Biserica

what a confusing day this has been,so far!

For the past 4 Sundays, I have not attended church.  No, I take that back...it has been about 20 Sundays, since church wasn't an option this summer, either. So, when this weekend looked somewhat free, Kelly and I voted to try to go to the Pentecostal church with Julie and her host family. That was the plan until Saturday, when Julie's family told her they thought she should go to the baptist church.  So, we pondered joining them for Baptist church instead.  Last night, when we finally hit upon a just-facebook-us-a-place-to-meet scheme, everything went crazy!

The plan Julie and her family came up with involved meeting at 8:55am and a full day, right through until the 6 PM baptist service.  I had previous plans, though, to meet Anca in the afternoon, so Kelly an I decided to go to the pentecostal church on our own and thn run our errands until noon, when we would join Julie's family for lunch.

With this plan in mind, we waited at the corner where Julie had intended to pick us up for a full day with her hosts.  ..And she didn't show.  We waited until 9 (which was, coincidently, the same time church started.), then took off in a mad-dash Julie-speed trek to the church.  We were close to late, and I nearly sat us on the Men's side of the church, because I saw an empty row near the back, but some sweet old ladies caught Kelly in time and we got ourselves situated on the right (and correct) side of the church.  

We sat when we were supposed to, stood when the congregation stood, and knelt for prayer 3 times.  Perhaps this should not have been surprising, being in a pentecostal service and all, but I was surprised by how noisy everything was...especially the prayers, when everyone prayed different things aloud, at a range of volumes and with a very broad range of emotional expressiveness.

Well, my watch beeped at the 10 AM mark, embarrassingly enough, but I don't think anyone knew where the beep had come from, and the service ran on.  And my watch beeped at the 11 AM mark.  And the service ran on.  And I caught a few words here and there in the sermon, which I knew.  Notably, "Mickey Mouse" was one of the clearer phrases which I caught. And my watch beeped at the 12 PM mark.  And the service ran on.  And Kelly and I were going slightly crazy from 3 hours of  Romanian, which is very difficult for a brain such as mine to take in...  

Anyway, at just a few moments before the end of the service (we didn't know that at the time!), the phone of a little woman a few rows ahead of us rings, and she picks it up and pads out the back door.  A few moments later, Julie's father has suddenly appeared through the back door and is pointing at me, waving a cell phone and gesturing at Kelly and I to leave with him, and so of course we do.

The phone is handed to me, and on the other end is Manuel, Julies 14 year old host brother, who speaks english well, but is difficult to understand over the phone, plus there is a ton of noise happening...so, anyway, I miss almost everything he says, but get the point that they were concerned when they never found us and wanted us to come over now.  And so I am busy assuring him that we will be right on our way, when Julie's voice shows up on the line and clarifies that we should come over for lunch.

Meanwhile, Kelly has been accosted by the little woman who left with the phone previously, and I assume she is giving us directions, because I make the connection that the phone we were contacted on is probably hers.  I hand the phone back to Julie's host father and am immediately pulled into the conversation of the woman, who apparently wants to tell me something  She says "latina" over and over, mixed in with many other words which I don't know and "scries", which I take to be some conjugate of the verb "to write".  So I nod and shrug and announce in my best Romanian "Nu vorbesc Romaneste" (I don't speak Romanian!), which deters her not at all.

There was a young-ish fellow next to the passel of us, so Kelly frantically asks "do you speak any english?", to which he responds with a simple and disheartening "no".  "Rats!", Kelly exclaims and we turn back to the woman...from a later comparison of notes, we determine that she was prophesying at us...(at?  about?  hard to tell how to take it.).  Kelly apparently has a light shining on her, and there is white writing in the sky about my family.  In Latin. Or something like that. (Don't get too excited, family...she may have been nuts, or we may have translated incorrectly!)

When we finally managed to escape, we took off at a brisk pace toward the part of town where Julie lives, recounting our latest adventure and feeling very discomfited and confused...  Not long into our trek, we realize that I forgot to ask for directions.  ...Cool.

So, we know which neighborhood Julie lives in, but not where exactly.  We know her family has an 

apartment and about 3 houses...and we don't know her family's last name.  So, of course, we march around the neighborhood asking kids if they know where the family with 8 kids lives.  We are taken first to the apartment, where we find their last name on the door (whew!).

This piece of info seemed like a winner, so armed with it and, after a trip to the grocery store on the block, chocolate croissants, we begin to ask "unde este casele de la familia Treifan?"...and are taken to an exactly obviously wrong house, first (which we later discovered belongs to her host father's parents, so the name was still right.). After 2 more queries, we acquired a guide and were finally pointed in the correct direction, found the house, and had a great time!  And Julie's family will require their own blog post...but that will be a story for another day.

All in all, exciting day.  Exhausting, but fun.  And I am home early to take a nap, drink some tea, type up this blog post, hopefully send an email or two and work on getting over my latest sickishness.

Next stop: A week-long backpackng trip in Retezat!  I'll be back next Saturday!

Until.