One year and one special operation later (hopefully, only that, not a full war like the other one), here we are at the beginning of 2026, a year that is regarded both with hope and with fear by many, from different perspectives. So... since I didn't have the chance to say it until now... Happy New Year! And may this year be a good one and the deepest fears not materialized! May this be the bull year we never truly had in crypto, and not another bear!
I started the year by catching a cold right as we passed into the new year (literally). What a way to start it, lol! I hope that's not a "prediction" of how my health will be in 2026, because that would suck, especially since I thought I have a decent immunity nowadays. But with a member of the family sick, plus going outside more than I would have liked during these cold windy days we had over here finally got to me too.
It's funny that we were on vacation to the mountains for Christmas, and I didn't get sick over there. In fact, I'd like to share some photos from there. Haven't done that in a long time.
We went for the first time to a northern part of our country called Maramureș, a region where traditions are kept alive very well. We were a few hundred meters from the Ukrainian border a few times as we traveled throughout the region, by the way.
Over time, I refrained from adding photos of people on Hive (and generally, online, as much as possible). I will continue on this path, although photos of people and their traditional costumes, videos of local carols and traditional songs, make at least half the experience. You should see and hear a 13-year old girl having what others would call a concert (1 full hour) of traditional songs...
But... maybe I can squeeze something in. Our hosts from the guesthouse had these 3 simple traditional costumes for guests to try out and take pictures of themselves wearing them.
I'll move on abruptly to something else now. The stream from the picture below
powers a water mill we visited in our way, still functional. They also wash carpets and maybe cloths here, using the water power:
Before we go inside, here's where they make the traditional carpets using the wool they also process inside.
And here are a few carpets they had on display:
And this is the mill. You can see here where the grains are poured and and where they exit, after the grind:
And down below is the actual mechanism that makes it work:
Of course, it's winter as you can see from the icicles on the mechanism, so the water mill doesn't work this season. But they found a way to make it productive during winter by attracting tourists.
And here's the last room, where wool is processed. I don't remember exactly what each of the following machines do, but I think the order of processing is right.
There is a final step here, where manual labor is involved, to finally create the wool thread.
I don't know if I'll ever need the information I got in these 10-15 minutes we were at the water mill, but sometimes it's important to understand history, including the technological one, to appreciate where we are.
There are more pictures from our Christmas vacation that may be worth sharing. But I think this post got pretty heavy already, and maybe save the rest for a different occasion.