Yawns, Spelunking and Gummy-worm madness.

Today, Sunday, September (I typed October first…its feeling like October, weather wise.) 26^th, was a rainy rainy day.

Background notes:
1) On Friday, Tibi invited the 5 of us, Kadie and Alice to his home (Apartment George, where he will be joined by Tad & Zach in a few weeks, once homestays end) for lunch.  He happens to be a fantastic vegetarian chef who grinds his own flour, makes peanut butter (and walnut butter!  Yum!), bakes bread, creats and cans innumerable jellies and jams, and concocts such delights as Lemon-pine juice!  (yep!  Pine needles and lemons are juiced for that one!)

2) TIbi also happens to enjoy spelunking.  We happened to enjoy the idea of spelunking.  Tibi knew about our professed interest in said activity.  He therefore extended the Sunday afternoon invitation to include a spelunking trip, with himself as our guide.

3) For some time, a hike with Dana, Alice & Kadie had been in the works.  Finally, Saturday was the settled-upon hiking day! We were to meet at 10 AM at the Impact building and drive up Straja to hike the peak.

4) Saturday was rainy.  All day.  Possibly even all night.

5) I am claustrophobic. Times a lot.

We begin our story on Friday night…
After the end of my previous post, Kelly and I had just been tromping home from drinks with friends and had recently been swindled in the fruit department. 

After spending a fair part of yesterday in the wet and cold, I was skeptical when I awoke to the sound of drizzling water.  Sure enough, it was raining.  And by the time I left for church, pouring.  At 9:10 AM (which come at 1:10 AM, for y’all back in the Midwest!), Kelly and I met and stomped our way down Strada Straja (Straja Road).  I had opted to wear a skirt, since I have no church-appropriate pants with me, and in my usual stylin’ manner had paired said skirt with a pair of hiking boots, for rainy reasons.  I was glad for that limited bit of foresight (and appropriate preventative measures!), since Staja road becomes its own little series of waterfalls on rainy days! 

When we reached the place where Strada Straja meets the main road, we commandeered a corner to wait for Kadie, 10 minutes from our arrival time.  While we were on pauza (Pause, break, time-out), I swapped out my soggy hiking boots for a set of black flats.  Poor choice.  After waiting as long as we could for Kadie (who we weren’t entirely sure was coming at all), we slip-slide-ed our way toward Father Ciocan’s church.  Father Ciocan is Zach’s host father, so we hoped to find Zach and maybe even get the chance to drop off our backpacks, which were stuffed full of clothing for the afternoon’s hike.  The stomp to the church took much longer than anticipated, possibly due in part to my slippery water-filled flats, which soaked up excess liquid from the sidewalk and soon were quite literally filled with water!

We had exactly 6 minutes until the beginning of the service, as we neared the church gate, and it seemed wise to invest one of those minutes in ditching our packs, so we followed the gate to Zach’s house, let ourselves into the garden (it was so pretty!) and knocked on the door.  There was no answer, but since we had given up one of our precious few minutes, we decided to leave our packs anyway, and after tossing them on the floor in the hallway and calling for Zach to no avail, we closed the door & the garden gate and headed up the cemetery to the church.  I hope to take pictures of this cemetery, at some point…it is beautiful.  It consists not in gravestones but in stone coffins above ground. 

Well, we made it to the church something like 2 minutes late, probably, and opted to stand in the entryway door, instead of seat-hunting and making fools of ourselves, since the routine surrounding entrance to the Orthodox church appears to be fairly complex.  Standing in the back for 2 hours also proved to be somewhat complex, since there is no readily obvious good option, as positioning goes.   I developed a sore lower back, a sore upper back, tired knees and eventually sore elbows (??), in the 120 minutes we spent standing very very still and trying to understand what was happening.  I went through all 5 ballet positions, and eventually tried out a small plié in each, as well, to counteract tired knees.  But the worst by far was the yawner. 

The yawner was a short, rotund woman who appeared behind me halfway through the service and proceeded to yawn at intervals throughout the remaining hour.  I’m yawning now, just thinking about her!  But I couldn’t yawn then.  Anyone who knows about my yawn-style understands the tragedy this would have been – when I start yawning, I keep at it for ages.  I have yawned 9 times since first typing the word “yawner”, last paragraph.  And I don’t yawn quietly, per say.  It’s not that I am terribly imposing in my yawns, I am simply unable to swallow a yawn once I allow it to begin, and if a yawn is ruined for any reason, I have to begin it all over again.  The point: It would have been terrible to begin yawning.  (I’m up to 13, now.)  And so I held it in.  I didn’t yawn.  And it was ridiculously difficult!

After church, Kelly and I dashed out the door and down to Father Ciocan’s house to retrieve our backpacks, and hopefully Zach as well.  We had our second experience with children asking us for money (our first occurred on the way into the church yard) on our way to the house.  The door was opened by Zach before I had a chance to knock on it, probably accounted for in my having tripped and crashed into it on my way up the stairs.  Zach, apparently, had slept through church and was surprised to find two familiar-looking backpacks in his entryway (guess I would have been surprised, too, all things considered) with no one around who he might attribute them to.  So, we gathered our things and he plopped down on the floor to pull on his boots.  Behind him, at the end of the hall, the bathroom door opened and we had our first introduction to Felix, clothed in an extremely short bathrobe and, probably, nothing else.  He looked surprised to see us, and I imagine I looked just as surprised to see him.  With great presence of mind, I blurted “ciao!” which only served to confuse Zach and Kelly, who had missed the incident, and sent Felix around the corner into another room.  He was apparently not as flustered or taken aback as I had presumed him to be, as he appeared moments later in the exact same attire and introduced himself and such.  What silliness our lives are filled with, of late!

Zach didn’t want to take a Maxi taxi.  There, I’ll just say it outright.  I blame Zach and always will.  At 11:55-ish, we began our trek across town to Tibi’s apartment, Apartment George, where lunch was to convene at 12:30.  It is NOT a short walk.  45 minutes later, having picked up one Kadie Becker along the way (she had attended a different service near the Ciocan church, since Kelly and I were long since gone by the time she made it to the appointed meeting-corner earlier that morning), we arrived at Tibi’s apartment.  Late, wet and tired from our trudge.  I still blame Zach.  Cheapskate!  A trip across town by Maxi Taxi puts one out the equivalent of about 30 cents. 

Tibi, the vegetarian gourmet, served us a delicious lunch, troubled only by the lack of one Julie Adams, who we hadn’t seen in a couple of days and who is notorious for getting herself into scrapes of all types and keeps her companions in a constant state of worry.

She eventually arrived, though, with the assistance of Manny (Emanuel Treifan, her 14-year old host brother) and the festivities began soon after with table-clearing, dish-washing, clothes-changing and a wait for the maxi-taxi. 

After a 15-minute drive to Uricon, we climbed off the maxi taxi and hiked a couple of miles in the pouring rain up a winding dirt road to the caves.  I’m not going to try to explain spelunking to you, except to say that it was scary as can be for a claustrophobic Marit, incredibly muddy, and very empowering!  The winding, tight caverns, innumerable passageways and slippery slopes made for an awesome, crazy experience!  I, personally, opted to pass on the smallest, most claustrophobic areas, particularly the one where Zach pulled a Winnie-the-pooh and got himself wedged into a tunnel so tightly that he had to be pulled out from behind by his feet.  But I am proud to say that I did far better than I thought I could, ventured into scarier spaces that I thought I could and only freaked out a little bit.  My sanity had a good stretching and came out fairly sound!  And wonderful sweet Kelly helped me along by describing the areas ahead of me as she went, noting where the tunnel would get down to army-crawl size and how long it would stay that way.  I have never felt more foolish about my fears before, nor been quite so proud of myself for maintaining relative calm when I didn’t think I possibly could manage it.  Yes, I announced “Kelly…I don’t think I can do this…” more often than I would have hoped…but far less often than I felt it!  And everyone was wonderfully patient with me.  (Thanks so much, guys!  I can’t imagine how ridiculous it must have felt to you!  You were so kind!)

We left the cave area covered in gross (Julies pants were blue.  They came back kakhi-colored.) only to find that the rain had stopped.  A-feared that we wouldn’t be allowed back on the taxi in our current state (and having done the math to find that a trip back by foot would cost us 2+ hours), we waded into the river and splashed ourselves back towards clean. 

So again soaking wet, we hiked back to the taxi stop and returned to Lupeni.    I’m going to cut that story short there, except to add that when we reached Tibi’s apartment, he served us hot tea, homemade blueberry jam, homemade peanut and walnut butter and delicious bread.  Oh, and Zach left early, before the delicious food came out.  Serves him right for making us walk to apartment George that morning, I say!  =P

Home again home again, jiggity jig. I have begun to dread the tromp up Straja road.  Not because it is a mountain (which it is!), but because the dogs on this road are becoming ever more enthusiastic about Kelly and I.

  At first they were just cute.  Now, though, they are becoming rather forward and if not acknowledged promptly, will follow along after us, poised and ready to nibble our ankles.

They must be late risers, or eat a big dinner in the evenings, because they seem less interested in chewing on us in the AMs than on the trek home.  But lately, particularly since Kelly and I have been walking home separately more often, they have begun to meet me sooner on the road and follow me further.  By the end of the week I expect they will be waiting for me outside the Impact building and accompany me all the way to my doorstep!  Darn dogs!  Quit it!

Oh and speaking of darn dogs, Dreamsa & “caine mic” (Dreamsa’s puppy who Mirela and Iancu have not yet named) decided that it would be good fun to follow the Marit up the mountain for some quality romp-time, today.  When I returned from town, no one was home, so the dogs met me at the door and scrounged in my backpack while I struggled with the lock & key.  When the backpack ceased to entertain them, they chewed on my shoes for a while instead.  Unsure of when my family would return I took the opportunity to tromp up the bit of mountain contained by my farm (“sos la munte”= up the mountain, I believe) for some fresh air and reading time.  So, packing my bag with homework, a camera, water bottle and gummy worms, I snuck quietly out of the house.  Not quietly enough, ‘twould seem, as both fuzzy black balls of energetic canine had appeared by the time I closed the door behind me.  “Oh well,” thought I, “They’ll go do their own thing, I’m sure.” 

And so up the yard we went, up a slope-y little path through the plum orchard and then at the hay field, where we waved at Grandpa, the path went around a switchback and up along a sort of ridge with a little stone and wood fence on the left and a grand overlook of the farm, on the right.  After clomping through a couple puddles (hello, hole in the bottom of my shoe!), I found a nifty little bank with a big flat, dry rock to sit on and made myself comfortable.  

Bad plan.  Dreamsa and the little fella clambered all over me, gnawed on my hoodie, nibbled around the edge of my papers and untied the bow on my right shoe.  

It was pure chaos for a good 7 minutes, before they found a beetle to chase.  I do feel genuinely sorry for the poor, harassed little beetle…but not sorry enough that I would have willing offered myself up as a distraction.  I managed to snap about 300 pictures of my two little scamps, as we played on the hill, and a few of the farm and mountains, as well.

 

But at some point along the way, I decided that it would be helpful to my learning process if I were to munch a gummy-worm or two while I read.  At first, this appeared to be a good idea.  And then I opened the bag. Instantly the beetle was forgotten and 4 beady brown eyes were trained on me, eager and interested in this new, fruity-smelling development. 

Did you know dogs like gummy-worms?  They do!  I gave each of the caine a small piece of worm, suspecting that they would lose interest.  They didn’t.  It merely whet their appetite for more gummies.  I gave in and fed each a whole worm, playing tug-o-war with them for every bite.  They are now officially hooked on gummy-worms. 

The next 45 minutes, or what felt like 45 minutes but was probably more like 20, were spent with the two dogs trying everything they could think of to get at the gummy bag, stashed securely, behind 2 pieces of sturdy Velcro, in my bag.  They chewed on, scrabbled with and generally attempted to destroy said bag…it met the challenge, though (Go NorthFace!  You are safe in your lifetime guarantee, looks like!), standing up to 2 sets of tiny, sharp teeth and 8 cute, muddy paws.  Eventually I gave up, picked up my belongings and headed back to the house to type and read in relative peace. 

So here I am!  

With yet another epically long blog post ready to hit the internet!  …hopefully tomorrow. =)

Romanian Ruminations --Musings from Marit

http://beacon.nwciowa.edu/2010/09/romanian-ruminations-musings-from-marit-langley/

An overdue update

I enjoy my lack of internet at home.

Retezat

I can’t figure out how to explain Retezat…I’m not sure if I should even try, but I think I’ll give it a go and see what happens.  So, I have never felt more out of shape in my life.  It was HARD work.  The backpacking business is not an easy game.  But now that it is over, I want to do it again.  I think I’d enjoy it more, now that I know how wonderful the experience is!  I was cold every night, even in 5 or more layers of clothing (Yes, I wore 5 layers of pants to bed.  Running tights, Long underwear, fleece pants, hiking pants and then last of all those black pants that I love a lot that are kinda like thick wind pants).  And that was all inside a sleeping bag liner inside a sleeping bag on a sleeping mat in a tent.  Brrr! I would wake up in the night with my 3 layers of winter hats, a hood and a scarf around my ears and still feel like they were freezing. 

Drama in the Retezat Night
The worst was if (or more aptly “when”, since it happened 3 out of 5 nights!) I had to pee in the middle of the night.  The process went like this: “Do I go out? I will be cold.  I’m already cold, I should just go.  But I’ll have to get out of the sleeping bag and the tent…that’s not going to be easy.  But it is better than being cold AND having to pee!  Besides, Alice said you will just get colder if you have to go and don’t, since your body expends so much energy keeping your excess liquid warm so it doesn’t freeze…  But its cold!  So are you!  And it’s a lot of work and I can barely move.  Barely move?  Then it’s a good thing to get out before you become claustrophobic!  Oh, rats, what if I can’t get out?  That would be scary.  I’d rather not even try, ‘cause what If I get stuck?  I’d freak out!  But I’m already going to freak out if I keep laying here.  Then I’m freaking out AND cold AND have to pee…”  Anyway, the end of the story was always that I would get up, try to sneak out of the tent (not easy in a space where 3 scarcely fit lying down, let alone can get to the door climbing over one another!).  Once out of the tent proper, another hurdle cropped up: getting over the packs and out of the little entryway area…the zipper only had a pull on the outside, so I had to dive down to try & reach under and grab it…all in a tiny area that I couldn’t even hunker in, on top of three people’s packs (they wouldn’t fit in the tent.  At all.  As in, it was us or them.), and while trying to find my shoes; an adventure every time, needless to say.

Morning Chills (for a good cause…)
In the morning came another struggle, each day… getting up and out of the sleeping bag again…getting dressed (sounds like that’d be easy since I’m wearing all my layers, right?  Nope!  I have to take them all off my bottom half to apply a clean pair of underwear, because excuse me but I’m not going to wear dirty underwear when I have the option to change it and am wearing dirty everything else all week! And then the same on my top half, because even though it seems like a minimal comfort issue, I  felt it was worthwhile to sleep without my awful sports bra…I had enough uncomfortable layers on for warmth that I didn’t need an extra one that had no warmth value!

Of course, once I finally got outside and into the sun, it was warmer than in the tent by far…by late morning, I was usually down to a tank-top, t-shirt, running tights and hiking pants…maybe a sweatshirt if I was going to be in the shade for long.

Thoughts on Hiking
And the days were beautiful!  We hiked hard up-hill all of the first day and half of the second, which was tough for me, and I ended up at the very tail of the line with Alice and Kadie, for most of the steep parts, which was ok for me…I didn’t have the energy to scamper, so their steady patient pace was much more enjoyable.  Once we hit down-hill areas, halfway through the second day, things were much easier for me, and I headed up the line with Florin (our guide and Kelly’s host-father), Ilie (Another guide and a translator, since Florin speaks no English.  He works for New Horizons and helps teach our Experiential Education class) and Julie (who walks FAST always and takes the hardest route from any given point to another). 

Some Moments worth Mentioning (there were more.  My fingers aren’t interested in recounting them all right now.) 
Ok, this is getting long… Highlights from the trip: On Wednesday, we hiked up to the top of the highest peak in the Retezat Park, where we took pictures, filmed a few videos for promoting the semester, etc.  On the way up, we hiked up a VERY steep part that looked like Mount Doom (in Mordor, Lord of the Rings!), where one side was clear and on the other you couldn’t see down at all because of the thick thick fog, so we felt in constant peril of falling over a cliff and dying!

Thursday, from about 10 AM-4PM we split off, all went to specific locations ¼ mile apart or so and spent 6 hours alone with God…SO good.  I want to do this often.  It was much easier to invest time in talking to God, praying, thinking and such without other options of things to do and with the knowledge that I had a lot of time.  It was So good.  

Friday night was our only bad weather of the trip (Thank you, God!), when we had wind at night (the tent collapsed on us at one point, I guess, or at least one side; Kelly’s. I think they said…I’m glad I was asleep, or I would have certainly had a heart attack…I was struggling to contain my preemptive claustrophobic freak-outs even just thinking about what I’d do if it came down on us…I even had my little pocket knife in my hand at one point, all ready to cut our way out to freedom, if the rainfly zipper stunted an escape!), rain in the middle of the night and then sun the next morning for our final trek out of the park. 

Ok, enough Retezat for now.  

First week of classes!  You may find that hard to believe, since I have been here for over a month (1 month and 1 day, to be exact), but such is my life and learning community at present.  The past month has been full of opportunities to learn incredible things from wonderful people, and I love the informal learning environment I have been immersed in.  But I am thankful for this new step – for the formal coursework.  Although our language class, a component of the Romanian Culture and History course, had a 6-day intensive just prior to Retezat (15 hours of language, plus homework = more than 5 weeks-worth of Spanish class at NWC, although with less homework, typically!), our other coursework did not begin until Monday, Sept. 20^th, when we enjoyed a lovely RCH (culture & history) course, with two of our beautiful friends and program administrators, Kadie Becker and Brandi Bates.  This looks to be a fantastic course, in spite of my antipathy toward all things time-line, and includes such gems as Romanian cookery, poetry, history (of course!) and several opportunities to travel around the country!

Orthodoxy
For Tuesday, we read and thought about the first chapter of The Spirituality of the Christian East, which was pure delight to my mind and (if I end on the side of dualism eventually) soul.  I felt a little awkward in class when Dana apologized for the “density” and general un-interestingness of the chapter…I had enjoyed it quite a bit! Full of poetic phrases, quotes from incredible books which I may never read but now suddenly wish to, and a systematic breakdown of Orthodox theology, which inspired my mind to once again delve into the theoretic, theological aspects of my faith, ethics and thought! I can’t tell you what we talked about in class, because we bounced like a new pogo-stick from here to there to the syllabus and back again, but I get the feeling that the reading for this class is going to continue to challenge, inspire and recreate me!

Developement
Wednesday’s Sustainable and Human Development class (the “Love your neighbor” part of out 2-great commandments coursework) inspired me to be smarter.  Not necessarily to educate myself on the issues where I am currently lacking…just to suddenly acquire vast amounts of knowledge in all possible fields of study. I never knew that it was possible to care so much about an idea, in theory and with regard to my faith, and yet know so little about it in practice and in terms of basic knowledge.  This class will be a great thing for me, if I force myself to invest.  I care deeply about the issue it seeks to expound, but have such a meager knowledge bank, that I currently feel more sink than swim in my “thrown in” position.  Here’s to more focus, concentration and the enthusiasm to invest hardcore in learning how to begin in a new realm of social science.  Well, new to me!

Impact training…but not right now

And finally, Thursday and Friday were spent in Impact training.  But more on that soon because my fingers are getting tired and I have other thoughts to share.

Friendsies!
Last night Anca came to the Impact building to visit us after class.  It was a busy and short time, but a delight to reconnect with this dear sweet flirt of a girl who has a lovely big heart.  Tonight, after class, cleaning of our classroom building and some homework time, Tad, Kelly and I tromped off to Valacia (a restaurant/bar…mostly bar, at this hour) to meet Ile, Ella, Alice and Kadie (and Anca showed up again!) for some sweet catch-up time.  Apparently our table (particularily Tad, Kelly and Anca) were being harassed by the absurdly drunk men in the next booth over.  I didn’t realize what was going on (what’s new?) until Kelly told me later.  Interesting. 
Side note: The drunk men had a box of beer.  Not kidding.  Like, a whole crateful of bottles for the 3-4 of them (hard to keep count as they were constantly in motion and noisy enough for twice that number).

Trolling for Bananas
After a cappuccino and some conversation, Kelly and I left for home, but discovered to our dismay that we were both somewhat famished and had no idea whether food would be available to us at home at 9:30 PM or not.  (Yes, we had just spent the past hour and some at a resturaunt…but no one else was eating food, so we’d have been out of place!  Oh wait, we’re the instantly-recognizable-as foreigners who carried backpacks into a bar at 8:30 PM in Lupeni, Romania…out of place was maybe not the issue.) So, we marched back down the street, we peered in shop windows, looking for the perfect snack.  Two “Non-Stop”s filled with packaged food (chips, croissants and the like) provided nothing quite perfect, so we crossed the street toward a bread shop we had noticed earlier.  As we tried to decide if it was open or not, I was busy sustaining a sense of confusion over the fact that the door was open and two women were inside and yet Kelly didn’t think the shop was in a business state, so I missed the humorous opportunity to observe what the two ladies inside the shop were working on – One was plucking the upper lip hair (or mustache, as it were…was) of the other.  Oh…of course.  What else would you do, while leaning against the meat counter of your shop at 9:30 on a Friday night? 

An opportunity to experience being “The rich tourist”
In the end, we purchased fruit at an incredibly steep price and munched our way up the road towards home.  We were quite blatantly cheated in the fruit-cost department…a new experience for Kelly, although old hat for me, having experienced the same for the first time 6 hours earlier while purchasing coffee grounds. 

Storytime
Here’s how it went: Marit loafs off from the Impact building at lunch-break time to purchase at least a day’s ration of coffee (about 20 cups worth for Zach & Marit and a sip or two for the rest), since we were getting low (we had only about 9 pots’ worth left) and were in critical danger of running out at an inopportune moment.  (Did you notice the sarcasm in the preceding sentence?  If not, feel free to go back and hunt around for it…because there is some in there, if you are observant and look closely for it.) We also needed bread for lunch (it is impossible to consider a meal here complete without consuming a significant amount of bread), so I made coffee my first stop, selecting two varieties and “cit costa?”-ing each with a final total of 6.20 Lei.  The cash in my pocket was in exactly the wrong denominations for the man behind the counter (1 lei or 50 lei), so thinking quickly I announced “cinci minute!” and dashed out the door and 7 steps down the street to the bread store, a much more accepting local, in terms of 50-Lei bills.  I did, of course, forget that this particular bread and legume (veggie) store does not provide bags for their bread, so after purchasing two extraordinarily large loaves (about the size of 2 footballs…each!), I marched back to the coffee-seller with a loaf of bread under each arm (Perhaps, like Ben Franklin, I too am destined for greatness).  Armed with correct change, and juggling my bread loaves and purse, I proudly approached the counter and started digging out the proper amount.  Strangely, in the less than 3 minutes since I had left, the total price had increased from 6.2 to 13.something… Not sure what could have caused the sudden inflation, since my money hadn’t appeared to lose value in the 20 seconds I spent outside the realm of economics and consumerism. 
I was in no mood to fight, though, between the smell of warm bread, the promise of warm soup and the expectation of coffee, so I paid the requested amount without argument (besides, arguing in Romanian is difficult for those of us who do not speak it!) and returned to the Impact building.  There, soup, bread and eventually a fantastic piece of chocolate (check out the chocolate blog for more information on this one!) erased all annoyance from my mind, and I now know where not to buy coffee. 

Oh, and the fears Kelly and I shared about potential late-night hunger? 

Unnecessary, for me at least, as my hosts were just sitting down to dinner when I arrived (9:30 PM), so I was, as usual, packed full of delicious home-cooked and non-processed foods.  What could be better?  Oh wait, I know: hearing The Jungle Book (Disney, but in Romanian) playing in Iancu and Mirele’s room as I attempted some Orthodoxy study-time, this evening.  =)  Delightful!

Chocolate reviews

Probably the best part of this blog was that I had a chocolate review section... 

Did you notice it was gone?  

Certainly cause for consternation!  Why else would you read this thing??




But don't worry!  It's not really gone!  It has just moved.  It can now be found HERE (<--Click on that.  It'll take you there.)

Or if you want to get there without finding this post, for future reference, there is a link on the side of my blog! 


Enjoy!
Real updates shall come stumping along soon, so keep an eye on this page for photos and other Retezat fun!

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.

More photos. I'll label all this later...hopefully.

A few photos