Sibiu: Where I want to stay...

I fell in love with the city Sibiu.

Maybe it was the people, the beauty or the experiences,

but I wish I lived there.

Rylie, Kelsey L., Aimee, Chesea and I start our journey.

Our bags are packed with enough food for an army.

First day, we find our hostel to put our stuff down.

Then we explore the city.

We come across a piata that is just like a pet store.

Now we have a new member to our travels.

Miere Iuperita aka Honey Bunny.

Monday, we were invited to FHE.

On Sunday we fell in love with the branch members.

We spent the night playing a Pokemon board game!

And, of course, everybody loves Honey!

We adopted a little sister too.

Her name is Larysa.

We took her shopping and had a sleepover.

It was hard to say good-bye.

 We then journeyed into the Carpathian mountains.

Up the "zoom zoom" road. 

We were on top of the world!

Our taxi driver, Gabi, was great!

On the way home he said he had a surprise for us.

This led to off-roading through a field in our taxi.

Little did we know we would end up killing a sheep.

Not so pleasant surprise.

Our happy, traveling family.

I will miss this beautiful city!

World Record!

Remember the best part in Tangled? 

Yeah, the magical floating lanterns best part of Tangled. 

Well, hello to breaking the world record in those magical floating lantern things!

There should be a caution on these things because they aren't all magical moments when 12,700 lanterns are being set off at the same time and the flame part is barely hovering above your hair! Also, try setting them off in an open field because there is a chance they could get caught in trees, telephone lines, etc. and the whole thing will catch on fire. Just a few precautions...

And most importantly, don't forget to make a wish when you let your lantern go.

Overall, fantastic experience and great night! 

Thank you Romania for being awesome and letting me join your world record breaking festivities!

Maramureş

Love, love, love the region of Maramureş!

Highlights:
1.) Hitch-hiking in Europe.

2.) Beautiful countryside.

3.) Hilarious drivers.

4.) Friendly people.

5.) Merry Cemetery.

6.) Having a dance party in the middle of the street with the locals.

7.) Fantastic bed and breakfast owners

8.) Getting a ride on a gypsy cart.

Basically, Maramureş is amazing! If you ever have a chance to go there... live it, love it, the end.

Catching Up

Wow, time flies by so fast here! 

I am not doing so well on keeping up on my blog but I intend to catch up this week! I hope to put some pictures up too! Get excited. So, one blog post every day for the rest of the week. Hopefully I can stick to this. 

I hope all of my 4 followers are prepared for this...

Here's to Romania!

Precious Moments

Here are just a few moments with my little boys that melt my heart:

1.) I was pretending to fall asleep on the bed in the room (because I was getting exhausted with their rowdiness). They thought it was hilarious and hid themselves in the corner so when I "woke" up I wouldn't be able to find them. The best part is that one of my little guys ran up to the bed and gave me a kiss on the cheek and told me good night. Then, the other boy in the room ran up and did the same thing! 

2.) Sometimes we are fortunate to have a little break from playing with the boys and they get to watch Tom şi Jerry. I sat down on the couch and the boys were on the floor. Then one of the boys gets up and asks to sit on my lap. How could I turn him down? 

3.) My boys like to be tickled. After just a week of working with them they know that I am going to tickle them. Sometimes they will just walk up to me with their arms up. Basically saying, "I want to be tickled". They get what they ask for and crumple in laughter on my lap. 

I love all six of the little guys that I get to work with every day! There are so many other precise moments that make all of the hardships worth it. I can't explain how much I have witnessed and learned from these two weeks I have been in Romania! And there is so much more to come...

Romanian Nightlife

What a fun night! We went to the mall in Iasi to go see The Avengers. Well let's just say they have a great mall! Thank you, Romania! We also went to McDonalds for dinner and can I just say it is nice to have some American food. The Avengers was such a good movie especially with Romanian subtitles. The only problem was when I couldn't understand the language they were speaking or the subtitles! My favorite part was the shout out to Romania when shoarma was mentioned! (side note: shoarma is delicious!) And to top the night off we had a hilarious taxi ride home. Our taxi driver spoke a little English and so we were just chatting with him. He said that he thought when he spoke English it sounded like he had a Russian accent (I didn't hear the accent that much). We ended up asking him where he thought we were from. His response, "I have no idea" (shocking huh?). After a couple seconds of silence he chimes in "wait, wait, wait, i know where you're from.....RUSSIA!" It was hilarious and he thought he was hilarious which made it even more funny. Once the laughter died down he said, "But really I think I know where you are from........... RUSSIA!" Again he thought he was the funniest person alive. Thank you taxi driver for having a great sense of humor and topping off such a great night!

My Heart is Full.

The Romanian orphans have filled my heart. 

We were able to go to the orphanage and hospital today.

 It was such a long day but completely worth it.

I can't even explain all of my emotions right now.

My heart is filled with love for these kids.

While my heart is breaking for their circumstances.

I want to take them all home with me.

How am I ever going to leave...

Walking, Walking, Walking...

We spent most of the day, yesterday, walking around Iasi.

We decided to walk to a local park. Was the park far away? Sure was! We walked for 45 minutes, only made one detour, and finally arrived at the park full of trees. The first step we took in the park a guy was trying to sell us flowers. When we said no and acted like we didn't know what he was talking about, he asked us if we spoke English. We said yes...which was a mistake. Jillian (creepy guy) ended up following us and trying to make "deals" with us. Basically he knew we were Americans and wanted our money. He thought Nicole was Rihana and Aimee was a church girl. He ended up giving a flower to Rihana and for the last and final lilac he pointed at the girls saying "not you....not you....not you" and then came back to me and was like "for the most beautiful girl"! I was flattered but it definitely made me feel uncomfortable.

So after awhile of chatting we needed to get rid of this guy. In my head I just kept thinking of the movie Taken and this guy trying to take us or calling over his friends to steal us or something. Scary! We did ask him if he could act like Johnny Deppe for us and that was interesting.... especially him acting like he was going to strangle Rylie. Eventually we told him we just wanted to walk around the park alone. Thank goodness he left us alone.

I probably didn't tell that story good but so funny! Rylie caught some of it on tape so watch for it on her blog.

 Oh and apparently people aren't allowed to take pictures in Kaufland (grocery store). Romanians don't have the same cheese as the States and so we were going to take a picture with the funky cheese. Then this undercover cop for Kaufland comes over and whips out his badge, rambling off Romanian super fast. Obviously we are foreign if we are taking pictures with the cheese so I don't know why he thought we were going to understand him! So he just hovered over Kelsey until she deleted it from her camera.

That was our first time grocery shopping without Aislynn at Kaufland. So proud of us!

A Doua Zi

Day two consists of gypsies, markets, churches, and more. 

This morning we explored the city and stopped to buy coveric (soft pretzel) and Betty Ice (ice cream) on the street. After we bought our ice cream (which I ordered in Romanian) this adorable little boy walked up to us and started speaking in Romanian to us. So cute! But then his mother (gyspy) starts to ask for money and food, etc... etc. I felt awful and wanted to give money or buy them food but I knew that would not help and we're not allowed to. So we walked away and they just followed us for the longest time. Oh the gypsies.... We visited several different Orthodox churches and they were all beautiful and so intricate. In the biggest church we went to today, we stood in line to kiss the hand of St. Paraskeva (for more information: http://www.romanianmonasteries.org/ro/romania/sfanta-parascheva). Supposedly, it is her real hand that we kissed, which definitely creeped me out, but I don't think it is. Then, we made our way to the LDS church building and met the Elders. I was surprised at how great the building is in Iasi! It makes me so excited to meet all of the members on Sunday. Next, we went to the piata (market) where we had to keep a close eye on our money because there are pick-pocketers-a-plenty! That fact stressed me out. I only ended up buying a loaf of bread which was only 1.20 lei (around $0.30)! We also went to the Moldova Mall later on in the day. Definitely different than an American mall... Everywhere we go the Romanians stare at us. For dinner we made our first meal in the apartment! Leigh, Kelsey, and I made spaghetti and garlic bread. Since we have the smallest stove/oven thing on the planet it is interesting. The spaghetti didn't taste like normal spaghetti and making the garlic bread smoked up the whole apartment. Oops. We will have to practice making food or it might start getting dangerous or something. 

P.S. pictures will be coming!

My adventure begins...

Two whole days of traveling and finally arriving in Iasi at 3 this morning. So much has happened today!

1.) Luggage was lost in London. Not the best news to get in a foreign country but I was just happy to be done with planes and traveling.
2.) We arrive at our apartment. Mario (local Romanian women=sweetheart!) rode with us in a taxi to go to scala (our home). I realized..... I don't understand Romanian or let's just say I was exhausted and that's why I didn't understand what the taxi driver and Mario were saying to each other (haha).
3.) Tiny elevators. The elevators here are a little bit sketchy and small. Only about 3 people can fit comfortably but how inconvenient is that? So we just squish in and have the Romanian people ramble off some words probably saying that's not allowed or the elevator will break or something.
4.) Find out that my toothbrush is with my luggage. Solution: brush my teeth with my finger. Definitely not as satisfying at using a normal toothbrush but I survived.
5.) Pink toilet paper! Romanians use textured (not a soft kind) scented (coordinates with the color) toilet paper. Enough said.
6.) Waking up in a foreign country. Strangest feeling waking up and not recognizing where you are or what time it is. Then finding out there is no food....
7.) Exploring Iasi for the first time. Walking around the city was amazing. There were so many beautiful buildings. Everybody felt the need to stare at us too.
8.) Grocery shopping. The grocery store is an adventure! I love it because there were so many knew foods to try. It was a guessing game to find foods I would normally eat. I'll post later about the food.
9.) Airports are not my friend. Supposedly, my bag had to go through security and who knew nail polish and good smelling lotion were illegal!!! Well they rummaged through my suitcase and took all of my nail polish and all of my good smelling lotion which I just bought for this trip! I'm still a little upset.
10.) Pizzeria. We decided to go out to eat at a pizza place. Aislynn was nominated to order since she knows the language better than the rest of us. We figure this restaurant is similar to the U.S. where you order at the window, there was a little confusion and we think we are at the right window, so we walk up and she orders. Just imagine you are working at a pastry shop and a person comes up (obviously a foreigner trying to speak your language) trying to order some pizza. What would you say so that the person understands that they're an idiot and clearly at the wrong place to order pizza? Foarte bine (very good) over and over again, maybe? haha Thank you pastry lady for helping us know that we were supposed to sit down and they would come take our order for the pizza.


Already I have experience and learned so many new things! Romania is definitely different but it is such a great adventure. I still can't believe that I get to live here for three months!!!