I'm back from vacation. We spent a week in Transylvania at a place called Tusnádfürdõ, a really nice city at the river Olt. This part of Romania is inhabited mainly by Hungarians, about 700 000 Szeklers, or Székelys as they call themselves (they are part of the almost 2 million Hungarian minority living in Romania). It was an interesting experience to meet with something very similar to my own culture 400 kms deep inside the borders of another country...

We rented and shared a house with my girlfriend, some girls from her class (they are all 3rd year law students), and the boyfriend of one of the girls, who turned out to be a medic student. Some of them came to see the Tusvanyos summer university, but I personally preferred to just relax and visit nearby towns and museums, although even Viktor Orbán - former Prime Minister of Hungary gave a visit. Unfortunately we all missed this event as we visited the Lake Saint Anna and the Mohos wasteland instead (see pictures below).

One talk I'm very sorry to miss was the talk of Albert-László Barabási, author of Linked, "The New Science of Networks". I was not able to make it to his speech in Budapest last year, and now I missed it again in Transylvania. Real shame:( I felt a bit idiot when I ordered his book from Amazon.com just a week before the Hungarian translation appeared in local stores:)

This is my new car (well, actually it's leased by Sun, but it's mine to use:)

The view from the house. Really nice mountain:)

This building is in the centre of Kézdivásárhely. The city is known for a Székely man called Áron Gábor who cast a number of cannons by melting down church bells during Hungary's 1848-1849 War of Independence. Although almost all of Transylvania was occupied by the Habsburgs late 1848, these cannons allowed this region to remain independent until Bem's army defeated the Austrian armies and retook the county. The museum on the other side of the square has a really nice collection of old tools used by the guilds of Kézdivásárhely as well as some historical collection from 1848-49.

As we left the city we saw a big storm coming...

... and going...

This is the Székely Museum in Sepsiszentgyörgy. There are some really nice exhibitions: 1701-0711 Rákóczi War of Independence, 1848 War of Independence, a sword collection (sabres, long swords, two handed swords, turkish swords), and traditional folk stuff like interiors of Székely houses, etc).

A Székely gate, next to the museum.

A Hungarian/Székely meal: bean gulasch, in a restaurant nor far from the museum (it's called Szent György Pince - St. George Pit). We had a really good meal, and it wasn't expensive at all: I payed 280 000 Lei (less then 8 Euros). This was one of the best restaurants in the city by the way.

There were concerts in Tusnádfürdő every evening (it was a summer festival afterall:)

Saturday, Viktor Orban was demanding autonomy for the Székelys. Instead of listening to his speech we decided to visit Lake Saint Anna. The lake is 1000 meters above the sea, in a volcanic crater that last erupted some 8000 years ago.

The lake from another angle...

A lizard that was kind enough to let us catch him. After shooting a few photos from every possible angle we let him go.

Mohos láp - Mohos wasteland. This used to be another volcano, and is located a few kilometres from the lake. Actually there used to be another lake inside this crater as well until the volcano under Anna erupted. The lake was covered by ash that created a 10 meter thick peat cover on top of the water. The trees are dwarf firs, that cannot grow larger because they would sink in the mud... There are all kinds of animals inhabiting the area (we were told that a mother bear was recently sighted with three little bears which is very strange considering that bears tend to have only one bruin).

The girls...

The view...