Polenta? Nein, danke! Mamaliga? Yes, please! Women's Day in Lucerne

On Thursday, 9th of March, Romania was, for few hours, in "Zunfthaus Zu Pfistern" restaurant from Lucerne. There, it was celebrated for the second time Women’s Day. This party brought together Romanian people from Canton Lucerne and from neighbourhood.

Less shy and more numerous than the previous year, the Romanians, and few Swiss, were met warmly by our kind Elena Draghicescu, the organizer of this event with a glass of Romanian “tuica” and a “martisor” for the ladies. It was a nice evening, people getting easier in contact with each other.

Eager to taste the Romanian dishes, we checked the menu - in Romanian language! . The dialog with the waiter was full of surprises: “Was möchten Sie gerne oder ?”. I would have liked to ask him “Wie bitte?”only to hear once more time how a Swiss spell “ma(ma(liga(”, but I gave up from politeness.

The vegetable sour soup, the meat minced balls sour soup, the “mamaliga” with cow cheese and cream, the “mititei” with chips, the delicious pancake and at the end the traditional “mucenici”, all of them extremely nice ornately, were a very appreciated by everybody.

The conversations were very intense, people were sharing common memories from Romania and it ended up by setting new friendships. Everybody was happy.

Late in the evening, we said goodbye to each others, and we returned slowly to the world where we belong to in fact. It was more than a nice Romanian evening. Elena gave us the opportunity to be ourselves for few hours.

Elena, thank you very much!

Laura P.

Translation: Simona Diaconu, Pfäffikon SZ