Tuesday, September 26, 2006

I was sick again on this day, so everyone went of to the orphanage, etc. and I stayed home again. I didn’t get much done the whole day because I just felt queasy and was also really really sick of the computer because I was on it so much the day before. I also got so frickin sick of the apartment that I opened up all the windows and then went to go stand on the balcony for a while. That wasn’t even enough, so I literally just went up and down the stairwell a few times. Figured out there’s a door to the roof. Plan on checking it out sometime. That night after everyone got home we took the maxi taxi to Metro. Metro is basically the Romanian version of Costo. Like, it even looks like it. It was a pretty good visit because I got a bunch of stuff that I really needed – like a winter jacket. Also, I think getting out and walking around was really good for me. That night was the first one in a few days that I slept through whatsoever.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Well, last night I got a fever and wasn’t feeling too good while we watched Princess Diaries II. I couldn’t sleep all night and just kept moving around. I wanted to get up, but Shannon was sleeping in the living room, so I knew there wasn’t really anywhere in the apartment that I could go. Finally, around 6am I got up and went to the bathroom and then I started to feel really sick like I was going to throw up. I tried laying back down on the bed because I thought that might help, but I just kept feeling more and more sick. I figured it would be back to stay in bed because I didn’t want to risk throwing up in bed, so I went out to the kitchen and grabbed a pot and sat down in the hallway. I did end up throwing up, and at that point I didn’t want to go back to bed, so I cleaned myself up, grabbed my pillows, blankets and book and sat on the kitchen floor reading for a while. Well, I got pretty tired, so I just lay down on the kitchen floor. I didn’t stay there too long though because I knew the girls were supposed to get up and run and I didn’t want them to see me sleeping on the kitchen floor. Instead I moved into living room and slept there, which was more comfortable than my bed for some reason. The girls all eventually got up and left for the orphanage/apartments, but I stayed home. Most of the day I just spent on the internet updating my blog and such. I also took like a 5 hour nap too. I was really weak the whole day, so it was hard for me to do much of anything and I kept fluctuating from hot to cold. It also felt really great to take a shower in the hot water. Now all the girls are home for the night (they went to the orphanage, hospital and went bowling for FHE) and I’m just going to finish up this journal entry, read a little and go to bed. I want to go to bed kind of late so that I’m actually tired, but I don’t think that’ll happen because I’m kind of running out of things to do that I have enough energy for.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

This morning I got up a little late and thought I didn’t have enough time to wash my hair, so I just did everything else. Well I ended up having a bunch of extra time and it was fabulous. I love having mornings like that. Then Megan and I walked to church together (because the others had to go way early) and we got there 15 til and I had plenty of time to practice the songs that I needed to conduct. Sacrament meeting was pretty cool. All the new elders introduced themselves and Sora Baker did a special musical number and sadly we ran out of time for poor Shannon to give the talk that she tried so hard to prepare for. Sunday school was done by Melissa and after it I talked to Rebecca’s husband, Dave, for a little while because he’d decided to come to church and see what it was all about. Relief Society was taught by this cute little sister whose name I always forget and translated by Alexandra. After church we all went home for a little while before heading over to Podul for Sunday dinner and meeting. The meeting was really great as usual and I love our group J. Also, at the meeting we finally decided what kids we’ll all be working with. I’m in Dancu with Shannon! At first I really wanted to be in Donald Duck/Tomesti, but now that I’m in Dancu I’m going to put my all into it and love it. Also, I love Shannon and we always work really well together. After the meeting, Shannon, Marina and I talked for a little while and bonded and then we convinced Marina to spend the night. On the walk home I started feeling a little sick. Like felt queasy and dizzy and just had that sick feeling that you can taste in your mouth and feel on your body. I think I may have a fever and hope that I can go to Dancu tomorrow because it’ll be our first day!

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Today we went to the monasteries! We got up pretty early and met the two taxi driver friends of Mario’s outside. We filled up both taxis to the brim. My taxi has two in the front, 3 in the middle and 3 in the back and was very tight. We drove for like 3 hours before getting to the first monastery and I took tons and tons of pictures because it was really gorgeous. We went through all these cute little villages with lots and lots of horse drawn carts and farms and farmers and it was so cute and so Romanian. Also, I think Ricky Martin will always remind me of this trip because our taxi driver literally blasted the same cd of his the entire trip. We had to have heard the same songs like 5 times. Before we got to the first monastery Mario surprised us and took us to a wild life reserve. We couldn’t talk much while we were there though (or at most of the places) because in Romania they tend to charge you more if you’re foreign. So we get there and Mario’s like “shh! Don’t speak in English!” Anyway, the reserve was beautiful. It was really intimate and you could get so much closer to all the animals than you ever would be able to in the US. Like, I was literally a foot away from a bear and I got to actually pet some deer and touch their antlers and stuff. After the reserve we went to our first monastery. It was really beautiful and interesting, but sometimes pictures speak louder than words, so you’ll have to look on my yahoo photos for it. We walked around leisurely and went in the church (which had the head and bones of some saint) and then Mario told us some of the monastery’s history. After that we went to another fairly close one. Out in front there was this souvenir stand and I bought some really yucky thick sugary strawberry jam and an awesome switchblade from China for Arron (my bro) who is going to absolutely love it. Only problem is that it might be illegal in the US. I know it’s illegal to sell them in the US, but it could be like the Butterfly knife where it is in fact legal to own one, just not to sell one. There isn’t much else to say about that monastery, because it was mostly the same as the first. Then, we went to one more monastery and this one was my favorite for a few reasons. First of all it was the most beautiful, by far. Second of all it had the creepyist, belongs in a thriller movie wooden cross with misty creepy forest mountains in the background. And third of all, we got to eat with the monks there! It was soooo cool. They took us in the dining hall and had us all sit down at this table with bread, soup and eggs and they served us. I really felt it was so random and cool that I was sitting there at a monastery in Romania being served by monks. Also, the food was pretty nasty. Like, the eggs were not only cold but partially grey and Holly found a squirmy sluglike bug one hers which sicked the rest of us out. It was kind of a problem because then the monks were like “do you guys not like the eggs?” We contemplated just telling them that Mormons don’t eat eggs, but instead we said they were really good and put some of them in the soup and strategically move some around on the plates and even eat some. Other than eggs they had soup and bread. I liked the soup, but apparently everyone else thought it was unsanitary. The bread, however, was amazingly good. Also, another funny thing was that the monks gave beer to Mario and the two taxi drivers who aren’t Mormon and then randomly gave some to Jenna too! Good good monastery. After our last monastery, Mario surprised us again by taking us to this really cool mountainside fort. We’d seen it on the hillside and thought it was amazing and we were trying to catch pics of it and then the taxi drivers turn and went up the mountain toward it! We went part way up the mountain with the car, but went for a beautiful hike up the rest of it. Don’t really know what else to say about the actual fort either, because you’d just have to see it. After the fort we just drove the two hours home and were all exhausted.

Friday, September 22, 2006

The day started off really early. We had to meet at Scala at 8am and I got up at 7:15. After meeting together we all walked to where we had to take a Maxitaxi to get to Tomesti. The walk was actually really pretty and along the way we saw a couple of cars get in an accident. It wasn’t bad, just a fender bender, but still interesting. Then, the ride on the maxi taxi took us too what seemed like the very edges of the city where it gets to be much more like the country. There were a lot of horse-drawn carts. The kids in the apartment were really cool. First we were all just sitting in the living room by ourselves. Then one little boy walked out and you should have seen his face when he walked out into the room with 11 girls staring only at him. He walked as suavely as he could and just kind of tried to act cool. It was very cute. Then there was another little girl who started playing with Melissa and who really liked to be thrown up and down. Then there was another cute little girl with tights and a little skirt and her hair up in a pony tail who just sat in Abbi’s lap the whole time. Next came a little autistic boy who just sat on the floor and played with Shannon and would laugh every time she peeked her head through the door on this plastic house thing. Last, but certainly not least was a veeeery autistic little girl whose favorite activity was to hit and pull hair. We were instructed that in order to curb this activity we were to keep her hands busy as best we could and keep a very good eye on her. If she were to succeed and either slap us or pull our hair we were to act without emotion and not give her the satisfaction of getting a reaction. Let me tell you, we had some practice. This girl literally did not seem to think of anything else. You could see her little mind working as she just went from person to person trying to get a shot at them. Most of us prevented her, but a few people just weren’t prepared. Like, she flat out slapped Melissa (not gonna lie, it was pretty funny). She also pulled Abbi and Holly’s hair. It was amazing the first time when she pulled Abbi’s hair because Abbi was playing with another child and her hair was up in a bun. Well, this little girl just walks up, stares straight at her hair and just gets her entire fist on the top on Abbi’s head and just pulls as hard as she can. Abbi just takes her hand off and continues playing with her hair completely messed up. It was amazing to behold. She did the same thing to Holly, except I don’t know why Holly didn’t prevent it. Holly was sitting there and this little girl came up to her and caressed holly’s cheek and kept it there. And see I had been watching this kid like she was a comedy show, so about this time I remember thinking “Oh, Holly, what’re you doing, she just about to slap you!” Then all of a sudden she just jets her hand up and yanks on Holly’s hair so hard her head goes about as far around as it can. Some girls tried to get her hand out of Holly’s hair, but it took them some time to wrestle it out of Holly big beautiful head of thick red hair. Right there I was sold on her and have wanted to work in Tomesti ever since. Well, after the apartment we went to the orphanage for a little while. I went with Melissa and Abbi to Mickey Mouse first, then Bambi, then Donald Duck. Mickey Mouse was actually a lot of fun. I played with quite a few kids and really enjoyed getting all the smiles out of them. They are pretty much all in wheelchairs but you get them out of their wheelchairs and play with them on a big mat like you would use in gymnastics. You move them, dance with them, talk to them and play with toys with them and they like to just stare at you and smile. After Mickey Mouse we went over to Bambi which is incredibly active. There are lots of kids and they are almost all out of their wheelchairs and on their feet most of the time and quite a few of them really like to have constant affection. A few of them also like to hit and kick, etc. The worst of it was when I was leaning back on the couch thing with my face facing the ceiling because one of the girls had just been inspecting my mouth (she likes to just inspect people like a doctor – she’ll have you open your mouth and then she’ll put her face like right up to it and peer inside – a bit nerve racking) when all of a sudden one of the other girl comes and stand on the couch right next to me and just takes and stomps her foot right on my face real hard. It was mean! Since we spent a lot of time in the other two rooms we didn’t have much time for Donald Duck, which was sad because that’s the one I really wanted to spend time in. Also, I only got to spend time in one of the 3 rooms in that section because the nurse yelled at me for going in one of them (not sure why) and the other two girls were in the first room holding the babies. The room was mostly kids who are a little bit older (like 8 or something) who are severely handicapped and don’t talk or move much and just lie in their cribs and whose limbs are usually very bent and such. They’re a lot of fun though because you just walk up to the crib and look at them and they laugh. You can also take them out alright and just sit with them or rock them. The only one not like the rest is Maria, the little down syndrome baby whose really young and is just like any other baby with down syndrome I suppose. So cute – I want one. After the orphanage, Jessica, Jenna and I went to the clothing fair, which was inside a discoteque building. It had quite a bit of clothes, but was kind of expensive and made me nervous because all the shops were so small and the salespeople were so pushy and yet I couldn’t even understand them and it was just really nerve racking. So I was having a hard time feeling free to just look and not feel pressured so I just followed Jessica around and had her pick stuff out for me J. I actually ended up getting a really cute green sweater too. After that we decided we didn’t have enough time to go to the hospital, so instead we went to Hala and did more clothes shopping. Jessica and I had a lot of fun and we went through the entire place – every shop. I ended up getting some black Sunday shoes and a really cute jacket that I love. At night we all went to the Philharmonic. Possibly the most interesting thing about the philharmonic was the building. It was so beat up! Like, when we walked by the building when we mapped the city I thought it was an abandoned building until they started talking about how we could attend concerts there. The inside was better with frescoes on the wall and such, but it had like wires and such coming through the walls as well (as in a whole wall with just tons of metal bars stuck through it). Other parts of it have sections of the wall that have just crumbled, etc. etc. The inside where the concert was actually performed seemed to be a lot nicer though. The concert itself was very enjoyable. It was Bela Bartok and someone else whose last name was Enescu I think. I struggled to stay awake but not because it was boring, just because it was beautiful and soothing. Afterward we just all got ready for bed. Oh wait, also, all day we were trying to decide who would work where in the orphanage and apartments. We were supposed to have figured it out and I was thinking about it all day, but we still haven’t determined it. I’ll either do Tomesti and Donald Duck (and switch off) or I’ll be in Dancu and go with them to the Orphanage to do physical therapy every other day. Honestly I think I’d rather be in Tomesti/DD, but I’ll be ok with Dancu. It sounds like that’s probably what I’ll end up doing too.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

We had to wake up pretty early and go to the apartments in the morning. We all met together at Tirgu Cucu, where we took a tramvite to the Dacie apartments. I always liked riding in cars just through relatively boring California, so you can imagine that I loved riding in the tramvite through Iasi. When we got off we walked a little bit to where the actual apartment was. The only thing I really remember about the walk to the first one was there was this really weird looking church that was under construction. At the first apartment (Dacie 3rd floor) I played a lot with a little kid named Catalin. He was ADORABLE. Like, I’m pretty sure that the only things he really had wrong with him were that he had a cleft palate (which had gotten surgery on it) and then just had effects from institutionalization. So basically if his parents had taken care of him he’d be fine. We played a lot together and a lot of the time was spent with me just rocking him in my legs. He fit fabulously and it really calmed him down, which was good because he was a really active kid. After we left we went over to Dacie 7th floor which I remember being in an incredibly ghetto area. Like, the wall right next to the door we went in to get into the bloc had “no school, no job, no money” written across it. In the apartment I remember tossing a balloon around that a couple of the kids would hit – one of which was a cute little down syndrome kid. The apartment was right by a gypsy camp, so when we left the apartment we went to the top of a little slope and looked across a little sewage river thing to where there was this huuuge field with trash all over it and saw the gypsy camp in one little corner of it. It was surreal. I want to go there. Then we got back on the tramvite and rode it basically back to Tirgu Cucu before getting off at Dancu. For some reason I don’t remember the ride there or what the surrounding area of Dancu looked like. I do remember though a little boy named Constantine. I was sitting next to Megan on the couch and she was holding him so that his head was right below mine, facing up at me. I played with his hair almost the entire time and it was soft and just this pretty white blond color. Also, Megan was tickling him a lot so he just kept laughing. Sad story though – he was born because his mom was raped by her dad. What would he do with that if he had the mental faculty to comprehend it? After Dancu we came back to the apartment and got ready to go to the hospital. I was reeeeally tired – probably from waking up early. At the hospital I started off with Maria who was just so happy and sweet. I think she’d just been fed and I changed her diaper, so she was incredibly content and just could care less what I did with her and occasionally would even smile at me. Radu, in the next room, however had a horrible day. The poor guy got a urine bag and got a feeding tube with an iv in his head as well. Also, we gathered from what the nurse said to another mom that he’s really not doing well and as a result the nurse was in a really bad mood. She was yelling at Megan and Radu and I and getting mad at us for the stupidest things. For example, she got mad at Megan for turning Radu on his side, even though he has a fever and his back is way sweaty and he was trying to turn on his side on his own but she was just helping him. She almost made Megan cry. Anyway, after a little while I moved down and was with Iulia for the rest of the day. Holly was down there with me and we had a good chat. After a little while Abbi came down as well and we tried to sing Iulia to sleep but ended up singing Holly to sleep instead. Iulia breaks my heart sometimes because she is always soooo distressed and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do to help relieve it. And the thing is, I really don’t blame her! I would hate to be a little baby who is stuck in a crib with a fever, a bunch of IVs and a big ol tube, pumping oxygen stuck into my throat leaving me unable to emit sound! Poor girl – she’d better get better. After the hospital I think I went with Melissa to the grocery store to get a whole bunch of stuff and then instead of going to Outreach I stayed home because Mario’s husband was supposed to come to fix stuff. He didn’t end up coming though. But it was good because apparently outreach was nothing special and one of the new missionaries offended some of the girls and that way I also got a lot done. After they all came home, a few of them were upset and we talked about outreach for a while, then it turned into a funnier conversation and by the end of the night we had soooo many one liners that shouldv’e gone on the quote board. My favorite was when Melissa was trying to show us how to make a nose flute and to do so she had to blow out Jessica’s nose. Oh my gosh, it was one of those things that’s just so awkward you can’t help but laugh your head off. We all laughed soooo hard. Eventually I got to bed, but much later than I should have as usual.

New Pictures Setup

Ok, so Yahoo Photos made me update my photos and it's all set up differently now. If you just want to see what new photos I've added, it gives you that option, or you can go into the different very self explanatory albums that I've set up like "The Hospital." Ok, that's all!

Wedesday, September 20, 2006

This morning I actually woke up when I was supposed to and got to take a shower! I’m not even going to mention how often that doesn’t happen. I also got to eat a leisurely breakfast. Love getting up early, but it’s so hard. First thing we did was go to the orphanage!!! We walked over there and changed before going into a meeting with Mario and Dr. Ciobano. Changing, in and of itself was interesting because one wall of the room is taken up by a huge window with a very see through curtain and another includes a door that has a window right in the middle of it. It’s Romania. The meeting didn’t actually end up being much of a meeting because about five minutes into it Dr. Ciobano got called away and didn’t come back for another 15 minutes or so. In the meantime Mario just explained pretty much everything we needed to know. Then when she got back Mario and Dr. Ciobano just talked in very animated Romanian for about 10 minutes and then Dr. Ciobano said “well, it sounds like Mario has already told you just about all you need to know, and I am a very busy woman (she says that a lot), so I’ll be going now!” And that was that. First, we were shown the Day Care. Then we went to Donald Duck, where we were actually able to take the kids out of their cribs. Actually, they left three of us in there while the rest went on to the other rooms and oh my goodness, I really have to say I am SOOO partial to Donald Duck. I fell in love with the kids right away. They’re mostly babies and then there’s a few who are just so severely disabled that they are still in that stage of development. Like, they can’t move much and they don’t speak. Also, I’ve decided that for some reason I just LOVE kids with Down Syndrome. Like, I almost think I want one of my own someday although that’s a weird thing to want. But honestly they are just soooo sweet. There’s a little girl with Down Syndrome in Donald Duck and I just loved her. The room is set up like this. You come in and there are two rooms on your left, with doors. Then there’s a little tiny living room sort of a place followed by another room with a door that’s in the left corner. There are a few rooms on the right but I get the impression they’re just for the workers and we didn’t go in them. Each of the three rooms with doors on the left have kids in cribs in them. There’s generally like 4 – 6 kids per room. After spending some time in Donald Duck, we went to Mickey Mouse one and two and then to Bambi one and two. I get those four rooms a little mixed up because they weren’t quite as distinct as Donald Duck. They had older kids in them. I think it was Mickey Mouse that had a lot of kids in wheelchairs, and then Bambi had a lot of really active kids not in wheelchairs. Some kids are autistic, some are blind, some have cerebral palsy. There was also one room in Bambi that had just a few kids in it. Actually, when I first went in it was just two kids. One of them had an abnormally large head (as in a type of disorder big, not just passingly big) who was really smart and talked to us in Romanian and held our hands. The other kid was in a wheelchair in the corner. We went and talked with him a little but he wasn’t too responsive. I’m not sure what almost any of the kids names are because there were about 70 total, soooo yeah. After the orphanage we went back to the apartment for just a little while before heading over to the hospital. We were at the hospital from about 1:30 to 4:30. It actually went incredibly fast today. I started off on the 6th floor with Radu. He has down syndrome and is so cute, but it’s sad because he’s really skinny and floppy and has a fever and his skin is having issues. Also, his diapers stink like noooo other. Megan had a fun experience with that later in the day. She opened his diaper to see if he’d gone and he decided to just go right then, so she got some urine on her hands. The moms were laughing. Anyway, when I was with him I just would go sit on the bed or crib and hold him on my knees usually and sometimes rock him. He was a little fussy but not too bad. Mostly just weak. After Megan took over I wandered around for a little while looking for a kid with no one with him, but there weren’t any, so I just ended up with a new kid, Ionut who is like five and was already playing with Bri when I got there. He’s adorable. He’s got long eyelashes and a dimple on one of his cheeks. He’ll also repeat anything you say so while we were blowing bubbles we’d have him say “The Church is true!” each time before I blew. We had a lot of fun and he was endlessly amused and laughing about the bubbles. After Bri left I was trying to teach him the colors with some crayons that were there, but he wasn’t picking up real fast. Then while we were playing with the balloons, the other mom in the room came and said something to him that didn’t sound particularly mean, but maybe it was because after that he was just really quiet and wouldn’t really do anything except stare at his legs even if I had his car driving all over him. I was really sad to have to leave him like that, but I had to. After the hospital we went straight to the market and I got sooo much yummy food. That has to be one of the best things about Romania. For the first time after I go shopping and pretty much always I have food in the pantry that I’m excited to eat! In fact, today, I bought like 20 plums for 50 bani which is about $0.20. Happy day. Also, the piazza is so fun to buy fruit from. It’s just this little outdoor fruits and veggies market with cute old ladies and such. Today I bought some potatoes from this old guy who just could not figure out what language to speak to me! First he was like “sprechenzie doitch?” and I’m like “nu, spun engleaza si un putin din italiano si romane (No, I speak English and a little Italian and Romanian).” After that he spoke like a combination of Italian, Romanian and German to me, but nooo English J. I liked him. Once at home we just, you know, got stuff done. Around 7:15 Rebecca came over with her husband. While they were here Mario’s husband came and worked on our light and fixed out toilet. When he left our light still didn’t work and he told us we needed to buy better bulbs (which doesn’t really make much sense). Well, we went about our business, and then all of a sudden we hear “uh! Guys! Come here!” and we all look over and see that the light had randomly turned on!!! You should have seen all of us skid into the hallway and then just take off toward the living room. We were so happy! Also, Jessica and Megan ended up fighting for the chair that was left which was really entertaining. Since then I’ve just been in here enjoying the light while I write in my journal.

September 19, 2006

This morning we woke up early again and went to the hospital by 9. I started off on the first floor with Ionut. This was my first time with him and usually it’s Ionut and George, but George wasn’t there. I didn’t think about it a whole lot while I was in the room, but later on when someone asked about it and I said he wasn’t there we started wondering whether he’d died. We found out later that he did. It’s funny, because normally when someone dies it’s a horribly sad thing. But with these kids, a lot of the time I have to say I’m almost happy that they’ve passed away. I mean, especially for kids like George where there’s no hope of him getting any better and where he’s just in pain all day and can’t even move. I’m so sure that he’s much happier right now that why in the world would I be sad. To explain a little more about Ionut and George, they’re babies with Hydrocephaly. That means they have water on the brain and basically their heads just get bigger and bigger until they die. It’s quite shocking when you first walk in and see them because their heads really are huge, but you get used to it and just love them the same as any child. After a little while Ionut fell asleep so I went up to the 7th floor to see if I could be with Octavian. When I got there there were a few nurses in the room, so I hung outside the room until there was only one left. Then I came in and sat down. She started talking to me and I pretended I knew what she was saying and I was just like “Da, da.” Well, eventually she finished feeding him and I could see that she wanted me to sit down next to him on the crib and hold one hand under his head and use the other hand to pat his back. She said a TON more though and I was a little worried because I was afraid maybe there was something important I was supposed to know. Especially since he had an oxygen mask attached to his face which was not, when she left, attached to the tube that the oxygen comes out of and the whole time I was wondering if he should be attached to it. So I just kept watching him to make sure he looked all right! After a little while he fell asleep too, so I told the nurse I was leaving (to make sure she knew no one was in there so maybe she’d check on him and attach it if it needed to be attached) and then went down to where Iulia was. Melissa was with her and she’d just gotten the pressure increased on the machine she’s attached to so she was “crying” again. It was so sad because we just couldn’t get her to stop crying no matter what we did and we knew she was hurting. This went on for maybe an hour until finally we made a discovery. We started singing “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree” to her and she stopped crying! She just stared at us!!! So the whole rest of the time we sang to her. At the beginning we just sang those types of song ooover and oooover before branching out into some camp songs, some Disney song and then even just some regular old popular music. Sometimes we’d use hand motions and sometimes we were just too tired to think of random hand motions for songs that didn’t always include them. But I do think it helped when there were hand motions. Toward the end she did start falling asleep though, so that was fabulous. By the time we left we’d successfully gotten her to sleep!!! After leaving the orphanage the gypsy kids came and mauled us again. Then we had some time in the apartment before going over to Podul to work a little more on the “Mapping the City” project. Basically we talked a bunch and then worked on marking some maps of Iasi that Bri scanned for us. The rest of my apartment left while I waited for Holly who is spending the week at our apartment. Before we left, Marina asked if we could take some of her wet clothes over to our apartment to rewash them because their washer broke when her clothes were in it. Well, let me just say, that was a toooough walk home. Not only did Holly have like ALL her stuff with her, and not only was I carrying two VERY heavy bags of wet clothes, but we were carrying 3 scrub tops with wet “Y”s painted on them, and a very awkward map. Then, on top of it all, right as we’re leaving Podul, one of the stray dogs started following us because he was attracted to Marina’s wet clothes. We joked a little about throwing some of them to him and just being like “sorry Marina, we threw some of your clothes to the street dogs.” It was funny because the dog followed us all the way from Podul to Scala and at the beginning we were kind of scared of him and like “go away doggy” but by the end we were like “aww, I’m sorry, bye bye little doggy, I love you!” It was cute too because whenever we’d rest from carrying all the stuff (which was a lot) he’d just lay down on the ground next to us and wait. I almost hoped he’d be outside our door this morning, but he was gone.

Monday, September 18, 2006

I decided to skip a couple days because they weren't that interesting. The only thing that I think was remotely interesting was that I had my first week of conducting for Sacrament meeting. I didn't have any time to practice and it was really hard to figure out when to go up since I couldn't understand anything Pres. Popovich said. I didn't make tooo many mistakes though, except that during one of the song I almost sat down after the 3rd verse because I didn't realize there were actually 4 verses! Anyway, here's the entry for Monday, September 18th:

We went to the Hospital first thing in the morning at like 9 o clock so that we can start to get ready for waking up early to go to the orphanage. First I was with Iulia. She looks like a completely normal really cute baby except that she has a tube in her next which is connected to a machine which pumps air in her at regular intervals so she gets help breaking. It’s really sad though because they come in and change the pressure on the machine and you can tell it hurts afterward because for the next few hours she never stops crying. Of course, she can’t actually make much in the way of sound, so by crying I mean that she scrunches her face so as to look like she’s crying and tears will come out, just no sound. I think that’s even sadder than if she were actually crying. It’s also sad because you can’t hold her and she doesn’t get moved much so her arm skin was sticking to her stomach skin. Anyway, so Holly, Megan and I were in there to begin with we would do a mix of singing to her and just talking while holding her hand and rubbing her back. Ionella is in the room right next to her and after a while there were so many girls that pooled into the two rooms (because we weren’t aloud on certain floors and some kids weren’t there) that I decided to leave and go somewhere else. So after that I went up and saw Maria again and Radu for the first time (also in rooms right across from each other). Radu is adorable. He’s a few months old and has down syndrome and is just soooo sweet. There were also lots of people there though, so I tried to go down and see Octavian, but I met Abbi who was just coming from him and said the nurses told her to leave, so after that I pretty much gave up and realized there were too many of us there. So then Shannon, Abbi and I went home. We were all excited to be able to have a bunch of time to get stuff done, but alas Holly called and wanted us to meet Brother Wright and go over to his apartment because this girl named Alexandra wanted to meet us. Turns out Alexandra is this 19 year old girl who got baptized in April but can’t come to anything because her brothers and sisters (who she lives with because her parents are divorced and her mom is working in Italy) hate the church and won’t let her do anything remotely connected to it. They took away her scriptures and everything. She really wants to come though, so every once in a while she’ll sneak out and spend some time with Bro. and Sis. Wright. Actually, they keep a BOM at their apartment for her and some other things too so she can always have them to look at any time she comes over. It’s really sad. She’s still in like an extended high school program thing (don’t understand) for another two years, but after that she’ll be able to get a good job and move out on her own and do whatever she wants to do. Anyway, she apparently really likes the American girls, so she wanted to meet us, so we went over there and chatted for a couple of hours. After we came back it was pretty much time to leave, so we got ready and left. As a group we went to the Metropolitan Cathedral thing. I wrote a TON about it in my little notebook while we were there, but basically I found it really fascinating and came out of it with a lot of questions. It’s a good thing too because I’m supposed to use it for a cultural proofs and it’s supposed to take me a few hours and otherwise I’d have been done really quickly. But it was nice we got to just take our time and walk around and observe and write down everything we wanted to. After that we went and got a gogosh (or actually a Langosh) and then went straight to the church for FHE. We were really early though, so us and a few of the Romanians who were early as well played hangman. One of the Romanian guys, Adrian, was amazing at hangman when we’d do countries. Like, I think he may have gotten every single one. Even Burkina Faso. For FHE though we played the sign game which was really funny. The funniest part by far though was with Megan. Megan’s sign was a “how you doin?” type of head nod and kiss thing and every time she tried to do it she’d laugh. Well, it was bad enough when one of us girls did it to her, but one time Adrian did it to her and was totally all “I want you” about it and she just couldn’t take it. She started laughing so hard that she ran out of the room!

Friday, September 15, 2006

Jessica and I woke up earlier than the rest because we were the two who were going to go to the Penilla Day Care Center and we wanted to get there by 9:30. The night before Holly had told us what to tell the taxi driver and had said they’d know where it was. Well, they didn’t. We asked about four driver’s before finally finding one who didn’t know where the actual school was, but did know where “Little Texas” was, which Holly said was close. So we took it! Well, we didn’t really know exactly where it was either, so when he dropped us off at “Little Texas” we thought we’d just wander around a little and find it pretty fast. We had no idea where to go though, so we asked this lady how to get there. She tried to tell us, but apparently it was hard to explain, so she told us to go down to a certain point and ask someone else from there. We did so, but once we got there no one really knew where it was but just gave us bogus directions anyway. Well, we ended up walking down this random little street that had construction being done on it and we had to laugh at how we looked – two young American girls walking down this random little street that’s all torn up with all kinds of construction people on it, almost all of which we asked for directions. Well, after about 10 of them directed us to this other day care place that was on that same street, we decided to just ask the day care if they knew. The lady at the day care finally knew, but the only way she could think to tell us how to get there was to have us walk through this construction zone. So we pulled back the little makeshift gate they had set up and walked through the construction, over mounds of dirt and makeshift wooden pathways, being careful to avoid the ditches while all the confused construction people just, kind of, watched. The next problem we came across was how to get out of the construction area and to the street she told us to go to. One of the construction guys came to the rescue when he saw us wandering back and forth looking really confused, and just pointed to the fence. We took that as “Go under the fence” and so we did J. I pulled it up for Jessica as she slid on the dirt under the fence and she did the same for me. We were both wearing white shirts. After we reached the street it wasn’t too hard to find the preschool. We were a little late, but it was alright. She led us to the group of kids who were just finishing up playing with puzzles. So we helped them for a minute, not really knowing what we were supposed to being doing since we couldn’t really communicate with the workers, before we went outside with all the kids. It was really fun because Jessica and I were both pushing kids in wheelchairs at the beginning and, though I hate to be partial, those two guys had to be the sweetest in the whole bunch. I’d say “unde?” (where?) and he’d go “acolo” (there) and weakly point his finger and off I’d go. He had the softest, cutest little voice and was so earnest in it like going that direction was the most important thing in the world. The other kid, Adrean, was so spunky. He’d like try and trick me and be like “acolo! Nu acolo! Nu drepte!” and just constantly change which direction he wanted. It was fabulous. We were having so much fun that some of the other kids would join me and hold onto the wheelchair with me. This also really helped when either they were saying something to me and clearly wanted me to play with them, but I didn’t understand or when they were upset about something. I’d just distract them and be like “Hai! Uitete la mine! Unde? Acolo? Cu mine! Hai sa mergem!” (Hey! Look at me! Where? There? With me! Let’s go!) and thus with my broken Romanian would get them distracted by getting them interested in my little “where should the wheelchair go” game. Some of the kids I got to know were AD, Adrean, Iuliana (or something similar), Catalina, Georgiana and Mihaela. Iuliana is very unstable. As in, she gets upset very easily and doesn’t get along well with the other kids. Catalina has a speech impediment, so if it was hard to understand before, it’s impossible with her. Also, she’s very sweet and loving and very easily attached to people. Georgiana is the kind of child that doesn’t really know how to do her own thing and just kind of follows everyone else, but at the same time is amazingly stubborn. Mihaela is much smarter than the rest, I think, but has club feet. She’s very kind though and would often be the peacemaker who would help me get the kids happy. Also, there’s a really nice worker there who tried to talk to me for a while. She reminds me of a mix between a grandma and a nun. When the workers are nice to you here, you really really appreciate it. Anyway, we only stayed til about 11:30, then walked all the way home. After a little break, we went to the hospital and we were there til like 4. I spent almost the entire time with little Maria who got moved to the 6th floor. At the beginning she was sleeping and so I just changed her diaper, set her on my legs and looked through my Romanian dictionary. The other mom that was in there was a gypsy with huge bosoms that she just had hanging out freely. Later Maria woke up and I spent the rest of the time rocking her head rapidly because that seemed to be the only thing to calm her down. Also, another mom came in at one point with just about the cutest little girl I’ve ever seen, but who was also probably the fussiest little girl I’ve ever seen too. I talked to both moms a little, but not as much as I usually do. Toward the end I put Maria back in her crib and went down to hold Constantine for just a few minutes. It was really hard because he’s so stiff and it takes a while to loosen him up and I was only there for like 15 minutes. Sad day. I feel so bad for Constantine. After the hospital we went home real quick before meeting the relief society sisters at Tirgu Cucu for a picnic. We took the tram all the way to this park and then laid out some blankets and had a yummy little picnic. I love the relief society sisters – especially the older ones – because they’re soooo cute. They’re like in their 60’s and they’re these cute little Romanian ladies, but when you put them all together they act like teenagers. It was a very enjoyable picnic. Afterward Marina and I played a little badminton and then we had a lesson by the soras. When the picnic was over, us Americans and some of the younger girls separated from the rest and walked up these steps and down this path through the gardens and to a different exit. It was beeeautiful. At one moment we were at the top of the steps and I looked back down the hill and saw the beautiful sunset in the background and all the greenery and just loved it. After that we just caught the tram home and that was that. After we got home we just watched a Gattica. Well, they watched it. I fell asleep and just went to bed.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Well, we got back from the black sea late last night and I didn’t get to bed until about 2. Also, last night Holly informed us that we were going to be going to the orphanage in the morning, which was really surprising because we weren’t expecting to go for like another week. But since I didn’t get to bed til like 2:30 and we had to try to be at the orphanage by like 8:10, I clearly didn’t get much sleep. But off we all went to the orphanage for the first time. So, we get there and we go into this one room to wait for Mario and it was so sad because when she came she was like “why did you bring all the girls? I told you just you and me.” I felt so bad for Holly because I know how it is when sometimes communication between you and a Romanian is very tough and you can try really hard to make sure you understand, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. I knew she was embarrassed and I just felt so bad for her. Anyway, so we didn’t actually get to see the orphanage, but instead just talked in the little room until they came back. We were able to go to the Panella Day Care Center afterwards, however. We all took taxis there and met with the lady in charge in some kind of a conference type room. After that she showed us around a little. I love the day care. I think it’s such a good place and wish that the hospital and the orphanage could be like that too. It might be hard to be always seeing the two totally opposite facilities because I think I might then always be dying over the travesty that the orphanage kids can’t have the same care. One of the first interesting things at the orphanage that I noticed was the way that the woman talked about Romania and about Romania versus Sweden (the Center was founded by the Swedish and employs Swedish techniques). As she was explaining how the place works she would constantly note that “it is a very Swedish way of doing things” or “this is not the Romanian way” or “the Swedish are very….” or “the Romanians are very…” Like for example, how she talked about how the Swedish make decisions for the kids by involving lots of different people in the decision: many different kinds of doctors, family and sometimes even the child while the Romanians like to make their decision independent of any other input and they just say “here, this is my diagnosis” and don’t care what anyone else thinks. Also, she showed us the outside play area and said something about how the Swedish use techniques involving the child getting sunlight and being able to explore and things like that while in Romania it’s much more focused on academics, math, science, etc. I don’t know, I thought it was really really interesting. I mean, I see this in a lot of people in Romania. What I mean is, not only do I see a lot of the Romanian traits that she mentioned, but at the same time, I see people like her who you can tell really admire other more Western modes of thought and who really try to imitate them. It’s almost like a child who tries to copy their older brother or sister. It really kind of touched me actually. And on one hand it made me sad to see that she felt her own country’s way was inferior. That’s such a heartbreaking position to be put in. But on the other hand, I mean, I agree. From what I see, the Romanian way of doing things can be, well, less healthy and functional. I agreed with most of the Day Care’s “Swedish” ways of doing things and thought it was an amazing preschool. I’d send my own kids there. I don’t know, I hope somehow Romania can manage to allow joining the European Union to help them to improve, while at the same time not force them to lose their identity. I don’t know that that’s possible though. Sad. It should be interesting to see how Romania changes in the next few years. On another note, I’m excited because they wanted two girls to go back to the preschool tomorrow and actually help out and Jessica and I are going to go! I think I’ll really enjoy going there. And moving on. So after a little down time, we went to the hospital. At the hospital I was back with Constantine on the 1st floor (intensive care). The mean doctor was there today, so we had to wait til he went in a room and sneak in and then hope he didn’t come in our room over the next few hours. And he didn’t! Today, Constantine was in with two other babies and their moms. I talked to both of them quite a bit even though one only spoke very little English and the other spoke like absolutely none. But it was refreshing to be able to still manage to communicate some. Constantine was a little more fussy today and it was tiring because I had to hold him for 3 hours straight and constantly make sure I was holding him/rocking him the way he wanted to be held/rocked or else he’d start to cry. I couldn’t just stick him on my legs and play with his arms or something. Also, when I first came in, some of the nurses followed me in and tried to tell me he couldn’t be held today and stuck his hands in his pants so he was like bound. Well, right after they walked out, one of the orderlies looked and me and said something and basically I could tell she was saying “screw them, do it anyway,” and I did. After they left I picked him up and started to comfort him. Then, a little while later I took his arms out too because I know he’s stiff from being in that crib all day and his limbs need to be moved. I like to move around and bend them as much as I gently can because I feel that helps him be less stiff. A little makeshift physical therapy. Also, I was trying to teach him to put his fingers in his mouth because he’s constantly sucking the air, and often will gladly suck my fingers, but it’d be much better if he’d just suck his own. I wasn’t the only one who was breaking the rules today either. The mom’s apparently aren’t allowed to put binkies in the babies mouths, so first they’ll try to get the baby to stop crying, but if it doesn’t work, they’ll have one mom at the door while the other mom gives the baby the binky. If a doctor comes they’ll slip it back into their pocket. I loved it. I also told them about the mean doctor and about how I didn’t want him to see me. After a while, I got in a pretty comfy position with Constantine with me sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall and just rocking him gently. His eyelids started to get heavy and luckily he fell asleep just right in time because just after the nurse came in and made me put him back in the crib. I’d much rather have him fall asleep happy and content in my arms and just leave with him happy, then have to wrench myself away from him and put him in his crib and hear his immediate cry as I walk away. I only had like a half hour left at that point so I went up and found Shannon on the 7th floor who was with Iuliana. She was in the same room as a gypsy mother and her child who we talked to a little bit, which was very very satisfying. I really want to be liked by the gypsies, so I played with her baby a little and gave her a toy. It was a good thing. After the orphanage we went to the mall. On the way to the mall there are always some gypsy kids who run up to us and ask for gum and stuff and hug us and kiss us and grab our hands, etc. So on the way there just one of them, a little girl came and did it and Jessica gave her some pretzels. Then afterwards 3 kids and a baby (which one girl was holding) accosted us again. This time they wouldn’t leave for quite some time and actually Shannon and I separated from the other three and went a different way home, at which time the other 3 were still being followed by the gypsy kids. It really worries me because, well, they’re not homeless, their gypsies and half of me wonders if they only do it to have a good laugh, which is basically what all my reading indicates. I don’t think they actually need our food. The baby was really fat. I’m ok with hugging and kissing them but I don’t think we should give them anything else. It is good though that they don’t seem to have taken anything from us or even tried. Well, after we got home we had to rush to get ready and go to Outreach. Outreach was really wonderful. There was a really good turnout and it was very boisterous. We all felt more part of the group and I felt more like I could talk to the people in the branch. We’re starting to form bonds, which is good. Also, Jessica and one of the Sis. Missionaries were playing the guitar which always helps. The fabulous bean dip helped too. We also got our callings today. I am a Conductor. It’s interesting because that calling really isn’t scary to me whatsoever. I was expecting some fabulously scary call that was going to push me really hard and that I’d have to work super hard to do, but no. In fact, when he called me I was almost like “what? That’s it?” But I know that’s a crappy attitude and I’m doing really well at being happy with it. At least I don’t have to worry much about it! Also, it’s really confusing because I’m not the only conductor and we’re all just like, “So when do we each conduct!?!” and also “who picks the music!?!” I left outreach late with Shannon and we walked home together. On the way home we both got gogoasa. It was my second of the day and wow I love them!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Well we were supposed to be out of the room by 9, but no one even woke up til right around then, so we ended up not getting out til probably around 10. We all hopped in taxis and went straight back to Mamaia beach, just laid down our towels a little farther over because the sand was a lot nicer there. This time it was seven of us all laid out in a row. You can imagine how many guys casually set down their towels around us. There was one in particular, however, who stood out the most. It was this guy right behind us who was trying sooo hard to get our attention the entire time. He’d repeat things we said, yell out random things to make us look and even at one point went for a “dip” in the water. By went for a dip, I mean that he pull his speedo up to a thong so that his incredibly hairy nasty but was fully visible, then stroll past us to the water. He was careful to stand directly in front of us as he posed while occasionally sprinkling himself with some water. Not obvious at all. At one point he even took a picture of us – but then again, so did like half the other people next to us. We really did have a lot of fun on the beach though. We left around 1:30 and took a taxi (very difficult to find for some reason) to the station so we could catch our train which left at like 2:30 or something. This time once we got on the train we split up so it ended up being Jenna, Marina, Jessica and I in one car with Melissa, Shannon, Megan and a really nice Romanian lady in another. Most the time I just read my book, but there were also some other highlights of the train. First of all, Jessica, Megan, Marina and I had a “chasmic secrets” telling session where we all had to go around and tell secrets that were as monumental as a chasm (or something like that). It was hilarious. Also, I went outside the car to take pictures of this goooorgeous sunset and ended up talking to Shannon for a while. It was a really great, deep conversation about loads of thing. Shannon and I have a lot of those I’ve decided. Afterward, as I was walking to my train, this old man that I’d previously thought was really cute (like old man cute of course) stepped in my way, blocked my path and started hitting on me. He took me in his arms and kissed me on the cheek a few times (tried to kiss me on the mouth I’m pretty sure, but I made sure to turn each time) and then whispered sweet nothings to me in Romanian in his version of a low romantic voice. It was….interesting. I couldn’t wait to get away and I could see Shannon laughing in the background out of the corner of my eye. I wish you could describe sunsets, because if you could I’d go off for another page or so on the one I saw. I guess the notgoodenough pictures I took will have to do. We didn’t get home til like midnight and I can’t really remember what we did then. Probably just got ready for bed and went to bed I’m sure.

Tuedsay, September 12, 2006

Well, the journal for this day really starts at like midnight. In the middle of the night on Tuesday, the 7 of us got on a train to the black sea. It was 7 american girls and one Romanian man in a 2nd class, 8 seater Romanian train car. Plenty of awkward moments. Throughout the night as we exploded with laughter over awkward sleeping position after awkward sleeping position the one Romanian man watched almost silently and receded further and further into his corner. Sometimes he would drape the curtain over his face and pretend to sleep, but sometimes the curiosity was too much for the poor man. The only time he ever reached out to any of us was when, during yet another fight for comfort, Marina accidentally rested her foot upon his knees for a moment. Instead of pretending it hadn’t happened and leaving everyone to try to act as normal as possible, he instead decided to grasp her foot, bringing it up to his package and nodding to her as if to say “yeah, don’t worry, that’s ok.” He then proceeded to massage it and hold ever tighter as she, laughing nervously, tried her best to pull it back to her side of the bench. I’d like, also, to touch a little more on the aforementioned “awkward positions.” Well, what is meant is simply that we ended up with a set up something like this. Shannon’s legs on me, me spooning with Marina, her legs on the man, Megan leaning on Shannon, with her legs on Melissa and Jessica’s, Melissa leaning on Jessica and Melissa and Jessica’s legs on Jenna, and Jenna on the floor. Except more complicated. And to say that that was our position and to leave it at that would be further yet from the truth because any position, this one among them was only ever able to last for about 30 seconds because with all this intertwining, once one person became the slightest bit uncomfortable in, say, their leg, they would have to adjust it, which would lead 3 other people to be uncomfortable in their respective limbs which would lead them to adjust themselves, which would then lead to more jostling and more jostling until the entire car was in continuous movement for, at best, the next 30 minutes. Needless to say, by the end of the 9 hour ride, we were all fairly stiff and cranky. Almost immediately after we all stumbled off the train and into the sunlight, we were met by a fairly plump, middle aged woman with cigarettes and money in her bra, among other things, which were all clearly visible through her very see-through shirt, who offered us a stay at her property – 100 Lei for the lot of us. This is apparently normal in countries like Romania and is a legitimate means of attaining accommodation. She assured us constantly that she was a very “serious” woman and offered us the opportunity to pay her for a ride to the property to check it out before we agreed. The ride, as it turned out would be 20 Lei, as determined by “Mr.” as he was referred to by the lady. After discussing it for quite some time with the lady and “Mr.” watching anxiously, we finally decided it was worth looking at. So, we all crammed in the back of a big van and immediately I felt like an illegal alien being transported across the border. After having a good look around at the property we decided we’d take it. It had two rooms with two beds and was connected to another couple of rooms, that included a sitting room, a bathroom, a kitchen and a nice old lady who would be living in there. Upon acceptance, the lady asked in her best “I deserve pity” voice for $20 more for her “commission.” At first we were unwilling, feeling she should have brought it up beforehand and feeling she was being very dishonest, but we softened after coming to our sense and realizing that she probably actually really needed it and that it, shared between us would be a pittance that we were giving. After she left, a few people decided to sleep right away, but Melissa, Shannon and I thought it would be much more pleasant to sleep on the beach, so we got dressed and headed out to find the beach. It wasn’t so simple however. The road which we were told led to the beach really just led to a landfill. So we proceeded to wander around for quite some time looking for a real beach before giving up and trying our best Romanians skills to ask for directions to the “big beach.” With some difficulty (as always) we figured out that the big beach was called “Mamaia” and was “that way.” So, we walked allll the way back to our….house thing and told the other girls before taking a taxi to the beach. The topless beach J. Yeah it was topless, but I’m pretty sure they’re all topless in Europe. At least not everyone was topless and at least it wasn’t an actual “nude” beach. So we had a really fun day at the beach. We mostly just laid out, read, took a nap, talked and Shannon and I went for a walk as well. We were there for quite a long time and didn’t leave til like 6:30ish. When we got home we met up with the rest of the girls, who, we found, had gone to a different, much closer beach but with much less people. By this time, we were all pretty hungry, so we ended up walking around and asking a lady at a gas station where there was a good restaurant and eating there. Aside from the fact that Shannon was so sunburned she was about to throw up and Marina and I had to walk her home, it was a fabulous experience. I mean, I got ribs, pasta and mashed potatoes for about 6 American dollars. Love the Romanian exchange rate! Anyway, that’s about it for the rest of that night. All we did when we got home was get ready for bed and then sleep (3 people per bed with one on the floor).

Monday, September 11, 2006

The first thing we did on this morning was go to the hospital. Holly met us at our apartment at 9:30 and showed us the quickest way to walk there from our apartment. It was actually a very pretty walk which went through a park. Once we got there, I ended up working on the 8th floor with a little girl named Maria. She was only a little over a month old and quite possibly the smallest baby I’ve ever seen. She was small to begin with I think but also malnourished. But she was soooo adorable. There were some other moms in the room too who I talked to a little bit, but they didn’t speak the best English. Also, some of the nurses were kind of chastising me for different things I did, like trying to go out and see where to throw away the baby’s diaper. I’m definitely a little intimidated by the nurses. One of them was semi nice though and spoke English to me. Also, this time, the doctors were in the room for a really long time before leaving because they were discussing the other two babies in a big huddle like they always do. After a while Shannon came up and was with me for a while and the baby fell asleep which was adorable. So then we decided to go back down to where Shannon’s baby had been. Her baby’s mom had come before which is why she’d come upstairs but by that time the mom was gone. So we held her for a while and sang to her as well until she fell asleep. Also, the room that baby was in had windows on each side and you could see through like all the windows all the way down the hall. So one of the babies who was playing with her mom in the room next door started looking at us. I started playing with her and playing peekaboo from my room and stuff and she’d totally laugh. It was adoooorable. It was also precious singing to the baby because you could see how as soon as we’d start singing her eyes would get really heavy but when we’d stop she’d open them. Finally we got her to sleep and then held her a while longer to make sure she was out before quickly going downstairs to check on Constantin and Liviu and Liviu’s mom before I left. Constantine was sleeping, Liviu’s mom wasn’t there and it was sad because Liviu started crying when we walked out the door. After the hospital, we had a bunch of time before FHE at 7, so I got some stuff done and took a small nap, then went to FHE. FHE was pretty fun. Shannon gave a lesson and then we played this game where you have to say someone’s name before being hit by the person in the middle basically. There were definitely some really funny moments. After FHE we all got ready to take the train to the black sea because we had to leave to go to the train station at like 9:45pm.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

This was our first Sunday in Romania and also my first day with the use of a curling iron. Thank goodness!!! Church was at 10 and we all got ready and then walked on over to the villa. We were early, so we just sat down for a little while before it all started and observed it all. First we had sacrament, which was all in Romanian. I barely understood it whatsoever, and so by the 2nd talk I was struggling to stay awake. I definitely managed to however. Sunday school was after that and was in the same room. It was taught by Sora Lydia. It was a bit of a struggle because one of the elders was translating for her except he wasn’t very good at figuring out what to say, she kept interrupting and not giving him time to translate and even if he didn’t get the words out there we didn’t usually understand him because he had a very thick British accent. I loved them for trying though because how nice is it that they had a person translate, just for us. It was however, very difficult to participate and answer questions though since we couldn’t follow the conversation very well. The classes luckily got easier as they came though, because I understood almost all of Relief Society. For this we moved into a different room but had the same teacher because the girl that was supposed to teach didn’t show up (she’s a single mom with 2 kids and is so poor she has to work all day long and leave the kids at home by themselves, so I can imagine she must have been just too tired to make it, let alone prepare a lesson). But this time we had Sora Hanks translate, who is absolutely amazing. She’s only been in Romania for 4 months and already she’s virtually fluent. She translated really fairly easily and phrased it all so we understood. On the walk back from church, that same little kid who’d mooned us a few days before ran up to us and started trying to pull all of our skirts up. Luckily we were too quick for him. He’s about 5 by the way. I wonder what else he has up his sleeve. Before going back to Podul at 3 I cooked some rice and veggies for later and read some of the really good book I’m reading called “With God, For the People.” It’s about the Pastor who basically started the Romanian Revolution in 1989. At 3 we all went over to Podul for an early dinner. None of us had eaten lunch so we were staaarving. Dinner was sooo good because we had spaghetti and cheesebread. It was hilarious because this whole trip we’ve all gotten sick a whole lot, especially with digestive problems, as was expected. So when Marina said the prayer to bless the food she said something like “please bless us to not get sick in any way” or something which struck us all as really funny and she burst out laughing and couldn’t finish the prayer. So finally she gasps “sheri, finish it!” so I somehow got through the end of the prayer myself without laughing. I’m pretty sure that’s the only time I’ve ever finished someone else’s prayer. It was hilarious. After dinner we had our weekly meeting in which we basically talked about the whole rest of the week and also about our highs and lows for this last week. It was pretty interesting to talk about. Also, next week, since we don’t really have any pressing engagements on Tuesday or Wednesday we decided that’d be a good time to go to the Black Sea – especially since it’ll be too cold later. So um, I love how we just decided to up and go and we’ll be on a train for the black sea about this time tomorrow. We’ll take a sleeper train from Monday at 11pm to about Tuesday at 7am and take another one back from Wednesday night to Thursday night. But as for tomorrow, we’ll just try and get our apartment fixed and go to the hospital for a few hours. Oh and also have FHE. After the meeting we had about an hour and a half before our home teachers, the Right’s came over. In that time I basically read and got my toenails done by Marina. When they came over we talked for a while and then I fell asleep on accident while they were giving their lesson because I was all tangled up on Marina and Shannon and was soooo tired.

Saturday, September 9, 2006

We didn’t have anything at all planned until 2 o clock, so I woke up at 10:30. I went to go take a shower when I woke up and right before I put shampoo in my hair, the fawcet just fell off. I tried to screw it on but it just wouldn’t work, so I went and got Megan (who put it back on last time it fell off) and she couldn’t do it either. So none of us got showers J. Also, Christi was supposed to come over and fix our living room light (and the shower at that point too) but he never came. At 2:30 we met up with Podul and went to the hospital for the first time. Before we went though we got some instructions from Holly. The whole thing is actually pretty complicated. I felt like if I made the slightest mistake I might get kicked out of the hospital. I also kind of get the impression that people in the hospital don’t like us. I’m not sure why that is. Anyway, it’s really complicated because there are like certain floors where if certain people are there you can’t go on that floor or else you’ll get yelled at. Like, on the first floor, there’s a doctor who wears a green coat and has white fluffy hair who’ll yell at you and say “you can’t be here because you smell like a dirty animal and you’ll make the kids sick,” which is actually incredibly ironic because Romanians smell VERY strongly of BO. And we give the kids diapers but you have to first of all figure out whether to leave the diaper with the kid or with the nurse because sometimes the certain nurses will sell the diapers to other mom’s whose sick kids are there because diapers are like money here. But on the other hand, some mom’s on certain floors will steal the diapers if you just leave it in the crib. So basically you have to know the people on the floors and act accordingly, but we don’t really know any of this yet. Also, it’s really good to get to know the mom’s that are on the floor because apparently they’ll usually know more info about the kids and also that way they’re less likely to steal the baby’s diapers. We got a whole lot more instructions too, but I can’t remember. So we walked over to the hospital and on the way there there were some gypsies and their kids ran up to us and just did some weird things like basically make raptor noises at us – during which time we kept our purses very close. I was observing the gypsies as well as I could because until Mihai gets here I can’t really start on my research by doing anything else. The Iasi Children’s hospital is supposedly the best around for quite a large area of Romania. Because of this, there are mothers who will take their kids to it from hours away and suffer great sacrifice to have them there. Also, some of the kids have parents who will take them there but who can’t afford to stay with them because they either have to work back home or take care of several other kids. So as a result, a lot of them are temporarily orphans. We take care of both temporary and permanent orphans. But even though it’s the best hospital around, it’s a sad excuse for a hospital. Imagine a building that, if in the US, is so run down that you would think it surely must be abandoned. It’s tall, with black soot all around the outside of the building, random heaps of crumpled concrete and wood and basically construction supplies, and smoke coming from a grate in the ground right next to the entrance. The inside is no better, with floors crumbling so bad that you have to be careful when walking on them and with random holes in the ceilings. Imagine that, and then try to convince yourself it’s the best hospital around. On top of it all, the nurses and doctors use superstition and tradition more than actual medicine and I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as sterilization. Oh, but they know all about the “truth” that if you keep a window open the draft it creates will kill you, causing the whole hospital to be stiflingly hot (no air conditioning) and the “fact” that if you sit on the floor you’ll be infertile (to be read very sarcastically). I don’t hate the doctors and nurses whatsoever though. I mean, I feel bad for them. There are very few people in Romania who are willing to do what they do. It’s very hard work for not much money and there’s way more for them to do than they could ever do. Not only that, but seeing these conditions day after day for years must wear on them. It’s no wonder they don’t play with the kids, not only would their backs eventually start to just kill them, but they probably wouldn’t be able to stand the pain that would be caused by letting themselves get attached to these kids. So we got to the hospital and started at the top (8th floor). On each floor, starting with the 8th, Holly would take two of us to one of the wings (There are two sides on each floor with a big open space and the stairs in the middle of the two sides. Each side has 2 wings. We are only aloud on the left side on each floor for some reason.), find the nurse and ask “aveti copiii fara mama?” or “do you have kids without moms?” The 8th, 7th and 6th floors all had “orphans” on them but the 5th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd all didn’t for some reason. So, although, technically we aren’t allowed on the 1st floor, Shannon, Jenna, Holly and I took that floor anyway because the crazy doctor wasn’t there and the really nice nurse was instead. So, Holly came back from asking and there were 5 kids on the floor. So she took us all down the hallway and basically just dropped us all off in a room and pointed out which kid we were all supposed to take. So when we got to my room, she basically just said, “That’s your baby. She can be held. Here’s a diaper for you to change her with. You can change her over there (and pointed to a bed)” and I was just left there to figure out what to do for 2 hours. The first thing I did was pick the baby up and take him over to the bed to change his diaper. He had been in his crib so long that his limbs weren’t very flexible and he couldn’t really turn his head or move his body much. Basically he was bent to one side, so holding him was a bit tough. When I changed him I realized that he was soooo skinny. You know when you see those pictures of the babies who are basically just bone? That was him. His thinness combined with his bent frame made me really afraid of breaking him, but I was able to change his diaper. While I was changing him he threw up on the bed and I tried my best to clean it up, but I felt so awkward because I had no idea what the rules of the hospital were and if I was doing it all right and if people were watching me going “what is she DOING?” and I hate that feeling. Anyway, so after that I just walked around with him for a while and tried to get him to look at me because he wasn’t very good at keeping eye contact. He also wheezed a lot. There were a couple of notecards on the door. One for each of the two babies in the room, but I didn’t know which was for him so I couldn’t figure out what his name was. There was a mom in the room with the other baby though, so I started asking her about her own baby in an effort to figure out which card they both belonged to. By doing this I figured out that his name was Constantine and he had hydrocephaly and something else. I knew hydrocephaly had something to do with the baby having water on the brain which caused their head to get bigger and bigger although my baby’s head wasn’t that big yet. Not too long after that the other mother in the room brought out a picture and starting looking at it and crying and rocking and I got the impression that it was a picture of a child that had died. I wasn’t sure what to do because I wasn’t so sure about cultural norms and so I decided to try to give her some privacy instead of trying to hug her because knowing Romania, I thought she might not like that. I wasn’t sure if I was aloud to go into the hall so I just walked to the doorway. Since there wasn’t a bed there for me to sit on and since I was really tired I decided to sit on the ground. That didn’t last very long at all though because pretty soon a very alarmed nurse came up to me shaking her head and speaking really fast in Romanian. I said “Nu inteleg” or “I don’t understand.” I think she was really surprised because I don’t think she’d realized I was American because later on she said I looked Romanian (which I took as a compliment). She was a little taken aback but she was very nice, albeit I felt like she looked on me as a very stupid American girl like “These American girls are so silly. You’d think they’d know better than to sit on the floor. They’ll become infertile!!!” I actually felt like she looked on me as kind of a little sister who she had to guide and help because she really did help me. I was able to ask her about Constantine and figured out that he also had respiratory problems and that his parents hadn’t taken very good care of him (they often don’t take good care of their children who have disabilities) and had basically abandoned him there. That’s part of the reason he’s so malnourished I think and I think the other part is that he seems to throw up quite a bit. Shortly after she left another woman came in and began to talk with the mom who was there with me. I watched as she told the woman not to be sad and asked what cause she had to be so upset. She sat with her for a long time while the mother told her her story and cried. I didn’t understand it almost at all so most of all I just felt the huge sadness of whatever was going on. I had a few suspicions though which were confirmed later on when I spoke with her myself. After the lady left, I felt like I should say something to her to let her know I cared and so I said “Nu inteleg dar imi pare foarte bine” or “I don’t understand, but I’m very sorry.” It turned out she spoke some English, so I sat down on the bed next to her while she told me her story. Apparently she had twins. The little boy in the room, whose name was Liviu and a little girl who’d died just that morning at 11am. I didn’t understand completely but I think that they hadn’t really been sick before and that morning was the first time she’d taken them to the hospital and the doctors hadn’t said her daughter was very sick but she’d just died anyway. I don’t think she really knew what was wrong with her son either although he looked healthy to me. Actually, he was an incredibly beautiful baby. Her husband wasn’t there because he was working in Sibiu to have enough money for the hospital. Also, apparently she’d had 5 kids and this was the third one to die. The only other one still living was a little boy of about six and the other twin had been her only girl. I felt sooo bad and had no idea what to say to her, so I just said I was sorry and that not all babies die and to have faith and rubbed her back a little which she said “multumesc” or “thankyou” to. Not long after I’d talked to her another doctor came in to check on Constantine (probably the 2nd or 3rd which had done so), which meant I had to put him back in the crib. He would always cry whenever I put him back down because that’s probably the only time he is every held. But by the time the doctor was done I had to go and the other girls came to get me so I didn’t get to hold him again or say much more to the poor mother. It was possibly the saddest room I’ve ever been in. When we all came back together everyone was very excited and telling all about what their rooms had been like, but I didn’t think they really understood what a tragedy had really been going on there in my room. Then some of us walked to the mall for the first time to get some groceries and a curling iron. After that we had to take a taxi home and then rush to the soccer activity that was going on with the branch. We’re such a large portion of the branch that we have to be there for even the smallest of things. Soccer was actually really fun. Shannon, Melissa and I ended up being the only girls there because the rest either got lost or got distracted and didn’t end up coming. Oh, and actually we ended up playing ultimate Frisbee. One group was playing soccer and one group was playing ultimate so I played ultimate because soccer was only guys and I didn’t feel like separating from the girls. So since that was only my second time ever playing I wasn’t too hot at first. That made it so I almost never got thrown the Frisbee because when you’re short you have to actually prove yourself before they give you any kind of a chance. But after a little while I started doing amazing every time I got the Frisbee, so I started to get it more and more often and by the end it ended up an amazing game with some awesome plays. The only bad thing was that after it was over and when we were just standing there I guess one of the guys who’d been playing soccer who was just investigating the church but not a member had grabbed one of the sister missionaries legs in kind of a jerky way. And since sister missionaries are so careful about physical contact with guys as it is, it had upset her a little. They were kind of unsure as to whether to say something to him though until as he was going up the stairs he totally slapped my but – REALLY HARD. I was really shocked too be that was NOT what I was expecting right then and so I just turned around and stared at him with my mouth open. He’s not going to be allowed to come anymore I don’t think. Pretty sure he was just there for the girls. After that we briefly dropped by Scala before Shannon and I headed over to Podul to use their shower. It was soo nice because the Podul apartment is much quieter than ours and so not only did we finally get showers, but we got to just relax and read a little and talk a little too. We left around 11 and on the way home 2 Romanian guys started talking to us. We try to be careful about talking to them, especially when it’s just two of us and two of them and it’s dark and no one’s around and especially since we don’t want them knowing where we live, so though at first I responded very curtly to their questions, after a few questions and when they hadn’t gotten the message, I just ignored them. They followed really closely behind us all the way home and kept saying stuff to us like “are you scared? Huh?” I remember thinking “Nope. Just not stupid.” It’s amazing how varied the male race really is. They’ve got some real jerks amidst some amazing gentlemen. Aaaaand, that’s about all I remember for that night except that I made some AMAZING potatoes after I got home.

Friday, September 8, 2006

At 10:30 we met up with Cristina from the branch who showed us around Iasi. It was really interesting and I took lots of pictures and I really just love getting to know the city. It’s endlessly interesting to me. Also, Cristina knew a lot of really interesting stuff. Like, the statue in front of the Cultural Palace is really not the person it’s supposed to be. There were two statues and one was supposed to be sent to Poland and one to Iasi. Well, on accident they got switched and then it was too expensive to send them back to the right places, so there’s really some Polish prince or something in front of the Cultural Palace and most people have no clue! Some time after that, Mario walked us over to this office where we signed our contracts. It was funny because it was all of us in this little office room and there weren’t enough chairs so we of course started sitting on each others laps. Well, that’s not exactly normal in Romania, so the cute young lady who worked there was like all concerned and kept trying get more chairs in there for us to sit on because she really just didn’t believe us when we said we were just fine. She also talked to us quite a bit and the whole time she just had this huge smile on her face and it was so cute because you could tell she was totally bewildered and yet totally amused by us. Like she’d never seen anything like these boisterous American girls. Also, you could see she was trying so hard to make us happy and really wanted to impress us. We all decided after she left that we really liked her. Then, we walked home, had a few hours to do what we wanted to do and then walked over to the villa for a missionary fireside. In the in between time, it was interesting because I really wanted to reheat this rice I’d cooked the day before and the only way we’d figured out how to do so was to boil some water in a pan and then stick the rice in a metal bowl in the boiling water. Well, this is going to sound silly, but I was really excited when I realized that instead I could just fry the rice to reheat it! I guess it was just so exciting because it probably saved me like a whole half hour and I was really hungry. After that we went to this missionary fireside at the villa. On the way there there were these little boys and one of them who is really cute ran past us laughing then went into an alley way and as we looked over at him he pulled down his pants (still had his undies on) and patted his little tush and yelled “buuuunaaaa!” At the fireside, first we did this activity where we had to do a bunch of activities and you had to do the activity and then once you completed it you’d either get a clue or you’d get part of the armor of god. Once we got the whole armor of God we had a lesson which us American’s didn’t really understand at all based on what they said but only based on the actions they did. They had these two paper people figurines on the table. One of them had a book of mormon in front. Then we were supposed to throw paper balls at them and it was supposed to show how the book of mormon or maybe the armor of god can protect us. It was really interesting to have a whole church lesson that I totally didn’t understand. Afterward we all chatted and ate some dessert. One of the refreshments was this Romanian spongy cakey thingy that I actually didn’t really like. We went home and Rebecca came over and actually ended up spending the night because it was took late for her to get home by public transportation. Among other things, I ended up talking to Rebecca for quite some time about the church. She’s had a pretty difficult life and she has some interesting views, not all of which do I totally agree with, but she was at least interested in asking a lot of questions about the church and didn’t seem toooo hostile. Once again I didn’t end up going to bed until like 2.

Thursday, September 7, 2006

The night before I’d put load of laundry in, so when I woke up I took all my clothes and hung them on the clothes line on the balcony. It was so nice! It was a beautiful day and I can’t tell you how quaint it felt to be on this Romanian balcony with the city below, hanging my clothes on a clothesline. I almost hung my underwear in front of the kitchen window though, and when I realized it, I instead decided to hang the prettiest clothes there so it would look all cute from the kitchen window. I definitely took some pictures. Also, it’s amazing how well the pins work because they look really wimpy! After that I ate some breakfast and then tried to either read a little from the “Evil Woman” book that has Elena Ceaucescu in it and is actually pretty interesting. Anyway, it was a nice laid back morning. I loved it. We ran a few errands in the morning, including getting a few more things from the grocery store and some fruits, veggies and pretty little flowers (for the apartment) at the market. Then, if I remember correctly, we were going to go take a walk around the city, but decided to do it the next day instead when one of the branch girls could walk us around (they like to). So I think all we did was go to Outreach from around 6:30 to 9. We also brought along this girl named Rebecca who isn’t a member but is all alone in Iasi and doesn’t know anyone! She seemed very glad to be able to talk with some fellow Americans. On the way to the Villa there were some little boys in the street who were kind of cute and kind of not just because they were yelling things and one of the adults around them definitely offered them to us as husbands. Ah Romania. The Villa (the church building) was really really pretty and I guess we just use one floor of it and someone else lives upstairs. We basically just met a few people (very few), most of whom were missionaries, and then played a great game of around the world ping pong. After that we just talked a bunch with Rebecca and with Sister Hanks (a sister missionary), who is really funny. As we were leaving the villa, some of the boys and one girl came out again and started asking us for gum (“guma?”) Bri started giving them some but she didn’t have enough for all of them so I started giving them some too and oh my gosh they just like all latched onto me and wouldn’t let go. Like as in, I started totally lagging behind the group and was half laughing and half being like “heeeelp!” as I held the gum out for one of the BYU girls to take. Finally one of them took it and it turned into a game of us trying to hide the gum from them and convince them we didn’t have any left (note to self, no more guma for street kids!) On the way home we also stopped at this little pastry stand and got gogosi (pronounced go (as in “run away!”) gosh (long “o” sound that doesn’t sound like “oh my gosh”). Gogosi is basically a long scone with filling (usually chocolate). Well, we all got chocolate because it was our first time and oh my goodness it was amaaaazing. Then, that night after we got home we ended up talking until like 2 o clock, which actually is getting kind of frustrating because I really want to get stuff done, but at the same time I really can’t help but be interested in what everyone else is saying!

Wednesday, September 6, 2006

The night of the 5th was the first night that the three of us girls shared out double bed together. It was interesting. I’m on the edge and the mattress apparently didn’t fit all the way to the edge of the wooden frame, so some girls before us stuffed a body pillow in to fill of the rest of the space. That’s all fine and good except that the body pillow is lower than the rest of the mattress, so my little section of the bed is very very lopsided. Also, the first night we only had this one really thin blanket between the three of us and the other two girls were putting up a much better fight for it. So sometime in the middle of the night I gave up on it and found a towel for my legs and a blanket for my arms and lay down. I ended up looking like a mummy (so the girls said) because I had a towel wrapping my legs tight, and the sweater over my head and my arms criss crossed on top of my chest (because I always have to have my arms up somehow) and I was right side up instead of face down because I would have had to readjust the towel if I turned because it could only cover one side of my legs. Anyway, I woke up to everyone being out of the room and awake and was surprised because I didn’t think it had been that long but apparently it had been, because it was around 11:15! Anyway, I got up, unpacked, showered, ate breakfast, and putzed around because I was out of place and not sure where to start on getting everything done. Finally around 2ish, Holly and the Podul girls came and picked us up and we all went over to this pizza place in Hala called “Magic Pizza.” Oh my gosh, it was soooo good. Possibly because I was incredibly hungry and hadn’t had real food in a long time (we realized that the only meals we’d really had for the whole trip were the airplane meals) but it had to have been the best pizza I’ve ever had. We had like 5 different kinds, plus these AMAZING cheese bread things. After that we went grocery shopping at Hala. First we went in the supermarket part, which was funny because we had no idea what anything was and we asked Holly’s advice on just about every single piece of food. She was like our mother goose and we were all her chicks who she was constantly counting and pushing along. Also, we stand out like fluorescent on white already and I can only imagine how much we’ll stand out when we’re a see of people in blue scrubs going to the orphanage or hospital. After the supermarket in scala we went over to the little inside/outside market thing which is run predominantly by cute old ladies with scarves tied around their heads. It was very confusing trying to buy our fruits and vegetables because they recently switched over to “new lei” which means they basically took off 4 zeros on the bills and 2 zeros on the coins. And see, they quote you the price in the old lei for some reason, but you usually pay in the new lei. So it’s hard enough as it is to translate what number their saying without having to go through the complicated conversion of zeroes and finally figure out what the heck to pay them! Usually I just hand the cute old lady some kind of a bill and hope she gives me good change J. After the grocery store we dropped all our stuff back at home and then walked over to Podul for the first time (first for Scala girls). At Scala we had a meeting about, well, everything and it was very interesting. We especially learned about the hospital and orphanage and Holly explained more about how the orphanage works and we looked at a bunch of different binders that have records of each kid with pictures, write ups and tests that have been done. We’re supposed to look through the binders before going to the orphanage so we’ll be able to pick which kids we want to work with quicker. It’s hard to choose for sure, but I think I’m leaning toward either Donald Duck or 2 of the apartments. There were some other interesting things that came from the meeting too. Like, technically in order to get into the orphanage, we’re supposed to do a physical. However, BYU would never stand for that because, well, it’s dangerous! So, instead, we give Mario 50 Lei and don’t ask questions (but basically, she bribes someone and we get in). Yes, this is immoral, but I guess it’s one of those lesser of the two evils things. If we didn’t do it we wouldn’t be here and being here is doing a whole lot more good than not bribing and not being here would do. Romania thrives on bribery. Also, we should be going to the hospital sometime in just the next few days but won’t be going to the Orphanage for another 2 weeks or so. Anyway, I also used the internet just for a few minutes because Podul had the internet and we didn’t at that point. That 10 minutes is the only time I’ve been on the internet since I’ve been in Romania. I’m going insane! After Podul, we all walked over to the corner store and got some things, including this amazing ice cream thing. On the walk back to the apartment I looked up and saw this man totally naked in the window of this apartment and was so surprised that I couldn’t get the right words out and was just like “Man! Naked!” and everyone’s like “what???” So I showed them and we all had a gooood laugh about the naked man.

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

In the morning we got ready and had breakfast downstairs at the hotel. It was free except for the water. We had an omelette (fantastic) and a bunch of bread and jam (of course fantastic – all bread in Europe). Then we (all the girls minus holly, plus Melissa’s mom) walked to the Metro station and figured out how to get a pass and how to take the metro to the stop where Marin told us to get off at and then we walked a really long way and passed a bunch of fountains. We walked to where the People’s Palace is (huge and sad and horrible) and then didn’t have time to go inside, so we passed it and found our way to the beautiful new LDS church in Bucharest, where we were to meet Marin. He wasn’t there yet for some reason, but a bunch of missionaries were and we talked to them and one of them knew my cousins! They also gave us a bunch of flyers to pass out about English language lessons at the church. So we waited there a really long time while Jessica and Shannon passed out some flyers until Marin, his wife Daniela (Maria’s sister) and Holly arrived. Then we walked down the street and waited for quite a while while they got money or exchanged it or something; during which time I passed out some flyers too which was quite enjoyable. You’d even see some of them stopping to read them or asking us questions about it (which we had no clue how to answer J). Then we all went and ate at this really great Dracula themed restaurant. It seriously was so cool because it had so many decorations with Dracula soldiers and animal skins and demon wall murals and such and had traditional Romanian music playing as well. It took a really long time but the food was FABULOUS. First we got some bread. Then we got this sampler thing where they set four large cutting boards on the 4 corners of the table with a few different kinds of meat (chicken and ham were REALLY good) and vegetables, etc. Then we finally got our main dishes. Jessica and I shared 2 dishes – chicken something and some beef fillet thing. Both were fabulous as were the mashed potatoes, but it wasn’t very large portions of the actual meat. Like, there were small slices of chicken swimming in a lake of gravyish sauce with mushrooms. Very yummy though. After eating there we all walked back to a different metro station which was along the way back from where we’d come and which was in a park. And even though we were really confused, we managed to get back to a different metro station and walk back to our apartment. As soon as we got there we got all our luggage together in Marin’s car and walked over to the train station. Also, as we were putting our luggage in the car, a beggar came up to us to ask for money or food and everyone says she looked exactly like Macarena from the street kids movie, but sadly I didn’t really notice. It still kind of hit me though. When we got to the train station, we left all our luggage with Melissa’s mom and ran in and got some food at the station’s grocery store. Jenna and I were the last one’s in the store though and it started getting really late and we were worried we were going to miss the train, so the nice guy in front of us let us go ahead of him and we ran over and saw Melissa’s mom with JUST our luggage and she was telling us to hurry. So we ran up and grabbed our luggage and hurried as fast as we could to the right train car. Then, we couldn’t get the luggage up into the train so this nice guy helped us. It ended up being Jenna and I plus 4 other people in one car and the rest of the girls in another – just them and a little old lady. In our car I was next to the window across from a boy about our age who pretty much stared at me non stop – except when I glanced at him because then he’d dart his eyes away and pretend he wasn’t looking at me. Anyway, the train ride was actually really cool and not exactly what I was expecting. I took a lot of pictures because I don’t know how I would describe the scenery. But every town we came to looked really run down and very rural. There were quite a few horse drawn carts on the paths and random poor looking people on the platforms. Next to the platform there was always a very run down looking station building and on either side there were always a lot of run down shacks with lots of trees and weeds and general foliage interspersed everywhere. In between the towns there were just lots of fields that were beautiful. A lot of the time I either slept, stared out the window or read my “Memoirs of a Geisha” book. After just an hour or 2, everyone else in our car left and it was just the 2 of us, so there was plenty of room to relax. At one point Marina and I needed to go to the bathroom, so we grabbed my handy dandy travel toilet paper role and found the bathroom. They were really the nastiest bathrooms I’ve ever seen. The toilets were flushed by stepping on a lever on the floor and they just emptied onto the ground I suppose. The floors were wet and there were flies everywhere. Also, the soap bars were all nasty and encrusted over and it smeeeelled. But lots of things smell in Romania. I love it J. Anyway, on the way back from the bathroom these two guys stepped out into the walkway and blocked our path and started talking to us. It was really confusing because one of them was speaking Romanian to us and the other was speaking Italian to us and I like partially speak both but struggle immensely when speaking just one, so you can imagine how it is if I’m trying to speak both. Anyway, it was kind of annoying because we didn’t really want to talk to them ESPECIALLY since they were blocking our paths and I’m kind of wary of any Romanian man, but they were nice. Later on the one that had been speaking Romanian to us came into Jenna and I’s compartment and talked to us for a good hour or so and then came back several other times and talked to us for like 2 or 3 hours total. He was nice and it was cool because we had some really good language practice with him even though he was trying to get English practice so we were kind of fighting for which language we spoke. It did get pretty tiring though because he said a lot of the same things over and over again and was really kind of slow. But he was a nice guy and I didn’t mind THAT much. Well, around 11pm we got to Iasi and met Mario right outside the train. I like her. She’s cute and really nice but that’s about all I know about her as of now. She led us around the train station to the parking lot to where the taxis were waiting for us and the 5 of us who were to be living in the Scala apartment (Melissa, Jessica, Megan, Shannon and I) waited outside the building and talked until it was our time for her to take us home. I remember that the train station, run down or not was beautiful with its stark whiteness amidst the black sky, with the white moon hovering directly above it. I took a picture, but it was blurry. Looking at that building and the creepy Dracula-like picture before me I had another one of those “wow, I’m definitely not in California anymore” moments. So Mario came back and got us a taxi and we drove to the apartment. This is exciting. So, Iasi is a pretty big city. There’s about 600,000 I think and lots of skyscrapers which are mostly apartment “blocs (buildings).” We live in one of the apartment blocs which is called Scala and are on the 6th floor, which is really the 7th because it’s ground + 6. So, its either lots of stairs or a really…unique elevator that’ll make you get stuck in between floors if you open the wooden doors inside of it too soon (too soon meaning before it jolts twice). So anyway, we get to this apartment and it really just looks like a commercial skyscraper thing and is a bit run down. Then we walk in through these doors where the stairs are and all of a sudden there’s this huuuge stench, just all the way through the stairwell. Then we use the elevator to get to the top and Mario is giving us all these instructions on how to use this ghetto 3 person elevator and the floors are just kind of dirty and plain white and not cute at all. So anyway, with all of these things I’m expecting the apartment to be super ugly and dirty and difficult, but I’ve prepared myself for this so I’m not about to complain. I actually was pretty much just steeling myself for the worst apartment ever and was really determined to just be ok with it. But so we get out of the elevator and Mario opens the door for us and I’m looking down because I’m trying to pull my suitcase through the door, so the first thing I see is these really nice shiny, black, marble tiles on the apartment floor and it surprised me so much and so I bring my head up and look all around at the apartment and realize…it’s cute! The second thing I noticed was that there are pictures and posters and quotes and tons of decorations (mostly churchy) all over the wall which just made me feel soooo much better because it was so homey and sweet and I really fell in love with the apartment right away. So Jessica and I gleefully frolicked around the apartment and discovered all the rooms in those next few minutes and were so so happy at it all. There are definitely a few problems in the apartment of course, but I love it, and what else can you expect….it’s EASTERN EUROPE!!! I actually think the apartments quirks are kind of amusing. I mean, you can’t flush toilet paper down the toilet, so you throw it away instead, if you go number two you sometimes have to put extra water in the pot or else there isn’t enough pressure for it to flush, the shower faucet is loose and most of the water sprays in all different directions from the loose cracks in the fawcet, leaving only a somewhat strong “pat pat” coming from the shower head (and actually the fawcet full on fell off when Megan was in the shower this morning and started spraying all over the place), the light in the living room doesn’t work, we don’t know how to work the heat, you can only have one computer attached to the internet ever (always same computer), internet doesn’t always work, there’s only two beds and two rooms for 5 people (Megan by the wall so she won’t kick, Jessica in the middle and me on the edge), you have to light the stove manually, we don’t have a microwave, we don’t have a dryer and so we hang our clothes on a clothes line on the balcony (kind of scares me when it’s windy because I can just pictures the clothes flying away through the air) and we always make sure to put the cutest clothes in front of the kitchen window, we have no kitchen table, we have cockroaches (the other apartment – podul – has spiders and I’d actually rather have cockroaches, so…yay?), none of us have alarm clocks and most of us don’t have watches, the washing machine can only hold a few clothes, has about 20 settings, half of which will make your clothes bleed, the water that comes from the washer is dirty and nasty, which we know because it drains into the bathtub, there’s a court connected to the building so there are all kinds of robed lawyers running around being in a hurry all the time and many many more delightful things. Also, it’s weird because there’s a TON of stuff left over from the past girls and so basically half of our stuff was there’s before and we are constantly finding new stuff and it’s like…ours now. I can’t explain it but it’s weird enough to wear used clothes or get something used from a garage sale or something, but imagine living in an apartment that’s fully furnished and has almost everything you would normally need and yet you have no idea where or who it came from. This includes everything from books to scrubs to pots and pans and spices and bedsheets. These mysterious “girls before us” also left us a long, in depth packet on what to make sure to do and not, etc. Here are a few choice lines from them: “How to light the oven: Push the knob in and turn (farthest knob on the left), holding the knob in for like two hours (or 15 seconds or so after you light it…you’ll figure it out!), and then there is a little hole at the bottom of the oven (take out the water pan)- put a lighted match near that hole and the gas should catch fire. We wrote temperatures in, but these are rough and variable…” and “WELCOME TO HEAVEN…in a big, tall, stinky building…” and “Make sure not to unplug the washer. Something bad happens (do we know what? No.)” and “Sometimes if the oven is on, the stove units do not light. But, sometimes they do…so be grateful for what you have.” And “There’s a pan in the oven that looks like a cookie sheet. Whenever you’re baking, make sure to put water in it. If you don’t, everything will burn.” And “Beware of the couches. Don’t you worry…we have no idea how the hole got there!” and “ There have been flea problems…and I’m sure you’ll get them. Don’t worry. They’ll become your bedfellows.” And of course the final farewell, “Have courage and faith in all you do…everything will work out. Just remember…the toilet paper doesn’t flush! Jump back! Hala for Scala!” Well, I think that’s thoroughly enough for the apartment and for this day!