tim and lisa cocking

So from the title of this post alone you can probably figure out where this is going! Taxi rides anywhere in the world can strike terror in your heart at the very thought. It’s certainly the case here. In general people obey the traffic laws here and drive in a logical and predictable way. Predictably aggressive, yes, but at least you know that the cars are all going to be pushy.

The taxi however was completely unpredictable, and more aggressive than I have ever experienced, even in China! The streets are narrow and winding and driving is on the right side like America. We pulled up behind a line of maybe 6 cars waiting to go through an intersection (most are uncontrolled, no stop signs or lights). He overtakes them all on the wrong side of the road, goes through the intersection on the wrong side and on the other side of the intersection, predictably, is heading into oncoming traffic. Does he get back over on the right side? NO! Of course not, he’s a taxi! He jogs LEFT and keeps going down the street not only on the wrong side but totally making a new lane for himself to the LEFT of oncoming traffic.

You have to admire cab drivers who want to make good time for their riders.

It was pretty uneventful recording today. We almost finished Mary M and completed seven other characters. And Jesus comes tomorrow.

The People’s House is the world’s heaviest building. If you see the post with the picture below this you have to imagine that there is as much building in the ground as above it. During the overthrow of the communist government back in 89 -the organization for which I work- was able to use it as an underground storage bunker for thousands of Bibles! Pretty interesting considering the illegality of that at the time.

I just had to mention this about the hotel. They play American dance music in the restaurant all the time…VERY LOUD!!!! I’m down in the lobby right now at 6:30 am waiting for breakfast that starts at 7. It is so cranked up I can barely hear myself think. Did I mention I’m in the lobby and not actually in the restaurant? It must be deafening in there right now.

It’s kind of strange. We haven’t seen another guest in the hotel the whole time. Neither John or I have seen anyone in the restaurant for breakfast or dinner. No one in the lobby, and no one in the hall. But plenty of workers to take care of us. Right now there are four guys getting the restaurant ready for breakfast. Seems a bit much!

We finished up our first day of recording and it went very smoothly. We had no technical issues and all the actors were top professionals so thank you for your prayers! Hopefully tomorrow I can get some of the pictures out of the camera and post some.

John and I just got back from a run up around the fountains in front of the peoples’ house. Outside it is bustling and the streets are jammed and the sidewalks packed with people. It was hard to dodge everyone!

Now we are back and winding down for the day. Tomorrow we record more of Mary Magdalena and Jesus.

This morning we walked to church. On the way we stopped into an Orthodox church. It was visually overwhelming with every surface painted with iconography and incense in the air and everything was sung or chanted. There were no seats except for a couple of benches for the infirm. Everyone just picked a place and knelt. We stayed for about 5 min and then went on to our church. The church building was fairly nondescript and inside were just white walls and a tile floor and a balcony where we sat at the back so that we wouldn’t distract everyone with the translation. The song melodies were familiar hymns and contemporary choruses and I was starting to understand how to pronounce Romanian a bit better by the end and what the different marks on the vowels and under T and S mean.

It was a huge contrast with the Orthodox church. From the format of the service to the visual look of the building and probably to the hearts of the congregants as well. Christina is a roommate of our translator Cami and she grew up in an orthodox church. John noticed at one point while we were walking between churches how much everyone was gesticulating and I was asking what the flowers were for that one boy who looked to be about ten was taking to the front. She said they were singing prayers for dead relatives and for the heroes of Romania. Then she said something that took us back a bit. “They have now idea what they are doing or why. If you ask them they will tell you ‘because we have always done so. We are preserving the faith’. She said the priest would most likely tell you the same answer, ‘Because it is so.’”

She said she did the same things, going through the same motions and singing the same chants for years and never had any idea what it was about.

After the 2 hour service we went to lunch at a restaurant that serves more typical Romanian food. John ordered pig tongue and he let me have a bite. We both agreed that it was very tasty and unbelievably tender.

Tomorrow the recording gets underway, so I’ll tell some more about that in the next post.