On the Jiu Valley

The Jiu Valley is the most beautiful place I've ever lived in. It lies in the Carpathian Mountains, nicknamed the Transylvanian Alps. I love seeing the sun rise and set behind the mountains on bright days, and the tops of clouds resting on top of the mountains on dreary days. Both sides of the valley came alive with autumn colors during October and make walks around Lupeni a joy. During my weekly 45 minute maxi taxi ride to Petroşani for IMPACT, I watch the trees explode with reds, oranges and yellows. It is one of the best parts of my week. 
Although it's bursting with natural beauty, you can't talk about the Jiu Valley without mentioning its stains - the run down factories, the web of power lines and the mismatched bloc apartments which serve as a constant reminder of Communism. Those in authority didn't care about preserving the natural beauty of the Valley - they only saw the coal under the mountains. So a tour through the Jiu Valley is both a feast for the eyes and a painful reminder of the past.
For the first six weeks I lived here, I saw the empty factories and the peeling paint on the blocs as romantic - horrible, I know. I saw Lupeni and the Jiu Valley through rose tinted glasses because it was new, exciting, and I didn't have to live the rest of my life in the shadow of the smoke stack you can see from any point in Lupeni. It wasn't until I read a line in Slavenka Drakulic's How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed that I realized how arrogant this was. She wrote about the broken streetlights on her street and how no one would fix them, and how an American had commented how quaint it made the street feel. The arrogance of considering a systematic failure "quaint" or "romantic" hit me in the face and I wanted to slap myself, along with the American who had made the comment. Life in post-communist Romania is real and hard. There is beauty in the hard work the people of Lupeni put in to make a home, and beauty in the mismatched fabric of old and new cultures creating a new tradition.
So the Jiu Valley is no longer romantic to me, but I like it better that way. The mix of natural and unnatural make a view that is breathtaking and truly Romanian. I will miss the Jiu Valley terribly when I leave in a few short weeks. It has been a blessing I will treasure for the rest of my days.
Here is a short video of Lupeni from one side of the valley. (Please ignore my horrible Romanian.)