Haircutting insults and lots of polenta

Days 3, 4 and 5
By Layla

We left you at the Orient Express cafe where Roz had a normal drink and I had a massive hot white chocolate drink – am enjoying the Romanian drink-as-dessert mentality (though possibly not first thing in the morning…). After my sugar fix we strolled through the old town and along by the city walls, then a bit further, to get to Sibiu’s lovely park – big, pretty, lots of beds of roses, and beautifully marked tracks criss crossing over wrought iron bridges. It was lovely – we joined the locals for a wander, and a prolonged book-stop, reading on a sunny bench next to the stream, surrounded by flowers. All very lovely. Afterwards we wandered back into town and had lunch and jugs of lemonade at an outside café. Then the weather started to change so we retreated back to our little flat for a nap (the rain is turning this holiday into an excellent rest cure) before venturing out again for dinner, this time to Hermania, a pretty restaurant that yet again boasted Sibiu’s one nod to vegetarians: polenta with sour cream and cheese. Fortunately I am rather a fan of this particular dish, but it is getting a tad repetitive… We had planned to go out for a glamorous bar hopping night out but the torrential rain persuaded us otherwise and we nipped home via Billa supermarket to stock up on wine and chocolate before sprawling on the sofa. Ah it’s a hard life…

Yesterday I, at least, was up bright and early. The day before, upon wandering across the square, Roz and I had happened to notice a hairdresser’s salon. This observation coincided with the fact that I haven’t had my hair cut or coloured for a very long time and in fact the holiday photographs so far have proven the truth in Roz’s polite hints that this is not to the advantage of my appearance. I had resolved to take the matter in hand urgently. 'Revolution Cuts' was through an archway and down in a little recess that resembled someone’s house. I tried with hand gestures and speaking loudly to make the Romanian staff understand what I wanted (a trim and highlights). I was plonked down in a chair and feared the worst. And yet, I was soon to learn that I’d already had the worst. My hairdresser was a rather camp-looking boy with fashionable blue patches in his blonde hair. He was meticulous. I remembered too late that I usually only have part of my hair dyed and he embarked on a spectacularly slow and thorough highlighting epic. In London I noticed that people use tiny bits of tinfoil for this task and wrap them neatly; less so in Sibiu: my head resembled a roast chicken going into the oven. I feared for my poor tresses. However my concerns were unfounded – the highlights turned out perfectly normal. And so to the haircut. He started trimming. He looked worried: “I do not know how to translate - wait”. He held a heated conference with the receptionist in Romanian. He drew in a waiting customer. I waited in suspense while they all debated. Finally he had the translation. “Your current haircut – it is like shit”. Not an advertisement for Camberwell’s finest hair salon, then! He made me promise never to return there, and proceeded to give me a haircut that he clearly deemed not ‘shit’.

I eventually emerged, looking acceptable, and met up with Roz. We had a pasta craving and tracked down a nice outside restaurant on the square. Then we decided to have a quick potter around some of Sibiu’s nine museums, of which they are extremely proud. We went into the pharmacy museum, a very sweet old fashioned pharmacy shop, then tried to go into a modern art museum, though found ourselves in a shop instead (capitalising on tourists being drawn to the word ‘museum’, they clearly chose to display a misleading sign), stepped over some very energetically snogging teenagers (intriguingly, Sibiu is known – rightly – for its impressive public displays of affection – Roz and I are feeling the need to hold hands just to fit in!), and finished off by climbing up the church tower, which gave fab views over the square and across to the countryside and mountains.

After popping home, we went out to explore the lower town, which is rather less pretty and tourist friendly than the upper town. We walked to the river, which is pretty, but any plans of a romantic riverside walk were foiled by a motorway lining each riverbank. We retreated to the fruit marked and bought some cherries, then retired to Café Wien for more mohitos. Later we went out for dinner to another cellar restaurant. I accepted the inevitable and ordered polenta, sour cream and cheese. Roz tried to cobble together some starters for a change and ended up with a large plate of chopped tomatoes and some cheese fritters. We then walked to the famous, reportedly bohemian-style and cool Arts Café. We entered to find a dark, uninviting bar with one table full of non-inviting people (perhaps the staff and their friends), and a dark cavern of empty tables. We looked at each other and fled to a cheery outside café on the square for cocktails. No sooner had we sat down than the sky turned slate grey, flashed, thundered, and we fled again, this time to the indoor -and 10 metres from our flat - Orient Express bar. We got there just in time: seconds later the heavens opened. We snuggled in with beers and chess and rather crap live piano and watched Sibiu’s less enterprising population running, drenched, down the street into the night as the rain pummelled them.

Today we were up rather bright and early again (the sun seems most reliable in the morning) and after Roz whipped up scrambled eggs like a hero, and we grabbed a quick coffee at the Orient Express, we caught a taxi and ventured outside the borders of Sibiu for the first time. Our destination was a famed open air folk museum which featured hundreds of different types of houses and farm buildings brought from all over Romania and set in pretty grounds around a lake. It was interesting and fun to wander around, climbing into wooden windmills and sheltering from the rain in grain sheds. We had lunch there (the vegetarian option was particularly pitiful…) and got home by an amusing route of tram and bus, as we peered out of the window and wondered how we’d know when we were there. Fortunately we jumped off somewhere that forced us past an ice cream shop on our way home…

I am now sitting at a nice outside café on the main square, sipping a jug of lemonade and making use of the square’s free wifi, while Roz does a conference call (she may have escaped work for a fortnight but not her duties as a board member for Queer Up North, Europe’s biggest gay arts festival). I am watching her fleeing the square, trying to escape the clanging of church bells that mark 8pm. The bells are probably reverberating all the way to Manchester…

Tonight is our last night in Sibiu. Tomorrow we move to the next leg of our holiday – a house in the Transylvanian countryside.