Dreams Do Come True: Snowboarding in the Carpathian Mountains

It has been snowing periodically for the past several weeks and the mountains look absolutely gorgeous surrounding us. It is an amazing sight to be able to look out of the windows and see snow-capped mountains all around. The students and some of the staff have been talking about wanting to go skiing if there would be a chance. Snowboarding happens to be one of my favorite activities and it is the one thing I have truly been itching to do since we arrived….and we went!!!

We were not completely sure if there would be enough snow up on Straja (where the FNO cabana is and where participants go in the summer for Viata), but we attempted to take the van up the icy road. The van made it, and Straja, as we were told, happens to be one of the number one skiing locations in all of Romania. We just happen to be able to see it from the apartment we are in! Its popularity is evident by the license plates of the cars from around the whole country. Wow. It was busy, and it also happened to be Romania’s national day- how fun.

Two Romanian students connected with the FNO came with us to make sure that we could get along alright due to our imperfect Romanian language skills. I and Daniel, one of the volunteers, were the only ones to rent snowboards, but it only cost 30 lei for a nice board and pair of boots…that’s less than $15! Also, instead of buying a day pass because we were not going to be there for very long, we paid 3 lei for every time we went up the lift…which is less than $1.50 per time! What??!!?

The view was spectacular and conditions were fair- but certainly good enough! We had a nice range of skills and since the cabana is right at the face of the mountain it makes it nice to just chill there when tired. Daniel and I managed to take the lifts all the way up until we were in the clouds…how funJ We couldn’t see anything and it was definitely snowing, or hailing…it kind of hurt our faces. It was seriously like floating through a white tunnel and I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life. I still feel like it was a dream…we skied in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania!!!!!