Lugoj!!

This weekend we had a tournament in Lugoj, Romania. We met at 11 to eat at the FEK before making the drive. The waiter in that nice maroon shirt is the only one there that speaks English so he always takes our table and lets us know when there is fruit soup and which dishes have chicken in them. The picture above is Lana and me dressed in the fifty year old warmups and t-shirts. And below is Andy, mostly hidden by the pole, and Ivana on the right.

Today we took the gardener's soup. This reminded me a ton of our homemade vegetable soup, but this version was a little more bland, but still good. While the other girls ordered Hawaiian haystacks, I got the szekelykaposzta (layered cabbage). It was a type of goulash with cabbage and rice and a little bit of pork. I really enjoyed it.

This is Lana and me, we are crammed into the back of the van. Evidently all the buses were unavailable so we had to pack into a van and a car and even had to leave one girl behind. For some reason, the team decided to put the foreigners in the back seat of the van. Probably because we are the only ones who understand "go" in English. They didn't tell us that despite it being 31 degrees Celsius outside, they would have the heater blowing on our feet and the windows rolled up the entire three hour trip to Lugoj. I thought for sure I was going to have a heat stroke. 

Here's the nice little van that got nine of us safely to the Lugoj gym (photos below).

I think this arena is the nicest thing in their entire city. The floor was a sport court, which I haven't seen since I have been in the States.

We won our first game against Craiova. Misi informed me before the tournament that this would be our toughest opponent, but it ended up being the only game that we won. After the game, we went to Portofino to eat dinner. The restaurant is just past that opened red door. I would almost miss it every time we would go to eat.

Dinner: The dinners were always the same. Some cold-ish chicken meat oozing with oil, served with mashed potatoes, rice, vegetables or vegetables and rice. 

Their chicken noodle soup was pretty decent. Not half as good as the soup from Bekescsaba, though.

Some meatball soup. It was alright.

Breakfasts was the same both days. They gave us a basket of toast (not bread) and meat and butter with jam. After just a few days of eating at the Portofino, I am so grateful to be returning to Bekescsaba where I can have some variety in the foods that I eat.

After Lunch on Thursday, we (Lana and I) ordered some Pompanash from the Portofino restaurant. It is basically two cakey donuts and their corresponding donut holes smothered in vanilla pudding and jam. Ivana previously lived in Lugoj and said it was one of her favorite desserts here. I definitely enjoyed it just as much.

After our loss to Klek (a misereable second league team from Serbia), Lana and I went to a local grocery store and found some cake. "It was perfect."

Later that night, Lana, Ivana, and I found ourselves with another round of Pompanash. Yeah it is that good. Twice in one day. 

Here's a couple photos of the city. I was surprised to find that it was not as clean as Bekescsaba

Here's the hotel room where we stayed. Lana got a kick out of sleeping with the blanket that had Playboy written all over it.

Here's a video of driving through an area in Romania. I'm not quite sure if it is Lugoj or not. You can hear the Serbian jabber and a little Hungarian in the background.