Dennis: "Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" 
 
King Arthur:  "Bloody peasant!" 

- Monty Python & the Holy Grail

We headed north to Maramures County where we were promised a step back in time. Evidence of this was immediate as horse-drawn carts were more abundant than cars. Men, typically with their woman behind them, sometimes the whole family, ride on top of giant hay piles on long wooden carts through tiny villages like Sibiel and Rășinari. 
 
This region at the top of the country is pastoral and still relays on good old fashion manual labor to run the farms. And when I say old, I mean old. Some of the people out there looked like that had been working for 100 years - lifting heavy hay into enormous piles, herding sheep, or plowing the fields. This was true peasant country. 

And any time of day, but especially at dusk, in front of every door sit older men and women, all in traditional wear (headscarves!), as they watch the world go by. Once you wave, their faces light up and they give a small, tired wave back. Serious photo ops, but we didn't want to treat them like it was a petting zoo. Although, the urge to scream, "Peasant! PEASANT!", was hard to control. 
 
We found a home stay in a spot of a town called Breb in a green valley surrounded by endless rolling hills with haystack mounds and an enormous church across the dirt road. Prince Charles recently bought property here, who knew? An Italian woman, her Romanian husband, his mamma, and their two kids hosted us to a little farm with rabbits, chickens, goats, and dogs (we wanted to free them all). There was very little English spoken.

But we all know the language of food and drink. Homemade soup and squeaky cheese, washed down with the Romanian spirit of choice, Țuică, a lethal clear liquid made of fruit at 45% alcohol. Pălincă is double-distilled and made with plums. It's hooch. Head-scarfed Mamma encouraged shot after shot as she just watched on (wishing she could join us, we assumed). My one Italian word, basta! (enough!), was mentioned and ignored a few times. 
 
Once sufficiently Pălincăed, we passed out in our room that looked like ground zero for a Romanian craft fair explosion. Colorful carpets, blankets, purses, shirts, pots, and of course, embroidered Jesus, hanging from every surface. This is why I booked the room. 

The country's craftspeople live in these parts. It is a dying tradition, but can be seen far and wide here in impressive carved wooden gates, intricately hand-sewn textiles, and the UNESCO-protected wooden Orthodox churches, dating back to the 17th century. They are just beautiful with their tall steeples and interior Biblical murals. 
 
We were only 30km from the border, so we took a walk across a bridge over the Tisza River into Ukraine, because we could. (And we're passport stamps whores, let's be honest.) Changed enough money to buy local beer and pizza with corn on it from a Sopranos-casted man sitting in the back of his truck, just waiting for the likes of us. The little town of Solotvyno was not striking, very stark and Soviet, but also the home to salt lakes and a former healing destination for all that ails you. At passport control on the way back, the official called me Elizabeth Taylor, and when I asked him if he wanted my help finding the stamps in my passport, he replied, "I zinc that ees my jobe." Aka, sit down little woman. 
 
With that, we reentered and were off towards the true reason we drove over 700 km miles north, and came to Romania at all, the Merry Cemetery in Sapanta. This little site has been on my Bucket List for years, and we were on our way. 

 The Merry Cemetery was started in 1935 by a sweet local craftsman named Stan Ioan Patras. He expressed the spirit of the Maramures people that broke with standard dogma that expressed death as a solemn event, and saw death as a beginning, a new cycle, and life should be celebrated, not mourned. 
 
Stan carved wooden crosses depicting the daily lives of loved ones with humorous rhyming epitaphs, painted a brilliant blue to represent the sky to which we all go, plus bright red, yellow and green. When Stan died, his apprentice took over and still carries on today. Stan's cross reads: Listen to me, fellows; There are no lies in what I am going to say; All along my life; I meant no harm to anyone; But did good as much as I could; To anyone who asked; Oh, my poor World; Because It was hard living in it.

We had a field day in there. The space is not huge, but there was so much to explore. Such a pity we could not read Romanian, but the pictures spoke a thousand words. We strolled about, circling the new colorfully tiled church among the first tourists we'd seen in a while. You have to really want to be there, it's so out of the way. Everyone was thoughtfully looking at the lives of strangers that had left this world, laughing a bit, and smiling. There was such good, light energy there. Cosmo flowers in all kinds of pink sprouted up everywhere, the sun was out, and you could not help but feel, well, merry. 
 
In a happy daze, with that Bucket List - Check! feeling of accomplishment, we drove off with a car full of rugs purchased at the Merry Market, and peasant spotted our way back to our little place in the country. 

And proceeded to get Pălincăed with Mamma. Noroc!