on the road: cumparaturi in Suceava

On Saturday, Larisa, David’s counterpart,  invited us to head to her hometown town of Suceava for a day of shopping and meeting her parents.  We left at 7AM and arrived there at 8:15AM.  By 8:30AM, we had met her parents Maria & Victor and were toasting our introductions with apricot tuica (homemade Romanian alcohol) and sharing pickles and sausages.  Yes, tuica, pickles, & sausages for breakfast.

Then we headed to the mall.  While malls aren’t my favorite places, I must say I liked this one because the developers took an old factory and repurposed it as a community shopping area.  I think this is a great re-use idea with potential.  Plus the old factory tower sure does look cheerful with its bright colors.

After mall-crawling, we headed to Carrefour.  Carrefour is like a French Target and they are all over Europe. We picked up ice cube trays, ginger, an oven mitt, and a winter blanket — you know, necessities.  So now we can say we are official residents of Europe — we have a Romanian library card AND we shop at Carrefour.   Sweet.

After so much shopping , having some beer, and seeing the biggest Easter Egg (in the WORLD!), we headed back to  Maria and Victor’s to say goodbye. When we walked in the apartment, we could smell the meal Maria and Victor had prepared.  Out came the tuica (again!), the wine, the schnitzeled chicken, the roasted lamb, the salad, even more pickles (they knew David liked them), and a heap of bread.  We ate and socialized until our tummies and heads could have exploded.

Then we loaded up a washing machine they are letting us use (yay!) and all of our purchases and headed back to Targu Neamt.  A few hours later Vasile (Larisa’s husband) and David had figured out our washing machine (it was from Greece), carried it to our 4th flour apartment, and got it hooked up and working.

Talk about a productive, busy, fun Saturday.