the night the weather changed

we were up on the hill, to check out some loosely cultural event that i at least had little idea about. shame. but anyway it was this thing (ignore the level of translation):

http://www.oartransilvania.ro/index.php/scenacetatii/item/119-program_scena

stuff happened throughout the weekend, but we only made it there sunday evening, around 7. the following pics mostly serve to highlight how i'm not getting along very well with my camera these days. it's not entirely her fault either.
"back then", lovely days, some of us were wearing deep neckline, flimsy shirts, tights and dresses, you know, september clothes.so we went up the hill, hopeful and unsuspecting.

there are a few old fortification buildings on top of the hill, and among them this is what was left at that time of the architectural installations made out of some funny wood:

of course this made me think of 'hunger games' (not having seen the movie or read the book, but yea) and made alexandra want to take up archery.

we're getting closer to the scene of the evening's entertainment

i mean...what??

the entertainment was supposed to be double-pronged: a military fanfare and a fire... show. by this time in our acquaintance alexandra and i are so used to having serious intentions to attend events and zero results, that we're by default not taking seriously anything we end up attending....
...i mean this is one possible explanation. the other is that the whole thing was pretty hilarious. imagine 20 people in a clearing on top of the hill at night, in an atmosphere of general confusion, and next to them a pretty orderly fanfare gearing up to go.
the fanfare actually marched around in the dark for a bit, which confused us even further. but then they returned. under those circumstances, recording them (i did try! they were doing old let's-go-to-war-for-our-country songs that i'd learned as a child) or even taking a good picture of a trumpet proved pretty impossible.

alexandra and the uniformed men

by the next part of the evening, we discovered that people around us/ and their kids were way better informed than us about the proceedings. for the simple reason that they'd seen it on the previous 2 nights as well. so, hello, fire show with commentary from first-time viewers AND anticipators.

but the fairy lights/ warm air balloons we launched were pretty cool, no?

most seriously thrilling part of the night

so according to alexandra, the fire show was paying heavy tribute to 'world of warcraft' at least in some parts. there were monsters walking on stilts, evil ...gnomes (?), an octopus, a guy with wings, and of course girls dancing with fire. what would the world be doing without the dancing girls.

i think we agreed that this was the climax of it all:

...or was it the bare-torsoed guy mishandling the burning ropes? hmmm

anyway: then we were gone. we went to insomnia and somehow ended up staying pretty late. sitting in a corner, right by the window. the window half-open, i have to specify this.

fun fact: there was a guy selling handcrafted jewelry from table to table. he left the stuff with us so we look at it for a while, then he came back for...part of it and left us a whole stack of bracelets. sadly we are honest people so we left them with the waitress (also, not exactly our favourite pieces. he should've left some brooches.)

this box is actually what i wanted

and then...
carmen: "i think it's raining like crazy, lemme take a look, is it raining like crazy?"
alexandra: "nah, it's just the machine that's washing the streets."
and to be honest, at that point it probably was. but by the time we got out to leave, it was very very cold and rainy and wet. and no taxis in the central square. so that's my version about that night.