens, we do not know.  We pass a vendor selling baby chickes.  Finally, we reach the Hala Centrale, the main vendor building.  There are amazing, just-foraged mushrooms for sale.
Market notes:  seems that in Romania inevitably there are parsnips next to the carrots.  You can buy scallions with small onions attached, both white and purple.  No one sells celery or squash (other than pumpkin)  or sweet potatoes.  Maybe these aren't grown in Romania.  We purchase our usual carrots and some radishes.
Thus fortified, it is time for a museum or two.
The Ion Irimescu Art Museum (the one recommended by both the local woman and by Ciprian is located a couple of blocks away.  The senior rate is 4 lei apiece.  For that, we receive a grand tour.  The museum director corrals another visitor who speaks some English.  They have something to say about every single piece.  Carol comments how beautiful, how nice, about 200 times.  Meanwhile, Mike surreptitiously takes numerous forbidden photos.  Irimescu turns out to be a versatile 20th century artist (most sculpture but some paintings).  A bit of Brancusi, a bit of Picasso, but totally original.  The nudes featured in the works show that Irimescu really liked women's hindquarters and nipples.
We finish our museum tour about 12:45 pm and set off across this very small town to the Jewish cemetery.  First, we stopped off in a shady park where we gobbled up yesterday's cherries, which were crying out to be eaten.  The disadvantage of buying fruit in bulk at farmer's markets is that it turns overripe quickly and needs to be dispatched.  By now, we must be at the threshhold of becoming a significant sector of Romania's agricultural economy.
We walk past a number of interesting houses - some have wells in the front yard.  At the corner of one street is a complicated mini-shrine that is an homage to Jesus.  We cross the main drag.  Now our road is dirt.  After a while, (3/4 km) the street seems more rural, we pass an evangelical church, and then a wall on the right which turns out to be the wall of the Jewish cemetery.
The only way in seems to be through the house of a caretaker.  So we knock.  No answer.  We let ourselves through the gate and into the house.  A little old bubbie (a head shorter than Carol) comes out to meet us.  In pidgin Yiddish and Romanian, we try to explain that Carol's maternal grandfather was a Rabinovici who came from Falticeni.  The bunicii (the Romanian word for bubbie) may have understood some of what we said because she brought out a book which contained notes, phone numbers, and parts of a burial index for the cemetery.  She showed us the index, but we found no names we could identify with any possible ancestors.
Eventually, bubbie led us into the grounds proper.  We walked around for about a half hour.  This was easily the best maintained Jewish cemetery we have seen so far in Romania - no trees or large bushes between graves.  Additionally, the rows are numbered.  Most of the stones are still standing.  There is a small fenced area with WWI and Holocaust Memorials.  We walk out of the grave site into the building and engage in loud conversation at cross purposes.  Neither side really understands the other is saying, so we repeat ourselves at greater and greater volume.  In the end, we hug the lady and take a photo.  She writes down her address - she would like us to write to her and send a copy of the photo.
We walk back into town, unsure of what to do next.  We realize that we might be close to catching the bus back to Suceava, so we hurry that way.  Indeed, the bus is pulling out just as we arrive, and we barely get on.  It is 3 pm.
Back in Suceava, we stop to eat a sandwich out of our food bag. hing up, we see a mysterious figure walking into town who looks like - a rabbi!  We hustle after him, but lose track around a church.  We walk back to the synagogue and check there.  Nothing doing!
[We are going to add another bus memory that we forgot to post earlier.  In Roman, as in many of these towns, there is a bus that goes all the way to Italy and Spain.  While we waiting for our bus, we saw a woman waiting to board the international bus.  She was wearing a t-shirt that read "I love girls," and sported a feminist symbol.  Pretty gutsy for Romania.]
It is now 4 pm.  We go through the market, and get a few things for the long train trip tomorrow.  Good bye, Suceava.  On to Burdujeni and Hotel Residenz.
We go back to the hotel, pack, retrieve the wash that the hotel had done for us (20 lei).  We finish drying what was not totally dry.
We are now on the third floor because the hotel is hosting a big wedding party tonight.  They moved us from the first floor (right above the restaurant) to the third floor, where is relatively quiet.  All in all, we have been treated very nicely by this hotel.  We work on the laptop in our room, posting and watching TV.  Eventually, around 9 pm, we head out down the street to another hotel restaurant where we order two delicious ciorbas (soups).
Tonight marks the end of our Romanian Roots search.  Tomorrow we head off to Transylvania and the rest of Romania.