WWII week is winding down, but as the boys finish up their last lap book we talked about what became of everyone at the end of the war, and went on to discuss some of the puppet governments of Stalin.
The first of the two week picked was Romania.
In honor of our puppet governments, we made puppets! Now, I know you can just take a brown paper bag and various crafty items and make your own puppets. But I got this little set on a deal and I've been saving it for something, anything- because it's so cute!
Even my teenagers found it to be a fun project. Plus, I find with everything country or theme week related I can just say "and then we'll vote on the best and award money for your jars!" and everyone is on board. Leave it to my kids to only be interested when there is money up for grabs, even if it is just a dime here and there. Although, the dimes have added up. Every once in awhile I take the money out of the jars to replace the coins with bills. That way we can reusue the coins, and I don't have to always get more, it's not too heavy to be hanging on the wall, and when they cash out I'm not stuck with tons of money in coins. I changed out this week- and everyone is between $40 and $50. (Calib also put his $20 from Easter in his jar so he saves it for Hawaii, but I'm not counting that.)
Our landmark for this one was easy, Bran Castle, though you might be more familiar with it's more common name: Dracula's Castle. It's located in Transylvania, and while no actual vampires lived there, it was home to Prince Vlad III, who has a fondness for impaling his enemies through their heads. It is also this castle that the Irish writer, Bram Stoker used as inspiration for his Dracula novels.
Romania is a bit more than Transylvania and vampires though. With lots of places to explore, it's come a long way from it's puppet government days.
The Palace of Parliment in the capital city of Bucharest is the largest (and heaviest) building in all of Europe. It has over 3,000 rooms!
It was, however, built by the famous Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. One of the most brutal dictators ever, he ruled for nearly 25 years before the Romanian Revolution in 1989. He was the most Stalin-like of all those Soviet countries. At first he seemed rather moderate, but eventually he was showing his control over media, and free speech. He was sending his secret police out, not caring how brutally they treated people, and eventually started starving his people.
1989 saw some peaceful milestones. It was the year the Berlin Wall came down. It was the the year of the velvet revolution, which saw the peaceful break up of Czechoslovakia.
But the Romanian Revolution was not one of those peaceful events. But it did see the downfall of Ceausescu and Communism.
Romania is also home to the tallest rock sculpture in Europe. The Face of the Rock is a carving of a King who ruled almost 2,000 years ago.
They also have what is often voted as the most unusual waterfall. When the water falls, it gets spread into tiny streams because of the moss growing on the rocks. The Bigar Waterfall is also known as the halfway point between the equator and the north pole.
One other fun fact: in the Maramures region of Romania people hang pots and pans from trees, to signal that a girl who is of marrying age lives there.
The boys made their postcards.
Calib's postcard featured a wooden church (something you'll often find in Romania).
Peyton made note to the fields of sunflowers (my personal favorite thing about Romania, once we get a fence and plan out where everything is going in the backyard, I'm getting a ton of sunflower seeds to plant!)
And Hayden drew Dracula's castle on top of a mountain.
For dinner we had Musaca cu Cartofi (a ground veal casserole with potatoes- although we substituted veal for ground beef), along with Ardei cu Untdelemn (Peppers in Oil), and Fasole Frecata (Romanian Mashed Beans), We also had apples, and crepes for desert. While those are French, the Romanians enjoy them as well.
Dinner earned 5 spoons up. Either I'm getting better at picking recipes or WWII Week really is 'Good Food Week' (except for that whole Borscht incident.)
The casserole was delicious, the boys all thought the mashed beans were mashed potatoes, and who doesn't love crepes?
The only thing we were mixed on was the peppers. It had a very greek taste to it, some of us love that- some of us hate that. If you're on the 'love' side of that argument, I totally recommend. They were perfect.
We colored Romania in the light purple color next to it's neighbor, Hungary.
That's 62 down, 131 to go!
Next Up: Slovakia
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