Little town, quiet village

Not far from our hotel was located an area called the Open Air Museum of Wallachia (a la “Living History Farms”) which included Timber Town, Mill Valley, and Wallachian Village. We saw about 80 buildings – houses, workplaces, houses with workplaces in them, a church, a steel mill, wool mills, a saw mill, barns, and the like. It was pretty shocking to read the descriptions and learn that 12ish people lived in such a tiny house and that the kids’ most coveted sleeping spot was on top of the oven, which looked like a ledge. The military was hosting a folklore festival in Rožnov that weekend also, which was AMAZING! There were maybe 30 dancing/singing troupes all in different kroje and costumes and they were all very good. Some kids, some adults, some in the middle. Each of them had a band also, so the amount of talent in the city those few days was intense! We watched them practice in the town square for a while and then they had a parade through the town. It was so cool! I tried to snap a picture of each troupe as they went by to capture each unique costume. We walked through the Wallachian Village for a while and right before stopping for lunch I saw a man carrying a dudy, so I asked him if I could take a picture of it. Not only did I end up with a picture of his dudy, he and a violinist started playing a few songs for us right in the middle of the outdoor restaurant seating area! Then of course my mom had to talk me up to this guy who put his dudy on me and told me to play, while my mom told him I am a Czech Queen and I’m playing the dudy for my talent in the competition, as I struggled to play the only two songs I know on this new and different dudy, each of which are hard to get used to, so I wasn’t very good of course…it was crazy. She even said the Jackie phrase “I’m Carrie’s mom!!!” (family should understand that reference) I was surprised the guy knew which two songs I was attempting to play, and the violinist tried playing along with me. I guess that just really made me realize how much of a universal language music is. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, music notes can be read and played the same no matter where you’re from! And I’ve also noticed that Czechs don’t smile much…I guess it has something to do with communism and not trusting anyone, I don’t know, but today when they were singing and dancing and playing music there were smiles everywhere. You could really tell they enjoyed what they were doing, and that made it even better to watch. I’m really glad we got to be there during the folklore festival!! Our dinner up near a ski resort in the beautiful Beskydy Mountains included a great view of the sunset afterwards. It definitely made me think about how awesome it would be to have a summer house up in the mountains!