Addendum

Well, it has been a good two years since I have posted on this blog. I completed my time in Romania and I wish I could have had more. I LOVED it. It was the highest emotional highs (like when my little Maria with Down syndrome learned how to crawl!) and the lowest emotional lows (like when the nurses ripped the skin from Adelin's skin graft collection sites). I learned more than I could have imagined and it has given me so much motivation for the rest of my life. Here is one of my favorite pictures from my time in the hospital-- me and Mihaiela, a crazy and adorable little four-year old girl with fetal alcohol syndrome.

The Piatsa

Saturday morning we visited the piatsa, which is basically like a farmer's market, only on a bigger scale. We were supposed tob uy something that we didn't know what it was, and we found this odd little yellow thing that is still sitting on our counter. There was a lot of cheese there, too, and that smell was way too much for my delicate little nose. But the food that we bought there (that we know what it is) is all mighty tasty and pretty inexpensive, which is nice.

The Vila

THe Vila is where we go to church. It means "large house" or something like that, and the Church has rented out the middle floor for church. We are very often there. We went to a Relief Society Activity there on Friday, set up so that we could get to know the members. We danced Romanian style (but more like old-people ROmanian style) for at least an hour. But they welcomed us with clatita, which a crepes. Crepes actually orginated in Romania, not in France. Wlecome me with crepes anyday and I will be a happy girl.

We went to church there for the first time yesterday, and that was pretty sweet. Togther with the missionaries we made up about half the congregation. We all practiced our testimonies all week in Romanian and almost all of us got up and bore them in ROmanian. I was asked by one of the Elders just before the meeting started if I would say the closing prayer. Luckily I had brought my ROmanian notebook from my language class and i tried practicing how to pray during the meeting. And I said it in Romanian, too! The Elder told me i could say it in English if I wanted to, but I'm so glad I could do it in Romanian!

Andreea's School

a girl named Andreea who worked in the orphanage when Amy was there took us to the school where we worked to show us around. I thought we were going to go work in the classroom or something like that. It ended up being a full on tour. I really enjoyed it. We went first to a first grade classroom where there were about nine kids. Andreea was telling us about each of the kids while they just stared at us with wide open mouths. There was one kid in there that hydrocephaly pretty badly. I can’t remember what his name was, but he seemed really, really happy. Andreea was telling us about what kind of disabilities he had, but then she said that they have all noticed that his emotional intelligence is far beyond what most people can comprehend. It amazes me that people who have been given so much can lack so much understanding like they do in the states. But the kids at this school, who know so little, have bigger smiles and more honest determination than most people I have ever met.
After we looked around many classrooms (from first grade through high school to practical teaching rooms, like hairdressing and public food industry techniques) we went to their gym to watch their volleyball team. Though only half of the kids in the school have disabilities, all of the kids on the volleyball team had disabilities. They are the volleyball champions in Iasi and were even invited to go to nationals, but they lacked any funding to go. I think that that is just so sad because I knew many kids that I went to school with that went to competitions across an even bigger country all the time that didn’t deserve it half as much as these kids do. They were good. They were better than most kids I ever saw play at my high school, and they were playing on a gym floor that looked like it hadn’t been replaced since 1973 when the school was built. I’ve never seen a more determined team, either. There was one player that had one leg shorter than the other. In between plays he could barely walk, but he could play volleyball better than any Saratoga kid I ever met.
I sat next to a girl on the bench who wouldn’t stop staring at my eyes. Everyone here has really dark eyes and she almost acted as though she had never seen blue eyes before. A teacher was sitting with her on the bench and she even asked me if I was wearing contacts. They were surprised when I told them that they weren’t. After the game was over the team asked us to take a group picture with them. We all felt really embarrassed at first but they seemed really into it and wanted us to be next to them. One of the boys that we were told later by Andreea really likes girls was standing next to Amy at first. Another guy got in between them and he pushed him out of the way so that he could stand next to Amy! Ha ha. He was fairly attractive, too, we all thought. Turns out he’s only sixteen. Such is life.

Romanian Concert

It was definitely different. I don’t really know how to describe the concert. It was Romanian folk music mixed in with modern rock, and everybody was just standing around. We were dancing and people were giving us a lot of strange looks. A few other people were dancing, too, but people weren’t looking at them as strangely as they were at us.

We went with Christina, Mihai, and Stefana. Stefana is another perpetual investigator that the BYU girls always like and Mihai is a member of the brnach that can be very frequently seen with us. His English is perfect and he knows more American slnag than I do. He and Stefana are the ones in the oicture with us.

Getting to know Iasi

Tuesday we met at one to walk around the city and get a better feel for it. We ran into the sister missionaries when we were meeting, and I am excited to get to know them better. They seem like girls I would be friends with if we were all at BYU right now. We also ran into some of the Elders as we walked down the street, handing out free English classes fliers. One Elder told us that his companion was a greenie, and I really don’t think his companion liked it all that much. They gave us some of the fliers to hand out (a lot of them). I felt too bewildered by everything around me and a little lost, but Kaitlyn decided that passing them out was her personal mission of the day. She gave one out to anyone that would take one, and I would guess she handed out at least thirty fliers. We had a girl named Chirstina as our guide, and she is a “perpetual investigator” who has almost graduated from college. She is way nice and I really like her. She took us around and told us a lot about the city. We walked by a lot of landmarks that I can’t remember the names of, butt they included the oldest printing press in Romania, the people’s palace, a bunch of statues of old rulers, the biggest church in Iasi, and this really cool set of stairs that looked like they came out of a fairytale book. There were several miniature balconies that I expected to see Rapunzel tumble down from at any moment. So Catherine went up the stairs, stood in a little balcony, and let down her hair so that we could take a picture as I pretended to climb up. We also found a cute little pastry shop where I had some of the best baklava I’ve ever eaten.
I think I am going to get fat here. Or at least become broke if I take advantage of so many good things to eat. I will probably eat my body weight in juice and pastries before I leave. But I figure I might as well live a little and experience what Romania has to offer. I had no idea this city would be so beautiful. I love that it is so green and there is an abundance of trees.

Hala for Scala

Yay! We made it!
so afraid that I would be late coming into Dulles from San Francisco since they changed my flight and I only had an hour layover. Well, I was a little late, but Shara and Laura met me at the gate and as soon as we made it down to the terminal I boarded the next plane and sat down again for another long plane ride. I thought I was sitting next to a quiet American kid at first, but he was a college-aged kid from the Ukraine who worked half the year in Florida. I started talking to him as though he were any BYU student I would sit down in class and talk to, the I’m not interested in you but you seem nice and you’re sitting next to me so I’ll talk to you type kind of conversation. But then he wouldn’t... stop... talking. But being the flirt that I am, I just kept talking. I really need to take Lizzy’s approach to boys she doesn’t like and just be really good at giving “I don’t want to talk to you” signals without any verbal communication at all. But dinner passed and it was time to sleep. It kept leaning towards me and staring at me and putting his hand rather blatantly on his knee so that I would see it. I stared at my little television screen and acted like I was totally dumb and blind. Finally after twenty minutes he moved his hand so I didn’t have to worry so much. Plus I took a sleeping pill. I think that helped ease my nerves, too. But there was no way I was going to hold his hand. Grossness.

But we made it safely in to Iasi and up to our apartment. There is this tiny little elevator that has tiny little doors. If you can't close the doors all the way (like we couldn't because of my luggage), you just have to hold in the little button and as you go up or down you can see every floor pass you by. Our apartment has two small bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a living room and a kitchen. It's not as small as i expected, but sleeping space is a little tighter than i have ever experienced before. Our apartment is the scala apartment, and it is only ten minutes away from church and right across the street from the grocery store and a mall, which migth not be the best thing...