On the weekend of the 16th of December, with the other volunteers, we left Bucharest at 10:00 pm to go to Iași by train. We traveled around 7h, so we slept on the train in a little bed during the night. That was an original night: it was the first time we slept in a train for most of us. We arrived at 5:00 am and walked to the Villa. While the other participants came, we managed to get some sleep.
After this, we started the day with a visit to a brewery in Iași to taste local beer - Cearfisă. Before lunch, we got free time to visit the center of lași. We saw bear dancing - and we found out fast that this is an old tradition celebrating the Winter Solstice. As we came from France, this was the first time most of us had seen something similar. We also bought some food and hot drinks to snack on before lunch. For lunch, we went to a sustainable restaurant - CUIB, where we had the opportunity to learn more about the project of the restaurant. Everything was ecological, ethical, and local, including sustainable clothes and many more…
During the afternoon, we had a treasure hunt, Christmas style, in groups; that was nice because we were free to walk in the Christmas Market. The aim of the treasure hunt was to interview 3 people from stands with sustainable production and get a crazy picture next to the big castle of Iași. After this, we had some free time. Some people went to watch a movie, others got into a climbing competition, and others went to the center to drink in a pub and get to know each other better.
The next morning, we went to a sustainable grocery shop - Magazia Morăriței - with products only from Romania. It was so interesting that almost everybody bought something because the goods were delicious and made by local producers. During the afternoon, we had free time to eat. A part of the group went to an African restaurant with parrots from the tropical forest. It was nice to see some birds like this during lunch. And after this, it was time to take the train to go back to Bucharest. We said goodbye to the rest of the people who stayed at Iași.
We arrived in Bucharest at 11:00 pm after 7h on the train. We watched the final of the Football World Cup on the train with the other participants and people sitting next to us. It was a very interesting experience, bonding through football with other Romanians. After the trip, we all did a brief summary regarding how we felt. Everybody enjoyed it and thought it was a short but intense experience.
Personally, it was interesting to discover a new city in Romania through some sustainable lenses. Discovering new things like restaurants or Christmas markets and new landscapes! The landscapes, the streets, the mountains, and the parks were astonishing! However, the aspect of Iași that I didn’t like was the fact that we didn’t have much time to do the activities. Such a lack of time frustrated me, which can be seen as a quite good thing as I had not seen the time fly by.
