Doctor Ozescu?

Five reason's I'm hardly taking any pictures:

1. I'm still really tired.
2. I didn't bring quite the right bag for whipping out the camera. Our little camera bit the dust last month and I had to bring an older, less convenient one.
3. There are no shoulders on the road to pull off on when we see something interesting.
4. It seems a bit intrusive at this point. There are some really poor people here contrasted with some really gaudy new houses. Seems a bit gawky to photograph them, but maybe I'll get used to it.
5. I forgot to bring my camera to the English meeting in Bucharest and then to the dinner we were invited to after. Argh!

Our visit to the English meeting was really fun, there were accents from all over. Afterwards we went to dinner at a family's home in Bucharest. The house was simple, behind a formidable wall like all the others. We packed a table in the kitchen and ate some wonderful vegan food prepared for us. We've so far run into no problems with our dietary requests. No one has shown any concern about us lacking protein - they have bigger fish to fry here than protein worries. There was lots of love and fun in that simple home. The running joke for the evening involved Dr. Oz and carrots. Dr. Oz is everywhere.

Stopping at a park for a picnic.

This fountain was probably really cool back in the day.

Another George Jetson fountain.

It's not hot here! Yet.

There were baby storks up there too.

Speaking with some Gypsies.

The politically correct term for gypsies is Romani or Roma, but since we're in Romania it starts to get a bit confusing. There is a less polite word for them in the Romanian language, so I'll split the difference and call them Gypsies with a capital G. Along with the other horse drawn carts we saw related to farm work, there are horse drawn Gypsy wagons that look like what the pioneers came out West in. This is as comfortable as we felt at this point to take a picture. (See reason number 4 above.)

Irish washing machine 1 - Jessica 0

Travel books need to have less Where is the dentist, I'm going to have a full set of dentures made in your country type information. We need more practical things like What do all these symbols on the blasted washing machine mean? Washing machines in Europe leave me cowering in fear, slinking off to find a local to help me, as if I were a helpless seven year old. Or a man.

I thought being in Ireland, where stuff is written in English, it would be a breeze to figure out how to get our clothes clean. Instead, our kind hostess whipped the dirty clothes out of my arms, asked a few questions about hot or cold water and got them going. I was determined to prove I am not a laundry loser and hang them on the line myself, but alas, I was too late and she hung up our good smelling laundry to dry in some unusually pleasant Dublin sunshine.

It was time to prove I could do it, tell a machine what to do by pushing its buttons. Simple, right? I gathered our towels, found the detergent, added them into the machine and shut the door. Then came the hard part. Celsius? I need to know Celsius? All I know is that 40 degrees Celsius is a horrid Sacramento heatwave, but I don't know if that is hot enough to kill germs on towels and sheets. I picked a temp in the middle. Then I chose Quick Wash, less time to make a mistake, that was my thinking. The next choice was spin cycle. The choices were 3 completely confusing symbols and the numbers 1200, 900 and 600. Choosing the short cycle automatically picked 1200. I think that either meant it rotates a total of 1200 times or that their electric bill is going to be 1200 Euros, because I finally had to do a force stop from the endless spinning. The clothes were wet, they smelled like detergent and I decided to quit before they turned from towels to rags. I bow before the Great Washing Machines of Europe and the UK - I am powerless in their presence.

Oh Great One Which Spins

Our Dublin hosts

At the DC in Dublin. 

After a night out with our hosts that included the best vegan burger I've ever had, we took yet another night flight, this one to Romania. You know you're on a Romanian airline when they serve a hot meal on a 3.5 hour flight at 1 am. They don't mess around with food - no peanut packets on this flight. I was surprised at the large fairly modern airport in Bucharest. But just like houses in Rio Linda that have every broken down appliance ever purchased in the yard, Bucharest Airport parks large broken down jets out in the fields. 

After arriving we had a brief driving tour of Bucharest. The people begging for money at the intersections look like the homeless people at El Camino and Watt Avenues, but with more conviction and bravado. There is some beautiful architecture from the old days and lots of ugly Soviet era apartments. Our hosts at Bethel put out a beautiful breakfast spread for us with lots of coffee to get us through another day after another night flight.

On to our little hotel, not in Videle but in Mihaelest. It's clean, not quaint, but fairly quiet and it has a comfortable bed. I'm in need of some serious rest, my head is on spin cycle right now.

The Parliament Building

Breakfast at Bethel

Full of nice clean clothes

That Seventies Bed.

The view!

Books, bite guards and beer

When you travel with the Big E, there are some givens.

There will be books, there has to be books.
There will be some science or a laboratory thrown in, just for fun.
There will be beer.

We are staying in the townhouse on the left.

A trip to the Chester Beatty Library. was in order. No cameras allowed inside.

Ernst wanted a tour of the dental lab where Cristina trained. It's a science teacher thing.

Enamel colors, something you can really sink your teeth into.

The lab is at Trinity College, founded in the late 1500s, so the visit had its beauty.

These flower towers around town are stunning. I want one in our yard next summer!

What are they feeding these things?

It must be the beer.

Of course we had a tour of the Guinness factory. 

The post Guinness grins.

A combo of jet lag and beer means friends lean on each other.

Showing jet lag who's bosssssss

Oops. I must have fallen asleep on the S key.

The night before we left was an all nighter. We had so much to do and no butlers or maids to help, so we just had to buckle down and get it done. At about 3am we knew there would be no snoozing for us that night. No problem, we'll just sleep on the plane. Thinking I can sleep on a plane is the definition of hope. Or fantasy.

Seriously sleep deprived and questioning the wisdom of a morning arrival, we landed in a sunny and warm Dublin. Our Moldovan hosts brought us back to their place, fed us and encouraged a short nap. Forcing myself to wake up from that nap took incredible fortitude. My body begged me to let it sleep the day away, but that would have set me up for vacation disaster, especially considering our stay in Ireland is so short. Get up, drink caffeine, forge ahead, walk off the foggy brain - Dublin did the trick. The streets were full of fit looking people, all out to soak up the sunny weather. Our first pub experience was great, I drank the whole beer without any help.

After a lovely walk around the city center and then a mega walk home from the bus stop (wonder if that has anything to do with the fitness factor of this place?) we got back and were set to hit the hay. Ha! We're staying with Moldovans, what were we thinking? There was an amazing spread of food waiting for us and homemade wine. We sat and ate, ate and sat. It turns out our hosts are very good friends with Misha and Svetlana, who with their 5 girls once lived with our hosts in Moldova for five months. It's a small world (said with a Romanian/Irish accent, which is adorable.) I finally sank into the wonderful European bed linens, ready for a much needed sleep catch-up. I was up at 5 am ready to go. My plan to get through the day? Coffee, walking, more coffee followed up with another mega walk. I will not give in, I will not give innnnnnnnnnnnn.

You can tell the pubs from the flowers out front.

Petunia Power!

Claudio, Chris, Jesse and Ernst.

No Ernst, no.

Scooby Dooby Doo, unde ești tu?

I would have got the basics down better if I knew I'd still be messing them up.
I could have studied harder, but I didn't.
I should have slept on a phrase book. It might have helped.

But here we are, off to Romania with my crazy stilted speaking style, just spewing out vocabulary words and hoping the listener can piece them all together. We have bought many books on how to learn Romanian and numerous dictionaries. They all have such hopeful, positive titles.

Teach Yourself Romanian
Discover Romanian
Complete Romanian
Premium Romanian
Romanian Conversation Guide
Romanian Made Nice and Easy!
Colloquial Romanian - The Complete Guide for Beginners
Instant Romanian for Parents and Caregivers
Teach Yourself Romanian, the revised version
Romanian - With or Without a Teacher

I have some other suggested titles:

Punish Yourself With Romanian
Discover Romanian, Lose Your German
Complete Nincompoop's Romanian
Less Than Perfect Romanian
Romanian Cheat Sheet Guide
Romanian Made Super Hard!
Romanian Ebonics - The Complete Guide for Talkin' Trash
Just Add Water Romanian
Punish Yourself With Romanian, the extra painful version
Romanian - With or Without a Brain

You know a language is going to give you trouble when THE is not introduced until Chapter 8. What person thought of putting THE at the end of words, in addition to the plural and the OF/TO. You end up with words like Ierusalimului. And copiii. No, that is not a typo, there are three "i"s in that word. You say each one and they all mean something. It didn't take us long to discover that Romanian is the language that Scooby Dooby Doo was speaking. Can't you just hear him saying Ierusalimului?

My process for saying a sentence goes something like this-
I, no wait, me, or is it to me, or to me it seems, OK moving right along here. verb, how to conjugate the verb, come on Jess you know this, just spew one out, onto the prepositional subjunctive singular past tense genitive case adverbial pronoun, is it feminine or neuter, plural, possessive? Oh forget it! I'll just say it.

"ME FOR YOU NO NOT UNLIKE FOR SAY". Whew, got through that sentence! Why are they looking at me like that, did I mess up the me part again?

"I'm not Romanian. I'm Gagauz!"








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I certainly hope going there helps. It will be wonderful if this trip helps me find my Inner Scooby.

I should have bought more forks

He said to buy 100, but I thought that was a bit of overkill. We already had forks, I was just stopping to add some to the party stash. Forks, ice and plates, that was the list. I bought 75 forks. We ran out big time. I had no idea they would all come. When it comes to estimating plastic utensil needs, Ernst has it all over me.

Thirty-six very short hours before we fly off, we had a party in our yard for all the visiting Romanians from Seattle, Portland, LA, Arizona, Georgia and Texas, plus the locals. Because I am such a Nervous Nelly hostess, I just got the house all ready, bought the utensils, the ice and made sure the bathroom was clean. Forks or no forks, my method worked. There was plenty of food and the party went well without me in my kitchen. It will be my new game plan. There was a very nice girl who took over my hostess duties. I have no idea who she was, but I want to adopt her.

I always wondered if the Moldovans would end up dancing around the pool. Not near the pool, that is a given, but a circle dance around the pool holding hands. Tonight they did. No one fell in and only one person ran into the potted plants. I ignored the lack of forks and danced around our pool with the visitors. I'm tired from the weekend but jazzed from the party. Tomorrow has 24 hours in it and we plan to use every last one.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done!

Sole searching

Romania is very hard on shoes, or so I've been told. Dusty roads, pot holes, miles and miles of walking. Bring good shoes because Romania will eat up cheap ones, that's the advice I keep getting. The other camp says to bring cheap shoes I don't care about because Romania will eat them up and I'll end up throwing them away.

So the search began. I wanted to find some replacements for my all time best shoes ever, this old beat up pair of Sketchers that got me up and down The Great Wall, quietly through miles and miles of proctoring the Bar Exam and all over Tarnation, USA.

So comfy!

But so tattered!

That hole in the toe was the last straw.

I thought I had found the perfect replacements, another pair of Sketchers. They were my size, felt great and I got them for a steal at Ross. Nothing like finding the perfect pair of shoes and being able to gloat about the price. Except for one minor detail. They looked like nurse shoes. More pointedly, they looked like really big nurses shoes that would suck up Romanian dust like a sponge. So I took them back and continued the search. After slogging through racks and racks of shoes that looked like torture devices, I finally found these little numbers.

Hopefully comfy and won't show the dirt. Same price as the nurse shoes.

Brown and slightly safari-ish seems to be the theme of my wardrobe for the trip. For oversees vacations, I now bring about 1/3 of the clothes I used to pack because no one ever gets to where they're going and wishes they brought more stuff. Easy to wash, easy to wear, won't show the dirt, blend in with leopards - I think the goal has been met. My suitcase is packed.

Found my squishy hat but can't find my leopard umbrella. Grrrr!

Ernst has a ways to go yet.

"I'll never fit."

You know it's hot when...

• You can fry an eggplant on the sidewalk.
• Workers with the graveyard shift are now the smug ones.
• It will be nice to be back in the high nineties.
• Popsicles - they're what's for dinner. 
• There is talk of abolishing neckties altogether.
• Experts on the human body advise you not to exercise. 
• Water becomes an entire food group.
• The saying "horses sweat, men perspire, women glow" is all wet. Everything sweats.
• The dog drops her ball in the pool just to jump in and retrieve it.
• Clothes on the line iron themselves.
• Rolling brownouts don't refer to your toddler's leaky diaper.
• Cal Trans workers can now rest their shovels directly into the asphalt.
• Flip flops, shorts and a tank top are now considered formal wear. 
• You long for our valley fog that blocks the sun for weeks. December can't come soon enough.

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