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!