There's so much to tell! And that's with sleeping in until 2pm!
So I couldn't sleep cause I passed out at the airport on the floor during our layover/delay, so I was up reading until about 5am. Thanks for the advice to read Leviticus, Mom. It worked its magic (plus I was dozing at that point anyways). Moral of the story: If you sleep in that late, you miss fun things. *Exception: everyone else slept in too, so I only missed about 2 hours. I woke up right as everyone was leaving so I got stuck at the apartment alone. Bummer! But I guess I needed to sleep and it was nice to get my clothes unpacked and explore the apartment more and do sit-ups out of boredom and shower. Here are some pictures (not of the shower, get your mind out of the gutter):
(first Romanian meal... tasted like coco puffs)
(oven cu instuctions)
(view from our apartment window)
(living room)
(sketchy alley that is our balcony)
(baia)
(toilet paper- not only is it orange, it is scratch and sniff... scented)
So around 3:30/4ish, excuse me, 16:00ish girls from the other apartments started arriving because only our apartment has internet and Mario was coming over to talk to us and get money to pay rent. I may or may not have had trouble opening the door from the inside, which may or may not have been funny/embarrassing. All fourteen of us were sitting in our living room talking and figuring out rent and our bribe and such. I went out into the real world for the first time to use the ATM. Really exciting. When Mario came, she brought her daughter Iuana (spelling?) who was super cute, and made sure we were doing alright. She told us we can maybe start working in the hospital on Saturday and in the orphanage on Monday which is fairly soon so that is awesome! I can't wait!
(half of the gang)
Then we went grocery shopping and that was so fun. I was sporting my snapback and I think the Romanians were confused by that. Ops. Trying to convert lei to USD and remember food vocab was a little overwhelming. I bought bread, flour, jam, frozen vegetables, water, some sort of cereal, apples, and lapte (milk). I played it pretty safe because it was my first time. I plan on being more adventurous in the future, for sure. All of us were whispering phrases of Romanian trying to figure out how to ask for a bag correctly. The check out lady was suppressing laughter so I imagine we looked ridiculous. She spoke some English so that was helpful, although I wanted to practice my Romanian. After putting our groceries away, we decided to go eat our first real meal in about 48 hours. There is a really good pizzeria a few minutes away so we decided to try it out.
A cigarette in the elevator. Of course I took a picture :)
(fun fact - we ran into the missionaries, Elder Taylor and Elder Jones, on our way. I'm pretty sure they thought we were nebune(crazy) cause we freaked out when we saw them... duh, they are missionaries and Americans - familiar faces, sorta. You understand. Noroc, missionaries! (good luck)
Passed by the Palatul Culturii - frumos!!
OK, funny story. So we go to this place and it has an open window with the menu on either side. Thinking we should just order there we ask for our pizzas and the ladies working seem to understand. Aislynn is doing most of the talking since she knows the language the best and they are pointing to either side, one with a register and the other with the tables to sit at. So Aislynn goes over to pay and we go find a table to sit at. She comes back looking slightly confused. One lady comes out to wipe off our table and starts talking to Aislynn. From what I can tell, she is explaining how things work there. "Menu, order, food, pay." That's the caveman version. Aislynn shows understanding and so does the lady and we laugh at our naivety. Aislynn explains that she tried to pay and they wouldn't let her and all the lady said when she tried to pay was "Foarte bine, foarte bine..." meaning very good, very good. (End of story for now, punch line comes later) The waiter brings us a menu, and about four minutes later, without taking our order, brings us our two mare (large) pizzas. Oh, right... we already ordered... Romanians, are so great. It was nice of them. So we eat our pizzas and are laughing and talking. When we need to get the check, I remember from class how to ask! "Cereți notă, vă rog." He totally understood and didn't even look at me weird - SCORE! We all freaked out... practically fluent, I know. (Don't worry, I don't actually think that) Anyways, the waiter brings the check, and although this isn't the funny part, he set two checks down and I grabbed one, but not the right one, and he sort of chuckles and shakes his head while grabbing it back. There goes any pride I felt for asking for the check. Anyways, here's the funny part. All of a sudden I realize that we are just leaving money in the booklet thing with the check and I realize we don't take it up to the register like in America sometimes. "Aislynn, that register wasn't for the pizza place was it? It was a different restaurant wasn't it?"That's when it hits us all and we bust out laughing. Aislynn had ordered the pizzas at the window and thought the ladies told her to go pay for it after ordering. She had gone up to the register and told them our order. But they were selling pretzels or something not pizza, so no wonder she said "very good," hahahaha she was probably thinking, "Very interesting, but why are you telling me this??" Haha it made me think about someone coming up to me if I was selling lemonade or something and them being like "hey I just ordered a blue and green popsicle" and trying to give me money. I would probably also be like, "um yeah, that's very good, how interesting."
Kelsey and Camille
Aislynn returning with the lady... hehe
Romanians :)
două pizza mare!
the fârfurie (plates) - remind me to buy some while I'm here, I always wanted forest animal plates for my future home.
Maybe it doesn't sound funny, but it was one of those moments when you connect confusing events and realize it was you who did something foolish and didn't get it at the time. Priceless.
Leigh trying to fit in... "Oh wait, I forgot to hide my hair."
squeezed into the shaft (aka the elevator)
Tomorrow we're doing more exploring and will probably get to check out the hospital, orphanage, and church, or at least walk around to see where they are.
It's so amazing to be here!
PS= This whole blogging everyday is definitely not going to be happening for too much longer. We just have lots of time right now. Plus I'm not good at writing so I will start to hate this soon. Lucky you- less words, more pictures!
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