We grew up during the Romanian 'comunist' period, when things like 'traveling' meant spending one week in Olimp1, at the seaside with your parents or sky riding in Paltinis2...this unless you were the beneficiary of a June 16th – September 14th stay with your grandparents, in Giurgiu3's Cucuruzu4...
We could only see the airport in pictures or if we had any relatives allowed coming back to 'the country' and the yellow line beyond which you were not allowed crossing represented for us the material limit between the real world and the imaginary journeys to worlds of which we only knew from books...
There were no fridge magnets in those times, but there were postcards we used to send to the ones back home, writing the old 'Hello from [...]' on their back and as main mean of transportation we used the 'sleeper' and the 'thumb up aside the road'. Those were the times when some of us got packs on their backs and were introduced the Diham6, others were wandering in the Apuseni7, the times when we believed there was no way to be 'at the seaside' and 'in the mountains' at the same time and the vacation was not a mere 4-day stay with the laptop on your knees...
Things have changed a bit meanwhile and today traveling has become more simple and handy. Now both the permission and means are given to you to change the computer addicted employee into an enthusiastic explorer of the Sahara sides...the number of chosen destinations has increased and is continuing to increase, 'tempations' are better and better presented and you, the one who knows such good Google Earth geography, begin to whish harder and harder to get 'there'...where some of your friends have already been, where you have read online that it is 'super' and most of all where that photo was taken...the one coming back to your mind each time you say 'vacation'...
Of all the many wanderings but also places and events, sensations remain, memories and ideas that you begin to feel like sharing at some point...maybe just not to be alone with your thoughts anylonger but also to help or guide others searching for information or simply...relaxing...
...of journeys, with everything they bring, ideas, emotions, fulfillment but also stress, dissapointment, things that do not work as planned, of how and where to look, of what you can see and do there but also home, you can read among these pages and, who knows?, maybe some day you will be drifted to that image of that place of which you always think when saying 'vacation'...
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1) Olimp - seaside Romanian resort highly chosen as a destination during the Romanian comunist regime;
2) Paltinis - Romanian sky resort in the Sibiu area; the author mentions 'Olimp' and 'Paltinis' as a simbol of the idea that Romanians were not highly allowed leaving the country before 1989 and could not very much afford so afterwards, during the 1990's...
3) & 4) Cucuruzu – small Romanian village, located in the county of Giurgiu whose name is usually used to describe remote places;
5) Diham - Romanian massif chosen by Romanian tourists for trekking due to its accessibility and closeness to Bucharest;
6) Apuseni – mountains located in Transilvania, part of the western Carpathians.
