The Turda Salt Mine, the Seminar and Cluj
It’s not as if we’ve got a thing for salt, exactly. It just seems to crop up along our travels. The salt flats in Sicily; the salt canyon outside of Corund; and lastly, a visit to the Turda Salt Mine. I’ll fully confess that I didn’t go and was more than happy to let Armando have the experience.
My neck was still not great, and being a wee bit claustrophobic told me trekking into the depths of an abyss- carnival rides or no- wouldn’t be the smartest choice for me.
Armando, however, enjoyed himself immensely and had a guide that showed him all of the nooks and crannies, with a full history. (The video is on its way soon.)
We made our way to Cluj and thanks to a local friend of Armando’s, Andrei, we found a nice parking space next to a small fishing pond and a rather imposing shopping mall. We met him and his girlfriend, Andra, for drinks in the park- it was nice to socialize like normal people. Ha.
We stopped by Andrei’s place for a shower the next day and met his friend Irina, who ‘loved our story.’ She phoned a journalist friend of hers and before we knew it we were scheduled for an interview.
The TV interview was done in two parts, as we were both quite busy with work and streamlining the seminar. Our interviewer/journalist, Ane-Mari, was brilliant.
On the second day, we had a blast with her and the cameraman- basically just goofing around and being ourselves. It was the most relaxed we’d been and we both enjoyed it.
The digital nomad seminar was at this very cool co-working space called ClujHub for their ‘travel club’ that Sabrina organizes. It went all right, ran a little long- but I got a lot from it.
I especially liked being able to hear why people came; what they do; and their travel goals. The reasons for their digital nomad curiosity were varied: needing a change; going through a transition; branching out; looking for simple inspiration.
We’ve been in Cluj nearly a week, and unfortunately haven’t seen much of it beyond the little pond and the co-working space. It happens that way: when we have work, we immediately do it until it’s done.
The rainy weather and a glitch with Paypal (their side, not ours) didn’t make it any easier to just wander and explore Cluj. We’ll be off tomorrow, so perhaps the next time we’re headed in this direction we’ll actually get to see more of this pretty little city.
We’ve had a really great time meeting everyone. From the road in Romania, M, A & Mork