Answered Questions

Before I left for Romania there were many unknowns about my trip. What would I find when I got here? Today's blog will be an atempt to answer some of the things that happen on a daily basis here. :)



Para, my house mom, is a wonderful cook. Although she does not speak English, we seem to manage. (Thanks Liz!!) My Romanian is not great, but I do know how to tell her what time we will be home for meals, or if we will not be there at all. For breakfast I get some type of meat and cheese, hot tea, and bread and jam. It seems more like a lunch type meal to me, but whatev. Then lunch is interesting. One day I had eggs, one day I had hot dog type meat that I attempted to wrap in bread, and today I had fried cheese. It was really tasty, but I'm not used to that being an entire meal. I must admit I had some peanut butter on a piece of bread as well. Dinner usually consist of some type of soup, meat, and side like veggies or rice, and a cucumber and tomato salad. I pick around the tomatoes.


Our room has a very large window and Para closes the shutters around 8pm (the sun does not set until after 10!), and then when it is time for us to get up, the shutters open! The toilet paper at the house is more like crepe paper than anything else. It's not like that in other places though. We must wear shoes in the house. I was walking bare-foot and all of a sudden there was a flurry of Romanian speech and pointing to feet and showing of shoes. I caught on very quickly! The radio plays all kinds of music. They have KISS FM, like we do, but it plays everything from Queen to Sinatra to Gaga and Beyonce, as well as Romanian pop music. A couple of mornings ago there was some music from Grease playing in the kitchen while Para was working in there, so I went in and started singing and dancing, and she danced a little, too. :)

There are some interesting superstitions here. We cannot open the windows at the hospital because they think that if a breeze from the window touches you, it could paralyze you. So, it gets a bit warm in there! We also cannot whistle in the hallways, because that might bring destruction on the building. Interesting, but useful things to know. I have ended up with lots of free time that I was not expecting. The shifts at the hospital are only 3 hours once a day, so I have done lots of walking around the city and quite a bit of reading as well. I am still trying to work out what I'm going to do while not at the hospital, but I think some things might come up. I'll keep you posted.

I am anxious to tell you about my sweet babies and the hospital, but will save that for my next writing. They have captured my heart. And even though the time is brief, I love every second of it. Keep reading, and as always, ask questions if I've forgotten anything or if there is something you want to know! Love from Romania!