A Day with Incredible People -- And a Falling Coat

The hospitality of people in Central Europe is simply amazing. To protect privacy I'll just call my doctoral student here Ms M.  She came and found me at the pension at 10:00 and we walked all over the city.

The pictures above are from what is called the Weekend Complex on the map. This undoubtedly is not what people think about when they hear the word, Transylvania. This area includes restaurants and outdoor terraces as well as private cottages. I also saw many beautiful buildings in the city center and hopefully another day I'll get some pictures. We were having such wonderful conversations that I didn't stop to take a lot of pictures.

We stopped for coffee and pastry about 13:00 and then met up with her boyfriend and brother and we all went to Sighisoura (sorry if I have spelled this incorrectly). What a surprise to have this chance. The trip took us through several villages, often each reflecting a slightly different culture, and through the beautiful hills that here are the end of the Carpathian Mountains. The vistas are magnificent.

At Sighisoura we walked up to the fortress area. This one is quite unique in my touring experience. It has many, many towers, each made by a different guild such as the shoemakers, ironmakers, or clockmakers. We walked about the streets and then were headed to the clock tower and the museum housed in the tower.

That is when we saw a coat come over the side of the tower. It looked like it would fall all the way to the ground, but got caught on a gable of another building. The last we saw of the coat owner was his ringing the bell for the entrance of this building.

We went into the museum and saw everything from old pottery to tools and emblems associated with the various guilds. The history about the guilds was indeed new to me. At last we got to the very top and did the best we could to not drop our coats over the side of the building.

We went to a restaurant for a wonderful luncheon of traditonal Central European foods.

What a lovely and totally unexpected day. And now to answer: "What did you do in Europe?" I can always answer that I watched a coat fall off a tower in Sighisoura!

After our luncheon we noticed the coat was gone, so the gentleman was successful in somehow getting to the roof of the building and getting his coat.

Another Fulbrighter told me I would never forget Transylvania and that is certainly already true.