This video was from another mountain hike, though this one was more of a climb, and a climb for which we were woefully unprepared! The mountain in the opening shots is the one we are climbing. It’s pretty vertical for many stretches and has warnings at the bottom trying to keep anyone off that doesn’t have the right equipment and preparation.

Equipment would be little things like hiking boots in place of my tennis shoes which are basically slicks. Or enough water. Preparation would be things like adjusting to high altitude. Like I said we were woefully unprepared.

Three hours up I got sick. Quite sick. I had to leave the group to find a place to get sick. Then I didn’t know if the group was above me or had descended past me. I waited, still sick and now without any water. Oh, and I discovered that stinging nettles can cling to the rock face of mountains. I won’t tell you how I made that discovery, though it was very uncomfortable for the next couple of days. I decided, very foolishly I knew even at the time, that I had to get down off the mountain. So I descended slowly to a little waterfall that had a horizontal spot to rest. (That was when I took the video of the waterfall you’ll see) I had a little drink from the stream and waited then noticed the black clouds rolling over the summit above me and felt a couple drops. And then, basically, I panicked. I knew I’d never make it down in my slick shoes if it was wet. So I went down the rest of the way myself. I was really dehydrated and it took about two hours. They caught up to me right when I reached the bottom.

I didn’t get much video of the climb because it was just too technical to have the camera out. This guy made a good video that shows the climb
Some other dude’s video

WARNING – He’s says one bad word in it!

Anyway – I felt a bit better after getting down and we decided to take the cable car to the top. I was assured that they had ‘facilities’ at the top. And we were told that it was a 15 min wait at the top to come down (it was over an hour wait to go up).

So we got to the top and the altitude (surprise, surprise) got me again (or maybe it was the bear, deer and wild boar I ate the night before). No facilities. Mob scene at the cable car to get down. Took over three hours to get back off the mountain.

I have not had a day where I’ve felt that bad for so long in a long time!

So here’s the video. I shot so little footage that I decided to use slo-mo as an effect to fit the music, but mostly just because I didn’t have much to work with.

If you click the video, pause it and click the picture again you will see it in higher quality.

The music for the video is Song For Waiting by The OaKs

It really is good to be back. It does take a few days to readjust though. You get in the groove of going to the studio everyday and working and working and eating strange food and never being alone and recording and hearing everything in a different language. And then you get back and everything just stops….

My typical lunch in Bucharest. Teeth, fins, and eyeballs…

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.