As they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked...

Ce faceți?! (How are you all?) (Dad you can try this one out)

Today was a great beautiful day! The Podu Ros girls took their turn in the hospital today so we had a free day to explore. We spent most of the time walking around Iasi; going past shops, parks, the university in Iasi, a bunch of churches, and lots of Romanians who think we are crazy and foreign (both true). But just know that lots of walking was involved - I actually LOVE it.

The University (largest one in the country, actually)

Probably the funniest thing that happened was when we arrived at our desired destination, Parkul Copou (the tree park), and we were barely inside the gates when Julian pounced! Haha Julian, as we came to find out, is this Romanian who sells flowers in the park to make money so he can buy his way home to Vorovesti (about 20 miles from Iasi). He figured out we spoke English so he proceeded to try and sell us flowers and a tour of the park. He spoke really good American English, but we found out pretty quickly that he was also fluent in obscenities. If you look on Rylie's blog you can watch a video of him soon and find out which one was his favorite. *Parental Discretion is advised. He made me laugh really hard, but when he wouldn't leave us alone, we all started to get really uncomfortable. We were blunt with him and eventually we got away. Our post experience interview will probably be posted on Ry's blog soon too. I'll make a link when she posts it. Good stuff.

Julius chose them... Nicole for her Rihanna likeness and Camille for... her body (we think).

Wedding anyone?

The poet's tree

Kelsey

Old Romanian man

Happy Easter... I miss it already and I still have a year left to wait...

The gang, love them.

We spent a lot of time in the park because it was so peaceful and we loved just sitting on the benches like all the Romanians watching the people pass by. There were some adorable kids and old people. We ran out of water pretty fast and Aimee and I were pretty tempted to drink the fountain water despite the risk of major sickness... dehydration is nu distracţie! (fun) Don't worry, we didn't really. The park was beautiful and I loved all the trees. Sitting and watching all the kids that were passing by and running around made me really happy. It hit me that I should imprint those images in my mind because come Monday when we start in the orphanage and hospital, I have a feeling I'm going to be very sad and upset. I need to remember that there are Romanians, lots of them, who want children and love them and take good care of them. It's so hard to grapple with the knowledge that there are kids that don't have parents, and those are the people that I get to interact with. I think, no... I know, I'm going to be learning SO much. Those kids, this country, and this experience have so much to teach me. I hope I can learn the right lessons and be teachable. (It's hard sometimes!)

Tonight we went to a traditional Romanian restaurant and of course we made a scene with 15 girls (Aurelia, a girl from the branch came with us - she's great) wanting to eat together. There's not a lot of big groups here that we've seen. Until today at the university, I haven't seen more than 5 people in a group and there is not usually more than 3 people walking on the streets together. Anyways, I wanted to try something that I knew was Romanian and then I also ordered chicken in case I hated the first, I was super hungry and wasn't going to not eat. So I ordered ciorbă a la grec, which is like a sour soup with meatballs. It was SOO good. Way better than the chicken. I also tried other people's food, like sarmale (boiled cabbage wrapping around meat something?) and mămăligă (which is a cornmeal tasting thing that jiggles and they eat with like every meal here). Pretty good. Then we had chocolate creme pancakes that tasted/looked like/essentially were crepes. Yum.

Obviously I love everyone in these pictures... they are seriously awesome, if you can't tell.

I'm aware this was a rather boring post. I am starting to get lazy - SORRY. I promise that a good one is coming up... I will be making a case that I really never left Provo at all... Iasi is practically Romania's version of P-town! We are still brainstorming similarities, there are just so many! Love you all!

PS I bought shoes, a watch, lots of groceries, gave directions to a taxi driver, and ordered my dinner all in Romanian by my self today! Progress, or I guess it's practice... nevertheless, church is still going to be interesting tomorrow.

Pictures from yesterday, it was fun too! (Sorry for the overload... there's too many on this post)

ready for the day!

Chaco buddies!

Camille and Michelle

Covrigi on a string! (and awkwardly holding onto my water bottle)

Real Romanian men wear pink

Metropolitan Church, we kissed a dead Saint's hand

Betty Ice

pretty church

Jesus' marriage?

Me with Alexandria, the artist of this painting and our buddy - "The Mama"

chilling at the church

Piața! 

Very tired after our long day

Trying to be energetic, really overdoing it.