So I am currently getting ready to celebrate my last major holiday in Romania. As I am sitting in my apartment thinking about this, I find it hard to believe that two Easter's ago I was sitting with my family, anxious to start my Romania adventure. This Easter I will be enjoying Easter dinner with a very good friend and her Peace Corps family, but this year I will be anxiously awaiting my next adventure, which is returning home.

I had so many concerns before I came to Romania, "Will I be able to learn the language?" or "What will it be like teaching a bunch of students who don't know English?" or "Will I like the food?" or more Romania specific "Will I get bit by a dog?!" All of these worries were concerns that I shared with my fellow volunteers and upon arriving in Romania I realized they were silly worries. Granted I did find myself crying in language classes a few times because it was extremely difficult, but here I find myself 2 years later with an Advanced communication level in Romanian. I also was extremely nervous about being in front of students, but as they say practice makes perfect. While I am still nervous from time to time going into a class, most of those nerves have been diminished since I know the kids want me there and they do everything they can to make me feel welcome.

These two years have presented challenges and allowed me to learn important life lessons. I have learned how to speak up for myself, rather than to just let things slide. I have learned how to know when it is time to give up, and that failure and moving on are a part of life. Through moving on I was able to have a unique experience in two different parts of Romania and I was able to change my Peace Corps experience to hold a more positive light. I have never been so proud of my ability to say when, if not I could have denied myself an amazing opportunity.

I have learned how to compromise and work as a team with other cultures. My counterparts and director are some of the most wonderful people I know. Working with them has truly been a blessing and we have been able to provide the students with such a broad education, each day learning something different from each other. It is truly a wonderful experience.

I have learned how to respect other cultures. Learning about Romania's traditions for holidays and their importance on families has been so interesting, but more interesting is the language and their love for the land. Romanian's love having things that are homemade and come from their own garden or farm, to take pride in their ability to produce for themselves is truly a wonderful thing to see.

I have learned how to appreciate familiarity, because being a stranger in a foreign country can be the loneliest places sometimes.

I have learned the importance of family and true friends. I love the fact that even though we are separated by 6000 miles, our relationships have stayed strong and they have continually supported me in everything that I have done.

While life may not always be easy here in Romania for me or for anyone else, it has taught me so much about myself and has made me realize just how lucky I am. I have food and water and a roof over my head and I have always had those things. While in Trusesti I didn't always have water, and to get hot water I had to plug in a hot water heater that took hours to heat up. I didn't have a heater, I had to make a fire in order to stay warm. I also didn't have a washer, everything was washed by hand. Now living in Pucioasa, things are completely different. I always have hot water, I have radiators that I can turn up as high as I want and I have a washing machine. While my time in Trusesti wasn't exactly positive, I learned so much from that experience and it has made me appreciate everything that I have both in my home and in my school and has made this second year absolutely unforgettable.

So now as I sit here, accustomed to life in Romania, I have worries about returning to the US, just like I had before going to Romania. I have become accustomed to being alone, so I worry about being around people constantly. While I am excited to see my family, I am worried about being overwhelmed and not finding personal time.

I worry about driving again. I have not been behind the wheel of a car for almost two years, I worry that I will forget how to drive.

I worry about becoming overwhelmed in the supermarket. I have become very accustomed to having only two or three choices for bread, I don't know what I will do when I see ten or more types of bread to choose from.

I worry about money. I have been provided for for the past two years, not having to worry about insurance or medical and I worry about making the right decisions in these areas.

I worry about school and adjusting to graduate school. I am so excited to be going to Fargo to further my education, but I worry about the move and starting over again. It will be different to be a student again, but my excitement is far superior to my worry.

As I think about my worries, I find comfort in the fact that worry means passion. If I wasn't worried then I might not be passionate about this next step. Worry also means that ti will probably be a difficult step, but it will be one that is worth fighting for. It is odd to say, but the worry is soothing and I am glad to have it around.

So in three short months these posts will come to an end, but I will have the memory forever ingrained in my mind. I will be able to print these out and if my memory every falters, I will be able to revisit this experience. I am sad to see this experience coming to a close, but you can bet that I am going to enjoy every bit of time that I have left in this country and with my wonderful Peace Corps family!

I love you all and I hope you are well. I hope that old man winter has left you alone and that spring has finally sprung.

Mi-a dor de voi!

Va iubesc!

Va pup!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So this week was an action packed week. I had a lot to do, but it went very quickly so that made it a good week. This week I was teaching alone and covering classes since one of my counterparts was in Poland for a school project. I knew that this was coming so I had fun planning St. Patrick's Day themed lessons. The kids had a good time with that and it was fun to do something different that was not part of the regular curriculum and they love to learn about different things (probably because it isn't related to grammar in any way, shape or form!)

This Wednesday I also help a volunteer training session for students in the student council and for students from several other schools in Pucioasa. It went wonderfully! The kids were so attentive and they participated, and offered ideas and did an absolutely wonderful job. The students all paid attention as well even though there was a lot of talking. I tried to make it personal to them as well though so that helped to keep them interested. Then after I talked about what a volunteer project should encompass, they created their own and they came up with wonderful ideas! I even had a student send me an e-mail later to say that she wanted to put these ideas into action and together we will collaborate with the director and my counterpart and hopefully we can get some of these things up and running before I leave. I was so proud of all of them, they did a wonderful job and I couldn't have been prouder.

Then came Thursday, St. Patrick's Day! It was really fun to teach the students on St. Patrick's day because then they could learn the lesson on the actual day. I had many classes on Thursday and was really tired from the week, but still full of energy because my birthday was on Friday. My counterpart had been acting a little strange that day and had been meeting with students, so I knew she was up to something. One of my students had tipped me off that she was planning something, and I saw that she was meeting with students and they were very adamant to tell my counterpart that I was there so she would stop talking about whatever it was she was talking about. So I knew she was up to something, I just didn't know what. We normally have our last class together on Thursdays because it is an optional class and that is the one class that we teach together every week. She did not come to class and the student on duty came to tell me it was because she was at the high school. I knew that wasn't true, but I just figured that she was off practicing something with the students. I thought she was going to have them put on a little play or sing a song for me on Friday or something. Boy was I wrong!

So I get done with school and go home, like any other day. I go into my apartment and I notice that my kitchen door is closed. I find this very weird because I never close my kitchen door, but I just figured my landlord had been there or something. So I come inside and turn on my hall light, go back to close the door and before I can close it I hear "Happy Birthday Sarah!" I had to grip the wall I was so shocked. I slowly creeped towards my living room, not exactly sure what I was going to find, as the singing continued I looked into the living room to see my director, counterpart and about 20 of my students in my living room singing to me with presents on my coffee table. I turned around and saw a cake coming towards me with 25 candles on it. This explained the closed door, as one of my student's mothers was hiding in my pantry with the cake and lit candles. I couldn't believe it, I was so surprised and felt so blessed! My counterpart had used the spare key that I gave to her in the case of an emergency and she surely got me good! She is so thoughtful and it was so wonderful to see my director and so many of my students. I adore them and it was so nice that they wanted to do something special for me on my birthday. I was surprised that they were all able to stay so quiet, especially since there were so many of them!

So after that we enjoyed cake and the kids had fun playing with balloons and noisemakers and then they each went around and said a personal birthday wish to me. I felt truly blessed and it was so nice to see the impact that I am making here, I see the impact they make on me every day, but sometimes it is difficult to see the other side. They are truly wonderful and I am so lucky to have them as a part of their lives.

So that was my birthday surprise so the day of my birthday I went to school as usual and enjoyed a nice calm birthday with my colleagues at school. Then I came home from school to talk with my family, which was also really nice. I was glad that I was able to talk to them on my birthday. Next year if my birthday falls along Spring break I might actually be able to spend it with them, which I am sure they will love :) We shall see.

So that was my adventure for the week. I think it is safe to say that this year was one of the best birthdays I have ever had. I have never been so surprised in my entire life and while I was shocked and a little bit scared I felt so loved and that feeling is truly wonderful. I am so thankful for my site, school, conterparts, director and students. They made it an absolutely wonderful day, so to them I say a big THANK YOU!!!!!

I also want to send a Happy Birthday out to my big brother, he will be turning 26 on Wednesday, so as of right now we are both 25. I always like to tease him and during these 5 days I used to tell him that he was not a year older than me anymore, we were the same age. That used to drive him crazy :) It was fun to tease him about it. I love my brother very much and I am very thankful to have him in my life. Though we fight from time to time and we are very different people, I love him with all my heart. He is a wonderful brother and life would not be the same without him. Happy Birthday big brother!

I hope all is well state side. I am looking forward to seeing everyone in 3 1/2 short months. I will only be home for about a month and then I will be starting my next adventure, but it will be a good month, I will make sure of that! I love you all and miss you very much. I hope spring has sprung by you and that you are enjoying wonderful weather. The weather here is teasing us a little bit, but I am sure that it will be lovely out before we know it!

Va pup!

Va iubesc!

Mi-a dor de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So this past week and a half has been filled with activities, I hardly know where to begin! Well let's start with last week Monday because that is when my adventure of two weeks really started.

Back in December I completed all of my applications for graduate school, I applied to three schools and was asked to interview at two, which in my opinion is actually pretty good statistics. I was very excited to hear back from just one school, but to hear from two was simply amazing. The first school I heard back from was North Dakota State University (NDSU), and upon further research preparing for the interview I began to like the school more and more. They have a strong emphasis on underserved families and individuals, which would include those from minorities, single parent households, and those from the LGBT community. In essence NDSU has a very diverse program and would prepare me for a wide array of situations and allow me to reach out to more people. So the next part of my experience was the interview,

As you know interviews are never easy, they are anxiety provoking and no matter how prepared you think you are there is always something that goes under your radar, and this question always seems to come up. This is basically how I felt that my interview went. I was so nervous I could not find my words, I stuttered, I stammered and did basically just about everything else you could do that would show signs of nerves. At one point I could not find my words so I said that I sometimes thought in Romanian and had to translate into English, but I think at that point my mind was just blank with nerves. I was able to answer every question however, and they were each really nice and patient and it was an interesting experience. My favorite part of the interview was asking them questions however, I learned a lot about the school and I could see their pride that they have for the program, which was really amazing. I also learned about the research opportunities, which are abundant (which I really like!) and that I can apply for an assistanceship. This assistnaceship would entail 10 hours of work a week with a professor either as a research assistant or a teacher’s assistant, thus resulting in a tuition waiver and some extra money for other living expenses. Essentially I hear tuition waiver and all I think is “AWESOME” and I get to do research, which I love to do! So that was the basic gist of the interview. They told me that they would get back to me in about two weeks, so I was in limbo left with my mind wandering on what I should have said and didn’t and shouldn’t have said and did. Oh fun!

The following Friday morning I went to check my e-mail just like I do every morning and a surprising message was waiting for me, it was from NDSU! My heart stopped! I saw the director’s name, then the program, and opened it faster than I have ever opened anything else before. The first word that greeted me was “Congratulations!” , I had done it! I was accepted into graduate school! This was one of the times I wished that I lived with someone so I could give them a big hug in celebration, but instead I went running around my apartment like a chicken with it’s head cut off trying to find my phone so I could call my friend Carly and tell her the good news. They told me two weeks and accepted me after just four days, and I was the last person interviewed as everyone else was present for the group interview, and being in Romania that made it a little hard for me. Needless to say I was ecstatic. I was accepted into graduate school! This brings me onto my next step, the decision.

Oh who am I kidding, the decision was extremely easy to make. I accepted their offer and I will be studying in Fargo next year at NDSU and I will be getting a great education in the process. I am so thankful for this opportunity and I am very blessed to be accepted into graduate school. This just takes me one step closer to achieving my goal of becoming a therapist. I am so excited to start this journey.

So next year I will be moving to Fargo, studying, hopefully working, studying, researching, studying, and oh did I mention studying. I am sure that I will be very busy and it will be extremely challenging, but I never run away from a challenge. I run at them full speed and conquer them, and that is what I will do in Fargo. I will have great opportunities and will receive a great education. I am sure that it will be hard to get into the swing of things at first, but I know in time that I will be able to do it. I love learning about Psychology and I look forward to studying it again, this time it will be the start of studying it and practicing it for the rest of my life, I can’t wait!

With graduate school lined up for next year, I could focus on my next task, preparing for the Peace Corps visit. Every year Peace Corps makes its rounds and visits volunteers at their school, to check in and see how things are going. Tuesday was my day, our country director and TEFL program coordinator came to visit me. I was very excited to see Mirela, the TEFL coordinator, because she returned mid maternity leave for a bit to help out with site visits. She has been gone for about a year (maternity leave is two years in Romania) so it was an absolute treat to see her since I didn’t think I was going to get the chance to see her again. We visited with my counterparts and director and talked about the things that I have done so far and the things I have yet to do in my four months left in country and just had a nice time chatting with each other. Then we went on to classroom observation. I was able to choose which class we would go to, so I chose the 7th graders, because they are such a wonderful class. They were a little bit nervous, but they did a wonderful job just like I knew they would! I thinking I was just bursting with pride for them, they make teaching such a wonderful experience. Teaching can be so hard, but these kids just make it so easy and I am very blessed to have them as students. I think this is the most quiet I have ever seen them, but they still participated and did a great job. I am going to miss those kids next year!

Which brings me to my next point Close Of Service (COS). In about two weeks I will be traveling to Sinaia for my COS conference. It is hard to believe that it is already almost here! It feels like just yesterday I got to country, and now I will be preparing to leave. It is just crazy, absolutely crazy! I am excited that I will be returning home in just four months but sad at the same time, because I have created so many wonderful memories and friendships here in Romania. I guess I will just have to enjoy them while I can! I have lots to do in my last few months in country so I am sure that I will have lots of things to write about in the coming months.

Speaking of endings, I unfortunately had another loss in my family this week. On Tuesday, March 8th, my great uncle, Ted Thoele, passed away. While it is a sad event, he was 94 years old and lived a good full life. He was a wonderful person and I have many fond memories of him. We did not get to see each other often as he lived in Minnesota, but when we did it was nice. My brother and I thought it was so cool going to visit him in St. Paul because he lived on the 40th floor (I think) of an apartment building and you could see forever. We just thought it was the coolest thing. It was also fun to joke with him about the Vikings, he was a huge Vikings fan, and my parents and I are huge Packers fans, so we would always go back and forth about who was the best. I also thought it was funny when he said he was taking “the kids” to the doctor. He moved to an apartment complex for older individuals when he was in his late 80s and he used to take other residents who were in their 70s to the doctor because they couldn’t drive. He was able to drive up until he was 92 and he still played golf well into his 80s. He was a very good man and he will not be forgotten. He passed away peacefully in his sleep at home (he lived alone) and I know he is now happy and together again with my grandpa (his brother) his wife, and his good friend Liz. We will miss you Uncle Ted but we will never forget you, you are in our hearts forever and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to know you.

That is all that I have for today. I hope you are all doing well, I miss you all very much and I am looking forward to seeing you in four months! Exactly four months from today (July 11th) I will be coming home! I can’t wait and I will be expecting lots of hugs from all of you. Take care and I hope you have a wonderful day! Love you!!

Va pup!

Va iubesc!

Mi-a dor de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So yesterday was a fun day. In the county that I live in there are five other volunteers, we all live less than an hour away from each other, but with the trials and responsibilities of everyday life we unfortunately to not get to see each other very often. Now I was not to happy with this idea, so I decided it would be fun if we got together once a month or so for a meal. Yesterday was the day and we had 5 of the 6 volunteers present, but one substitute so there were 6 of us in all. We had a delicious meal which included a vegetarian, spinach lasagna, bruschetta, garlic bread, salad and wine. It was so delicious! I made the lasagna, since it was at my house that was the easiest way to do it, it was so delicious if I say so myself! I was very proud of my first lasagna that I made in country and I am going to try it again in the near future because it was just that good! The others brought supplies for bruschetta and garlic bread, which was ridiculously tasty! Another volunteer brought supplies for a salad with mango and feta cheese and it was so delicious! I had never had a salad with mango before, but I was a big fan, it was so tasty and fresh and delicious!

It was so nice to be able to get together with volunteers and chat and simply enjoy one another's company, we hope to be able to do it again in the very near future :)

This upcoming week we are celebrating one of my favorite holidays in Romania. Martisoara and womens day. Well womens day isn't technically until next week Tuesday, but this Tuesday is Martisoara. What this means is all the women will get little pins to pin onto their shirts and some will get flowers and candy or coffee or maybe a small bottle of perfume, but mainly flowers. It is basically just appreciation for women and it is so nice, because I love flowers and I love receiving them! Hopefully my house will be filled with the scent of flowers and my shirt will be covered with martisoara, we shall see!

Not to much to report from this past week, classes went as usual. I am going to start working on a project this week, we will be painting a mural on a wall in school so there is some prep work that I have to do in advance. This prep work includes doing a volunteer training, picking a focus group, working on fundraising, and developing a design for the wall. The mural will have a theme of volunteerism as Peace Corps is celebrating 50 years of service and Peace Corps Romania is celebrating 20 years. There is a pretty cool design that some of our volunteers came up with for the PC Romania celebration logo, so hopefully we will be able to incorporate that somehow...we shall see!

Well that is all that I have for this week. I hope you are all doing well and staying warm! It is 19 weeks and 1 day until I come home...not like I am counting or anything :) I am looking forward to my last 5 months in country, but also to coming home and being among family and friends again. Well I better get to work! I have lesson planning to do! Have a wonderful week and I hope that mother nature is nice to you :)

Va pup!

Va iubesc!

Mi-a dor de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So today is a snowy day here in Pucioasa. Even though I am used the the changes in weather, 50 degrees one day and snow melting everywhere, and then snow a few days later just to turn everything white again, does not mean I like it! Oh well what are you going to do. Before I know it I am sure that spring will be here and I will be able to enjoy the lovely weather just in time to go home in July. It is hard to believe that I will be home before we know it, just in a few months time!

I wish that I had something interesting to report this week, but I only have school. It was nothing super interesting either just a regular school week, so instead I think I will take a blast to the past and talk about my family as today my dad celebrates his birthday.

An undisclosed number of years ago, my father entered this world and boy am I glad that he did. Even though we fought when I was growing up, and still fight now from time to time, I am still so thankful for him each and every day. My dad has always been nothing but supporting to me. When I was in sports, even if I didn't play much, my dad and mom were always there supporting me. I don't think there was one time that both of them missed a game. From time to time, one had to miss it because Fred had something going on, but they were always there for me. I am so blessed for that. My dad has also always been really helpful to me when I have had problems. Whenever something would break, I would go to dad first to see if he could fix it, even when I was in college! I would have problems at home and before I would call my landlord, on small things, I would call my dad to see if he could help me fix it, or if there was a problem with my car, I would call my dad first to see if he could help me fix it before I paid someone to do it for me. He has taught me to be a do-it-myself girl, because I always try to resolve problems myself, within reason that is, before I waste money. While I don't try to fix things that deal with electricity, I usually try to resolve other, small household problems on my own first, which is how I was able to fix my drain in my old apartment by myself, which I was really proud of myself for! I think that was pretty awesome on my part.

He has also taught me to be kind to others. I think he is a big part of the reason that I wanted to join the Peace Corps. While I wanted the opportunity to experience a different culture, I also wanted the chance to help others. Growing up, we were always volunteering and helping out for things in church and I think that this habit just grew into something bigger. So thank you dad for always encouraging me to do good things for others, I am on the journey of a life time now which has helped me to grow as a person.

I am so thankful for my family every day, and my father is a big part of holding that together. He and my mom are both so passionate about having a close family and they have done a beautiful job of maintaining that. I have a brother whom I love and get along with, and awesome sister-in-law and 2 wonderful nieces and an adorable nephew, all of whom I am crazy about! My family has been so supportive of me in my journey and I am so thankful for that, and thankful for my dad for making our family strong and supportive of one another in all situations. You are awesome dad and I love you, and Happy Birthday to you today and many more to come!

I love and miss you all back home and I hope that you are well and that every day brings you only happiness. I can't wait to see all of you in just a few months time. Take care and don't get to cold with the February freeze that will more than likely inevitably come, and also stay away from the flood waters that might arise from the February thaw! We will see what this next week brings, because both are possible, oh the joys of living in the midwest!

Va iubesc!

Va pup!

Mi-a dor de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So this last year has been a little surreal. I have traveled to a total of four countries, Hungary, Italy, France and Turkey,I have traveled all around Romania, I have hosted my parents, I attended many summer camps, I moved and I started at a new school. There has been so much that it is hard to believe that I am now starting my last semester here in Romania. In less than 5 months I will be on a plane headed back to The United States. Sometimes it feels like I have been in Romania for ages, and then other times it feels like I just arrived a few months ago. I can't believe that the time for me to leave is almost here, when it feels like I have just started my work. It will surely be a bittersweet parting when the time comes to leave. Some may ask if it will be so difficult to leave, why not stay for another year? I did think about that, but as much as I love Romania, I miss my family even more. I also do not feel that teaching is the right career path for me and I want to get started on my graduate degree, assuming I get into grad school that is :) I also have missed so much with my nieces and nephew and I want to be there for them. I don't want to be that aunt whom they never see. It will be so wonderful when I finally get to hold them in my arms again.

Enough with the sappy stuff then, so this week I started school and was feeling very nostalgic about the events of the past year, mainly related to school and myself. While in Peace Corps I have learned so much. More than I think I could anticipate and it is difficult for me to see exactly what I have learned unless I actually sit down and analyze it. So here are some things that I have learned.

1.) Language -- I never thought that I would be able to learn how to communicate in a foreign language. When I was in high school I struggled through Spanish, while I understood the vocabulary I had absolutely now speaking abilities and I couldn't apply it in any sort of situation, much less and everyday situation. Within my first year I did learn the language to a rather high level and I was almost always able to get my point across in a variety of situations. In the past year my language has improved even more and I am able to have a minimum of 10 minute conversations and up to several hour conversations with little to no problems in communication. I am so proud of myself for learning this language and for always pushing myself to get better.

2.) Assertiveness -- Sometimes it is very difficult to stick up for yourself. I have always found this something very difficult to do, I would just ignore things and hope the negative feelings would eventually go away, which of course they did not. This option seemed a better one to me, because the idea of confrontation terrified me because I would always freeze up and feel this emotion of tension whenever it would happen, often leaving me at a loss of words and unable to stick up for myself. However asking for a site change was the first step in me sticking up for myself. I was very adamant about my request because I knew that it was the right thing for me. I thought long and hard about even making the request, and once I felt I had no other options left for me I made it. While it was not an easy process I stuck with it and it proved worth it in the end. This year in my school has been wonderful, and I have continued sticking up for myself, even though the occasion comes up so infrequently. I still need improvement but feel I am well on my way to developing a skill that will only benefit me in the future.

3.) Open -minded -- I have become much more open minded since being here in Romania. This is not necessarily due to Romania itself, but more so to the people I have met within my group and the groups before and after me. Every one of my fellow volunteers is different and each one has challenged my opinions in one way or another, but also open my eyes up to different perspectives. While I don't necessarily agree with each perspective, it helps me to further formulate my opinions regarding certain things and to be certain of the opinions I hold, by looking at from various angles. I think this has helped me to become a better person and I think it will make me a better therapist one day.

4.) Patience -- This is something that has developed, but still has a long way to go. I now have no trouble waiting up to an hour for a bus, because I know eventually one will come. Or waiting for someone to come fix something in your apartment, they may have said a half hour, but that is just an estimate, it could be up to two hours or more later. While I will look forward to having my own car again one day and having more control over my schedule, I feel this patience could come in handy in other situations, for example waiting for my nieces and nephew as they decide exactly what toy they want to bring with them or friends when they just can't seem to decide what to wear that day.

These are only a few of the things that I have learned, if I were to type everything I had learned we would be here for a very long time. In essence my experience so far has shaped me into a better person and I can only hope and pray that these will stay with me and I will continue to grow into and even better person as I return home and pursue my future. My Peace Corps experience has been an ongoing learning process and I look forward to what the final months of my service here will teach me. I am sure that I will have many more learning experiences that will continue to help me grow into what I hope to be an excellent person.

So it has been about 4 weeks since I have updated, and that is because it has been a crazy busy 4 weeks. I don't think I had much time to breathe since school started up. I was constantly on the go getting ready for the end of the semester and the Special English Evening that my students put on. So let's start out with that.

Special English Evening

So on the last day of the semester my school has the tradition of having a Special English Evening, in which the students in the intensive English classes (3-4 classes of English a week) prepare something to present to the parents and other students. This year there were 16 numbers. I helped prepare all but two of them, so it was pretty crazy. The students sang songs such as, "If I Lived Under the Sea" "The Wheels on the Bus", "She's a Lady", "There's a time to laugh", "I'm a Believer" and "People Work". The 5th grade optional drama class prepared two plays, "Twelve Angry Pigs" and "Stone Soup" These plays were a little rough up until right before the actual event, but the kids did wonderfully with them and I was very proud of them. The 6th grade optional drama class wrote their own plays. There were four short skits and each of them did wonderful! I was also very proud. I helped the 7th graders create "the Golden Raspberries" which was their very own version of the Academy Awards. They did such a wonderful job, I shouldn't pick favorites, but their's was my favorite. They each did such a wonderful job, they were so creative and it was hilarious, we had celebrities such Sandra Bullock, Megan Fox, Julia Roberts, Arnold Schwaznegger (played by the smallest kid in the class...who also happens to be a big ham), Joe Peschi, Ben Stiller and many more. There was a scene acted out from Charlie and "The Chocolate Factory" in which one of the tiniest boys in the class was dressed as Violet Beauregard, which was hilarious. They were awesome, hopefully I will get a tape so that I can show it to all of you when I get home. I was so proud of each one of my classes and they made the evening wonderful.

Once that was done I was able to relax for a few days until my friend Chelsea came over and we hung out for a few days and then left for Istanbul. Oh what a journey that was. We took a train and when we got on the train we found out there was no heat. The conductor brought us extra blankets to keep warm, but it still was like sitting in a freezer. A few hours later, he came and told us to come with him to the other cabin to warm up for a while. Once we got in there, there was no way we were leaving again, so we asked if we could pay for an upgrade, it was less than we thought it would be, but frankly it didn't matter we were so cold we would have paid just about anything! So we went from second class to first class, which was comfortable and most importantly warm!

It was very nice in there and we were able to sleep and stay toasty, but we did get woken up in the middle of the night because we had to get off of the train to buy our Visas into Hungry and get our passports stamped. The last thing that any of us wanted to do at 2 o'clock in the morning was to get off of the train and go into the freezing cold to have our passports stamped. Oh well, we did so and we got back onto the train where it was toasty warm.

So we finally arrived in Istanbul, 21 hours later. We were very excited to get off the train and start our adventure. I did not have any Turkish Lira however so I went to an ATM to get some money and the ATM ate my debit card. So here I am freaking out in Turkey not even 10 minutes after I have gotten off of the train and I am left without an ATM card, my lifeline. Needless to say I was freaking out, but my friend Chelsea was keeping me grounded. I went to the bank across the street who owned the ATM and they told me quite rudely that they couldn't get me my card back and I told them as firmly and angrily as I could how angry I was, which as you know for me isn't that impressive. So after a little bit I accepted that I wasn't going to get my card back, so we went to change some money because we both had a little bit of American money with us. So we changed that and went to find our hostel. Once at the hostel I was starting to feel a bit better especially once I found out I could pay for it on a credit card without a PIN. I have an emergency credit card that I use very infrequently, but I have it just for occasions such as this, and this time around it saved my life. Since it was so early and the credit union was updating their system my mom couldn't send me money until Tuesday, so that meant that I was without money in Turkey until Wednesday. So for my first 2 days of the trip I had no money, but my friend was helping me out, I would put meals on my card and she would pay me back so I was able to at least get enough money to pay for my train ticket back. Then once the money was Western Unioned to me via my lovely mother I was able to spend just about all of it :)

While in Turkey we were able to see many wonderful things. The first day we walked around the Grand Bazaar which was awesome. The vendors there were crazy though, they wanted you to buy everything and they were a little intense, but as long as you kept walking it was okay. Then we wondered near the Blue Mosque, but it was already closed so we went back to our hostel to relax a little bit. We met some awesome people in the hostel that night and had a lot of fun with them. It was a good end to the to a day that started out really rough.

The next day we walked around some more and stopped by the Blue Mosque, but didn't go in because it was closed for prayer. We then proceeded to do a loop around Istanbul past the Grand Bazaar, to the University, out to a Mosque then looping back to the Spice Market. We stopped for lunch along the way as well and had a lovely meal at a cute little Turkish restaurant, it was a delicious Pita. Then we headed back to the hostel after a very very full day of walking. We went out to dinner that night to another traditional Turkish restaurant which was pretty cool. They had a live band playing Turkish music. I thought it was really neat because the clarinet was a major part of the music, and this guy had mad skills. It made me want to start playing again as it would be awesome to play as well as he did! Then we went back to the hostel and hung out for awhile, but turned in pretty early as we were rather exhausted.

Day 3 my money finally arrived so I was able to start my real vacation. We went to the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. Both were magnificent buildings and it is amazing home people have been able to create these amazing buildings, and how they think about them. After seeing these building is was time for me to do some much needed shopping and needless to say, I got all my souvenirs in just one day, and I found something for everyone, which was pretty cool. We met some really interesting vendors, and since it was a slow day for them they actually were less annoying. There was a guy selling teas and spices that was just hilarious and he actually gave us a little extra tea for no extra charge, which was pretty awesome and he made it fun to buy from him. We then found a guy selling scarves that were beautiful and a good price and he also gave us a pretty good deal. It was a good day in both the spice market and grand bazaar for us and we had a lot of fun. Before we went mad on shopping however we went to an Archeological Museum that was actually really amazing. It has been a while since I have been to a good museum, so I really enjoyed it and saw lots of really cool things. It was a good time.

So after a 9-7 day we called it a day and headed back to the hostel for some dinner and relaxing as well as to hear about everyone else's day.

Then on our final day there we went on the ferry that took us over to the Asia side of Istanbul. The ferry ride was beautiful, but cold. I can't even imagine how beautiful that trip would be in the summer time on a nice sunny day. It was lovely just to see the city from the Bosphorus Strait and it was fun to climb up to the castle that sat up on a hill and to look out into the Strait on one side and the Black Sea on the other. We also enjoyed a nice lunch over there, and Chelsea was in heaven with the choice of seafood there was and the waiters thought I was funny because all I wanted was anything but fish. It was a good day trip though. Once we got back we dropped some things off at the hostel and then went to experience a traditional Turkish Bath.

This bath was an interesting experience, and I am not so sure how much I liked it. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't love it like some people do. Many of you know me as a rather modest person, so the fact of someone else bathing you is kind of odd. I mean I was really clean, and it was really warm, and who doesn't like a good massage, so I felt really relaxed afterward, but it was an interesting experience. I also got to sit in a jacuzzi for a while and that was just fantastic. So we were able to get on the train all relaxed and clean for our trip back to Romania. It took us exactly 24 hours to get back but now we are home and I am so glad that I got to sleep in my own bed. I don't sleep well in strange places so I hadn't slept well for a week, but as soon as I got into my own bed after about 5 minutes I fell asleep and I didn't wake up again until I saw the sunlight at about 9 o'clock in the morning, it was a dreamless and fantastic sleep.

I learned many things on this trip

1.) Next time I am flying it is faster :)

2.) Don't put your ATM card into strange ATMs :)

3.) It rocks having a mom that works for the credit union where your money is kept because she can take care of everything in a moments notice

4.) Turkish baths are relaxing but a little awkward

5.) Hostels can be a crazy amount of fun and you meet the most interesting people there.

6.) I enjoy traveling and the world is full of beautiful and interesting places

7.) I am glad I didn't plan this trip to Egypt, or else I would have been evacuated.

So all in all it was a good vacation, I had a ton of fun, we saw beautiful buildings, ate delicious food, met wonderful people, and had experiences that I will never forget. So that was my trip. this will probably be the last one I get to take as my budget will not allow for any others. I will miss traveling, but I hope to be able to travel some more once I get state side, which will be in exactly 5 months and 6 days, not that I am counting or anything :)

I hope all of you are doing well and I miss you all very much each and every day. I can't wait to see in you in just a few months time, it has been too long and I can't wait to give you all hugs!

Va iubesc

Va pup

Mi-a dor de voi

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So another year has come and gone, it feels like just yesterday I was with friends in Braila celebrating New Year's and yesterday I was bringing in the New Year's again, but this time in Brasov. While it was significantly colder this year, it was also a lot of fun. There were fireworks, live music and dancing. It makes me wonder what I will be doing next year for New Year's!

So I was thinking a little bit about this past year and I have had my fair share of adventures. I have traveled to 14 cities within Romania, been to Budapest, Rome and Paris, taught at 2 different schools, moved, helped out with 4 different camps over the summer and most recently applied for graduate school. Sometimes it feels like I have not done much because they are spread out, but this has surely been an adventure filled year. I often forget about all the things that I have done because my sense of normalcy has changed. I am glad that I have adjusted, but I still look forward to the normalcy that I will have once I am stateside once again :)

So my winter break is almost over and I have many things to plan for the coming year. In terms of school I will continue teaching all of my classes, but in addition to this we will work on a mural that will be painted at the school, prepare for the special English Evening which involves putting together musical numbers and rehearsing plays and I will be planning a camp for my students. Needless to say I am not running short on things to do. In addition to this I have my final preparations for graduate school applications, planning a trip to Istanbul, and figuring out what I am going to do once I return home. I thought last year was busy I think that this year is going to turn out to be even busier! That is a good thing though because when things are stagnant I have a tendency of getting bored.

Well that is all I have to say for today. I haven't had to many exciting things happen to me in the last few weeks, just vacation and relaxing and not much traveling so no crazy travel stories to share with you :) Hopefully this week at school will bring some interesting experiences but we will just have to wait and see.

Enjoy the Packer's Bear's game today, I will be tuning in and cheering loudly. I am wearing all of my Packer's apparel and I am ready for the game. Have a beer and a brat for me and cheer as loud as you can! Maybe if I am lucky I will get to go to a game next year! That would just make my day!

Take care and I love you all very much. I hope your New Year's was magical and fully of happiness. I miss you all and I think about you everyday and I am so thankful for all of the wonderful people in my life.

So I am coming up to my last week of school before vacation starts, Yippee! I have a lot of things that I need to get done over vacation, including but not limited to grad school applications and secondary project work. I have been slacking in both, so I really need to get them accomplished. Keep your fingers crossed on the grad school apps, I sure hope that I get into at least one!

So Christmas is less than a week away, it seems like just yesterday it was Halloween! The good thing is however my school always keeps me busy with things. They do tons of stuff for Christmas. One of the things that they do is individual parties for the little kids, one for each class. So the 3rd and 4th graders with intensive English (English 3 times a week) each put on a short play. The 4th graders did one that was pre-written, and my counterpart and I wrote one for the 3rd graders. I was so proud of them, they learned their lines so well and they really got into it. Then at the end they sang a song and they all did such a good job. I was so proud of them! It was so fun to be a part of it. Also each of the classes gave me a present, which I was not expecting in the least. I was so surprised to receive one, but pleasantly so. The 4th grade class gave me a nice brown purse that can double as a school bag, it feels like it is made out of fake leather and it is super cute and simple, just like I like it! The 3rd graders gave me a box of candy and a candle holder that has butterflies and little glittery balls on it. Again it is super simple and super cute, I have it under my tree now, it feels so nice to have a tree in my apartment and it is super pretty when it is all lit up at night!

So talking about my Christmas tree, I think that serves as a good segway to a story that I want to tell. So on December 15th I put up my tree as this is the day that my family and I always put up the Christmas tree when I was younger. So while I was decorating the tree I started out with the lights, as usual. They were a little tangled so I thought I would plug them in first to make sure they worked and to help me untangle them. When I plugged them in, the began to emit the most horrible sound that I had ever heard. I was convinced they were going to blow up, but just before I unplugged them, I noticed that the sound was changing in pitch and it had a rhythm to it, it was playing Jingle Bells! Well at least it was trying to play Jingle Bells, but the batteries or sound in it was not as good as it used to be so it sounded like a dieing cat squealing Jingle Bells. Thankfully I figured out how to turn the sound off because the lights are very pretty on the tree. This tree is super tiny, but super cute as it is just the right size for my apartment, it is not to big yet not to small, it is a nice addition for the holiday season.

So this week at school we finish up on Tuesday, when some of my students will be performing in the school Christmas extravaganza where there will be at least 15 acts and it will be about a 3 hour long ordeal. I am looking forward to it however and the kids are going to do great, I have every confidence in them. I will post pictures no worries! It is nice that I have so much to do as it makes it a little bit easier to be away from home. I still have been feeling a little sad lately as it has been hard to be away from my family, especially at Christmas. I will get to talk to them tonight however as it is the annual Busse/Sebo Christmas and this year it is being held at my parents house. It will be nice to see some family that I have not talked to in awhile. I am looking forward to being home next year for Christmas, no matter where I am or where I am working or going to school I am going to make sure that I make it home in time for Christmas to spend it with my family and to see Blair perform in church as Josee will not quite be old enough to do the Christmas Eve service. I miss seeing their faces and how they look when they open presents. Josee wasn't old enough to care what she got for Christmas when I left, but now she is, so I can't wait to see her face next year. I will be spending Christmas with my second family that I have made here in Romania, but that will never replace the awesome family that I have back home! Just think we will be together again before you know it! I can't wait!

Alright enough of the sad stuff, I have to figure out what I am going to do with my optional classes this week and plan for the few classes that I have to do this week, only 2 days of classes, most of which are going to be reserved for rehearsal which makes my job a lot easier! Here's hoping that it is a quick and painless week! I love and miss you all every single day and I can't wait to see you in a little over a half years time. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and that the good Lord continues to bless you over this holiday season. Have safe travels and enjoy the company of family, you never know how much you miss it until you do not have it for one or two holiday seasons. Take care and I send my love to you. Merry Christmas!

So I wanted to start out and wish a happy birthday to my friend Sarah. Sarah and I have been friends for about 19 years and I am so thankful that she is a part of my life. On Thursday she welcomed in another bundle of joy, Alyssa Russel, and I wish I could have been there to visit her and meet her. Sarah I miss you like crazy and I am so grateful you are in my life. I also am so happy that you have such a wonderful husband and two beautiful little girls, you deserve every happiness in life. I love you and miss you and can't wait to meet little Alyssa when I come home this summer.

So tomorrow is St. Nick's Day. I am always brought back to my childhood on this day. I always was so anxious to wake up on Dec. 6th to see what St. Nick had brought me the night before. Sometimes he would come early, but Fred and I weren't allowed to look in our stockings until the day of, so we would feel the outside to try and figure out what was in there. I remember one year I got a giga pet. Those were those crazy electronic toys that were supposed to represent pets, you had to feed it and walk it and clean up after it. I was so excited that there was a giga pet in my stocking, that I didn't sleep hardly at all that night. Then when I opened it the next morning I was so excited it was a dalmatian. I started taking care of it right away. I actually remember at one point I had two, because I was "babysitting" one of my friends pets. Oh the things that we get excited about when we are kids is just hilarious.

I also remember that every year, St. Nick would bring us a Christmas movie. We got movies like The Santa Claus 1,2 and 3, Jingle All the Way, Elf and Fred Claus to name a few. We always could guess which one we were going to get that year, but it was still fun to see what was there in the morning. St. Nick even came to me at college. I would get care packages filled with candy and lottery tickets and little trinkets to decorate my room.

Another fond memory I have from St. Nick's Day is from my roommate Sarah (yes I know a lot of Sarahs) She loves Christmas and everything to do with Christmas, so she crocheted a stocking for my roommate and me. I woke up Dec. 6th to find a stocking filled with treats hanging on my bedroom door. It was such a sweet surprise, she has always been such a thoughtful person.

This year I am not doing anything special for St. Nick's Day, just going to tutor and enjoying a walk outside. I can finally get outside because today is the first day in about four days that it hasn't been pouring rain. I am getting a little antsy to get outside and I am grateful that I will be able to do so today. Even though I am not doing anything special, it is sure fun to reminisce about the traditions that I had in my household. I look forward to rejoining those and starting new ones when I have my own family.

With the holiday season fast approaching it is easy to feel a little homesick. I am however very lucky that I have found a second family here within the Peace Corps. We really come together when it is most needed and support each other in every way possible. It is a great experience and I am very blessed. I hope that everyone at home has a Happy st. Nick's Day and that you are able to enjoy the candy that he brings. I think the candy I miss the most would have to be the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, those were always my favorite and are ridiculously tasty! Well enjoy your candies and your families. I miss and love you and look forward to being together again in the future.

Mi-a dor de voi

Va pup

Va iubesc

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B

So with Thanksgiving approaching, I thought I would dedicate this blog to all of the things that I am thankful for starting with the obvious

1.) Family -- I am so blessed to have an extremely supportive and wonderful family. No matter what I do, or what adventure I want to pursue next they are always supportive of me. They have always loved me and always will. I am very lucky to have such a special bond with my parents and brother, and to have a wonderful sister-in-law, two fabulous nieces and an adorable nephew who I cannot wait to meet.

2.) Faith -- My faith in God has helped me so much throughout my life. I am so thankful that it is a part of my life and that it has never left me, even in my darkest hour. I am very lucky to have something so supportive and strong in my life that will always comfort me and provide me with hope for the future.

3.) Education -- I am so grateful that I have been able to have had such a blessed education. Working here in Romania, the school systems are good, but sometimes are not super supportive. Again this depends on the area that you are in. My current school is very supportive, but I have seen schools that just don't have the means to be as supportive as they want. I not only was able to get tutoring outside of school if I wanted to, but my school had books in good condition for everyone, computers for use when necessary, reliable heating in the winter, and special education classrooms for those who needed it. Even though I might feel animosity towards my education at times, it still was good and I am very lucky to have it. I am also very lucky that I was able to pursue a college degree and will soon start my adventure of a masters degree.

4.) Kindness and Support -- I feel these to things are intertwined as one leads to the other. I not only have support from my family, but from my friends, colleagues, the Peace Corps, and my community. People who know nothing about me here in Romania, are willing to support and help me when necessary, that kindness baffles and awes me. I am so grateful that these people are willing to provide me with such kindness without expecting anything in return and without asking. It makes being far away from home and all things so much easier when complete strangers are willing to provide you with such kindness just to make you feel welcome in their community. I also experience a feeling of warmth whenever I am able to spread that kindness to others. To make someone else feel happy just by being kind is a feeling that I cannot express through words it is so wonderful.

5.) Love -- Without love I do not think the world could go round. I have so much love in my heart for my family and friends and I know that that love is extended back to me. Without it I would feel empty, and sad, but I never have to feel that way knowing that there is love out there for me to receive and I have lots of love to give back.

6.) A home -- I am so grateful that every night, I have a roof over my head and heat to keep me warm. There are so many people in this world who do not have this blessing, and I am so grateful to be this fortunate.

7.) Food -- Everyday I am able to go to the store and buy what I need to keep me healthy and well-fed. Again there are so many people who do not have these blessings and I only hope that this blessing will find them soon and remain with them through the help of kind and generous souls.

8.) Clean running water -- As a Peace Corp Volunteer, I never dreamed that I would be living in an apartment or that I would have constant access to clean running water. I always imagined myself in a small village in Africa and having to wash my clothes in the river and sleep on a mat in a small hut. I am so fortunate to have this blessing, and it is not just running water, but hat running water. I am also grateful for this, because I do not have to worry about disease being in my water. I see the poor souls in Haiti, who have already been through so much suffering and yet it continues as they do not have something as basic and necessary as access to clean drinking water.

9.) Electricity -- Without the gift of electricity and Internet here in Romania it would be much more difficult to communicate with my family. While we could do so via letters, I would have not had the opportunity to see pictures of my newborn nephew, or to see how my nieces have grown. In addition to this I would not be able to share all of my pictures of my experiences with my family. I am grateful for this invention and grateful that I can share this experience with my family.

These are just a few of the things I am thankful for in my life. Without these things I would not be able to be the person I am, working here in Romania. I am so grateful for this opportunity to give to another country. I hope you all have a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving and never forget the things in life that you have to be grateful for. I love you so much and Happy Thanksgiving!

Mi-a dor de voi

Va pup

Va iubesc

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

Oh it was a beautiful week here in Romania. Today we saw temperatures in the high 60s. Yet if I was still in college I would have been experiencing the first snowfall of the year, and it would have been a doozey of a storm. Ironically however, I am missing the cool weather that typically is experienced during November. I am even anxious for a little bit of snow. I didn't think that was going to be possible, considering the dislike I developed for snow two Decembers ago when we had a snowstorm every other day and had a slight accident involving my parents vehicle. Yeah that's right mom and dad, still never going to drive the truck again :) I am sure the snow will be here soon enough and then I will be praying for the sunshine and beautiful weather again.

This week was a very nice week, I started to watch a new movie with my film club. I decided upon Remember the Titans because I figured that most of them would have never seen the film, and it teaches a lot of great things. For example, acceptance of others regardless of appearance. This is something that I think we all need to learn, because in general we all have some prejudices towards others, even if we don't want it. I do however truly believe that everyone is capable of goodness and we can fight these feelings and discover new and interesting things about people and form new friendships where we least expect it if we just let our guard down and get to know people we wouldn't normally talk to. So far the kids are really into the movie, and I hope they enjoy it as it is one of my favorite movies of all time. No matter how many times I see it, it never gets old and I always enjoy it and discover new things about it.

We also started to write the plays in my 6th grade optional theater class. These kids have an enormous amount of creativity and I think that we are going to have some pretty good plays to present at my towns annual Special English Evening. The kids are working hard, and I love that they are able to express themselves through their creativity, but it is also very interesting at the same time. Watching several of the plays and certain things they have incorporated into them gives me a different idea of what they have seen growing up than what I saw growing up. For example, several of the kids had scenes where they portrayed someone smoking (which we instantly discouraged and would not allow), but this is something that they see everyday. Smoking is extremely prevalent in Romania, and it is likely that a majority of their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and maybe even older siblings participate in the habit. While it was something that I saw on the street growing up, it was always something that was avidly discouraged, and that is just not the norm here. Also there were certain students who choose to portray drunk individuals. Granted these were not included in any of the written versions, but were done in some of the impromptu things we asked them to perform. These kids are only 12 or 13 years old and they have been in contact with people who were excessively drunk, when I was that age I don't even think I knew what it meant to be drunk. They are just more exposed to this and it is something that you can see on the streets. Not all the time, but it does happen. I do have to say though that Romania has an excellent policy regarding driving and alcohol, it is one chance and you are done, whether it is 10 drinks or 1 drink, your license is gone. Maybe if we enabled that law in Wisconsin there would be less of a problem. I do want any of these comments to be see as the norm in the entire country, or the norm for Romania. I do not think that this country sets bad examples for its children, it was just an interesting observation that I made. It also shows just how attent children are and how much faster they are growing through each and every generation.

School was great this week as well. My classes went well, the kids paid attention for the most part. I did not need to yell too much, they did their homework. It was a good week. I am looking forward to this week because I feel that I have some pretty interesting lesson plans to offer my students. I hope they like them as I put a great deal of thought into each one of them.

This weekend was also lovely. I started writing my rough draft or my career goals statement for my primary choice for graduate school, UW Stout. They have a great Marriage and Family Therapy Program, and I hope that I will be lucky enough to be accepted into it. I do however have other schools that I am applying too, including Edgewood College in Madison, Kansas State University, and North Dakota State University. I hope that I am lucky enough to be accepted into at least one of them, so I can pursue my desire of becoming a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Only time will tell.

My Sunday was extremely filled as I joined my counterpart in a neighboring village to meet her in-laws and have a nice lunch. We had delicious chicken grilled over a fire, mashed potatoes, and a delicious meatball soup. There were also tasty apple bars to enjoy for desert. After that I went to another neighboring village where I tutor a boy from another school. He has learned so much since I started working with him, and I hope he can continue to learn and catch up in his class. He is still at a beginning stage, but he definitely has improved. For tutoring him they tend to give me homemade things such as zacusca (a stewed vegetable spread that is put on bread and is just about the most delicious thing I have ever had) as a thank you. I can tell you it sure makes me happy because they are tasty and I do not know how to make that deliciousness. I also enjoy going out there because they are an extremely kind and generous family.

Well that is all that I have for this week. I hope that you are all doing well, and if it snowed by you I hope that it did hinder your day at all. If you were snowed in I hope you enjoyed it with a nice mug of hot cocoa and maybe that you made some delicious homemade cookies to warm up the house. I love you all very much and miss you as well. Everyday is a day closer to me coming home, but everyday here is such a wonderful experience so it makes the time go by much quicker. I hope you are all healthy and happy and I look forward to seeing you this summer!! Wish me luck during my application phase, lets hope at least one school is kind enough to take me!! ;)

Va iubesc

Mi-a dor de voi

Va pup

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

The leaves are changing, the days are getting shorter, the weather is getting cooler....well maybe not yet. In some parts of the world the weather may be getting cooler, but not here where I am. It has been so wonderful at my site all week. I cannot believe that it is November, it feels like September. I remember times when I was growing up and it would be snowing and cold on Halloween. Fred and I would be all bundled up Trick-or-treating and mom and dad would take us door to door in the car so we wouldn't get to cold. That surely is not the case here, I think that if they did trick or treating here, they could go without a jacket!

The trees however are changing, and I love to look out my window at the hills that are across the street. They are covered with trees that are gold, orange and red and are a true beauty to behold. It will be hard when they barren and brown for a few weeks, but then will be a little better once they are white. The only down side will be that it will then be cold. Good thing I live on the 5th floor, heat rises, and I only have a 5 minute walk to school!

Ah school, this week I had an easy week, I was down from my normal 21 hour class load to just 14 hours. I had so much extra time, I did not know what to do with myself! Now why did I have this extra free time you may ask? Well this week the little ones (1-4th grade) had the week off, so that took away 7 of my classes. That however gave me time to go into Targoviste to do some shopping and to pick up my package that had been waiting for me from my parents. I scored big time however in Targoviste as I found Taco seasoning, whole grain pasta, and brown rice! I haven't tried any of these things just yet to see if they are in fact the real deal, but I am looking forward to doing so.

This week did not bring anything out of the ordinary. I taught, I walked around town and enjoyed the weather, I spent some time with my landlord, and I took some time to relax, since I will be back at 21 hours this next week and will be exhausted. Now I know you don't think that 21 hours sounds like a lot, but when you are teaching a language in a foreign language and you have to grade papers and tests and prepare for class, it really turns out to be a lot more than that. I am so exhausted by the time I get home, I now have a completely different respect for teachers and realize that coming up with and executing ideas is extremely difficult and draining.

This weekend I was able to spend a lot of time outside enjoying the weather. I read outside in the park and took a nice long walk to the neighboring town as I tutor a boy in the 6th grade from another school. It was about 2 miles each way, but the weather was so nice I arrived there in no time. The last time I went there it took me 45 minutes and this time it only took me 30 minutes. It is amazing what good health, beautiful weather, and music can do to put some speed in your step. I hope to be able to take many more long walks outside before the weather gets too cold and I can only take short walks. I am hoping since I am further south now, I will have weather that is just a little bit warmer, but who knows we shall see.

Well that is all that I have to say today, just a short little post, but I hope that it is enough :)

I miss and love you all so very much and I think about you every day. Just think 9 more months from now and I will be home, we are less than a year away from it! I have already been in Romania for 18 months! I am 2/3 of the way done, crazy huh!

Va pup

Va iubesc

Mi-a dor de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

Trick or Treat! Money or Eat! Give me something good to eat! If you don't, I don't care, I'll pull down your underwear! Oh to be young again, I wish that I could be carefree and go trick-or-treating once again. Hopefully I will be able to go with my nieces and nephew sometime in the near future, if I am not away at grad school that is, which I hope to be at this time next year! We shall see!

So this post is going to be much shorter than last weeks, I don't know if I can ever top that one, but I did have an awful lot to say, as it was an experience filled week! This week was a lot quieter but still busy. I was helping my school prepare for their Halloween party that they had today. It went really well, they made a lot of money and the kids had a lot of fun, so that is the important thing. There were lots of great costumes and lots of great prizes and games. They even had pumpkin bowling, which was slightly adapted. it was more like regular bowling, because there were no pumpkins. Lets hope that next year they can get some pumpkins!

Yesterday proved to be more exhausting than today. While today was long, yesterday I spent 5 hours at school helping the kids set up the haunted house. It was an extremely long process involving a lot of cutting, taping, and some collapsing. It turned out well though in time, and the kids really liked to play in it. It was amazing, something that took 5 hours to build only took 30 minutes to take down. It is funny how things work that way sometimes.

Anyway I treated the kids yesterday since they had worked really hard for several hours, so I decided to make them some goodies. I made them some apple pie bars and lemon poppy seed bars. They went absolutely crazy over them! One of my students actually told me they tasted better than anything their mom ever made! Now that is a high complement! I am just glad that they enjoyed them and it gave them a little bit of energy, because they sure worked hard for them.

Lets see other than that this week was pretty uneventful, this next week will bring more classes, but I will have a few less since the little ones have the week off, so hopefully I will make myself useful during my free mornings! Lets hope!

Alright well that is all for today, I am not super talkative today and want to get back to watching my Packers play! Let's hope they win!! Go Pack Go!!!!

I miss and love you all and can't wait to see you again and give you a big hug!

Va iubesc!

Mi-a dor de voi!

Va pup!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So I just had a very exciting week. I was able to go somewhere that I never dreamed I would be able to go and that would be to Paris! I bet you never would have guessed that from the title of this blog ;) I went there with my good friend Carly, a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, to celebrate her birthday. Needless to say it was a great trip, in an amazing city with a great friend.

So as they say in the sound of music, let's start at the very beginning as it is a very good place to start.

So we left for Paris on October 18th, early in the morning. We ended up taking a night train into Cluj as we did not see the point in paying for a place to sleep since we would be getting up at 3 AM to leave anyway. It may have been a good idea though, since our flight was delayed for an hour when we arrived. So our trip started with waiting. Good thing we have been living in Romania for a year, we are very accustomed to waiting for transportation ;) Things seemed to be going pretty quickly and I was able to catch a couple of cat naps along the way, nothing substantial, but it was worth a try anyway. So then we took off for our adventure. It was a good smooth flight and we arrived in a timely manor (other than the hour that we were delayed -- side not it was lucky we were not going into England as their flight was delayed for 4 hours! Yikes!). Once we got there we had to catch a bus into the city, as the airport to which we arrived was 80 km outside of the city. We arrived and had to find the subway, once we found it we had to figure out how to buy tickets, but we were unaware that our cards would not work in the machine nor did the machine take bills only coin. Neither of us had the proper coin so we were a little worried, but we found a booth to buy them from, so it was all good.

The subway in Paris was really actually quite easy to figure out, but it was a long ride as we had to go from one side of the city to the other, with one change along the way. Thankfully the subway is much faster than the street traffic, because the streets of Paris are absolutely crammed full with cars at all points of the day. So we finally arrived, got a little bit lost because the street signs were difficult to find, but eventually found the place that we were staying. We made our booking through the website Air B&B which basically is a person who rents out a room in their house and it is cheaper than a hotel and quieter than a hostel. It was kind of far out, but with the metro it was really easy to get around everywhere.

So we put our things down, settled in a little bit and then decided to go and grab something to eat. We saw lots of places along the way so we figured we would find one. Carly loves sushi so I thought I would give it a try, so we tried a Japanese restaurant. I was very intimidated by the sushi and Carly had to teach me how to order, but I eventually decided on dumplings (because they don't contain fish!! :) and it was an excellent choice. They were some of the most delicious things I have ever had! I even tried one of Carly's sushi, I was not crazy about it, but I ate it nonetheless. It was different, but I am glad that I tried it. We actually ended up eating Japanese food 3 times throughout the trip and I can now say that I have tried sushi and don't really like it, but I tried it. I even tried some with raw fish! Granted when I got to the fish part I spit it out because the texture was to much for me, but I can't say that I didn't try it! :)

After that we just went exploring the street that we lived on, walked around some stores, looked at a beautiful view of the city, and saw an old church. It was a nice first day. After that it was back to the apartment as we were both completely exhausted from traveling and little to no sleep. So it was an early bedtime for us, so we could explore Paris the next day.

The second day in Paris, Carly and I split up. There was an art museum that she wanted to go to and I wanted to go to the Palace of Versailles. So I took the train out of the city headed to the palace for what I hoped to be a great day. Needless to say it was not the greatest day that I had in Paris. It was recommended to show up early to beat the crowds, so I arrived about an hour after it opened, and discovered that the opening was delayed due to workers strikes. It did not say how long it was delayed, but I decided to hang around. So I went out back and explore the gardens. While I enjoyed the gardens I think that I would have enjoyed them more if it wasn't raining out. It was so big that I was able to walk around for 3 hours until the palace actually opened and I still did not see anything. It amazes me how someone can envision something that is so big to be so beautiful and creative. Words can't due justice to the talent that is behind this vision. So once I bought my ticket into the palace, I quickly wished that I hadn't. It is not that it was not beautiful, but there were so many people in there pushing and shoving to get into every room that I could not just stand and enjoy the room, as I would have gotten shoved out of the way. Every room was beautiful and was exquisitely decorated, I just wish fewer people would have been filling the rooms so I could have enjoyed it a little bit more.

After that it was back to meet up with Carly at the Arch de Triumph, which was a spectacular creation. I couldn't believe the roundabout that it was in the middle of however, I don't think that the traffic ever stopped there. Cars were coming constantly and I was sitting on one side of the road wondering how I could get across. I saw people in the middle and wondered how they arrived there....hmmm. No I did not run across (but Carly saw some guys who did) but instead took the easy way out and found a passage that led under the street. It was so interesting to stand next to something so magnificent and look out at the traffic going around you.

Then we walked down the Champs Elysees a little bit and looked at a lot of things that we could not afford (including jewelery exceeding 25000 Euros) and made our way closer to the Eiffel Tower. It was approaching sunset so we wanted to hang around there until nightfall. We enjoyed a glass of wine, watched some American football, found an Irish pub and had a Guinness and randomly found the Romanian Embassy on a side street leading to the Tower. Then it was to the tower, at night. Spectacular is the only word I can use to describe it. The way it looks when it is lit up is to beautiful for words, and we even were able to see a light show, as occasionally thousands of lights twinkle on the tower. We did not go up the tower, because we wanted to see the view of Paris from Montmartre, but we did see lots of military men at the base of the tower...which was interesting to say the least. So after enjoying these sights of Paris, it was time to turn in.

Day 3 took us to more new adventures. I wanted to try and find a flea market as I read they were really cool, but it turns out the one did not exist. I was really bummed about this, but things turned brighter quickly, while walking towards the Latin Quarter and Notre Dame, I ran across a shop that contained the perfect present for my mom. It was affordable, and unique, so not a typical souvenir, but that is what made it so perfect. Then we arrived at Notre Dame and I waled around inside. It was a very interesting church, very dark and unlike any other I have ever seen before, but I still liked it. Again I did not go up this one either, because you had to pay, and the very top was closed. So I was not going to pay to go partially up the tower, it just didn't seem worth it to me. Next it was to the Latin Quarter, where I spent yet more money on things, and looked longingly at things that I could not afford and finally found the Pantheon. Yet another magnificent building. The pillars and the openness of the building were my favorite parts. Its size was unbelievable, but I appreciated its beauty so much. This one was probably my favorite, as there were not that many people there, it was open and uncrowded inside, and it had a pendulum on the inside that demonstrated the earth's rotation. I thought this was so cool! The pendulum itself was tied to the very top of the church, at the peak of the dome, and ran all the way down. I was actually able to see it shift just the tiniest bit, during the time that I was in there, which I thought was great. They also had a crypt in there and it was interesting to look at the plainness and the extravagance that existed in the same place.

Then we did some more shopping and walking, stopped for lunch, more shopping and walking, found a couple of parks, and then decided on getting dinner. The place where we went for dinner is something that I would never have imagined that I would have found in Paris or in Europe for that matter. We were having difficulty finding something open, so kept walking and then came across a diner that we spotted across the street. Now when I first saw this, I thought, "Well maybe it will be like an American Diner" but then quickly dismissed this as I thought it was a ridiculous thought and we were in Paris, why would they have a diner like that. I discovered upon arrival that my first intuition was in fact correct. It was like stepping into the Twilight Zone, we went from Paris to the United States just by crossing the threshold. They had American food, American drinks, music, posters, everything. I order a real A&W root beer, had the most amazing mushroom and swiss burger that I have ever had and enjoyed the taste of home. It was so awesome, I loved it! So after that little gemstone, we were exhausted from the long day and extremely filling meal that we had just consumed.

Day 4, we thought it would be good to just relax and enjoy the city. Which it turned out to be the perfect day for as it was beautiful outside. so we walked down by the Louvre, took pictures in front of the glass pyramid, walked through the park in leading to the Louvre and some of the interesting exhibits that were displayed there. Went to the obelisk, which was a really cool monument, and while there we saw someone arrive in a motorcade. Someone near the area said that it was the president of Chile, but we were never able to clarify this fact. Then we enjoyed a hot dog/Panini lunch in the park, Carly nearly got attacked by the birds because of the bread that she was giving to them and caught a metro to Montmartre.

At Montmartre we went up to Sacre Couer to start and saw the most amazing view of Paris. then we entered into the church and saw the beautiful paintings and alter which were truly magnificent. My favorite part about this place were the performers. We were able to sit on the steps in front of Montemarte and look out at Paris, while listening to live music being performed and watch the illegal vendors run from the police from time to time. (It was hilarious as you see these guys running through the crowd of people trying to get their things picked up while trying to be the first one away from the police I couldn't help but laugh.) The guy we stayed to listen to had a great stage presence, a good voice, and he even picked people out of the crowd from around the world to sing songs with him.

After listening to him we watched a soccer player do some tricks, which were unreal. he was standing on this platform about 4x4 or 5x5 feet and doing tricks and dribbling the ball then he decides to really wow us. He gets off of the platform, balances on the fence, jumps down and climbs up the light post that is at least 20 feet high and does not have anyplace to grip on as you are climbing up it, all while balancing the soccer ball on his head! I was astounded! Then he holds the ball on his foot and hangs on the light post with one and and swings around it. The strength and balance that were required for this task were unbelievable.

After this show we enjoyed some wine, went to the Moulin Rouge to take pictures. I was amazed by the line that was already there at least 2 hours before the show, after all these years, they still draw a line on a daily basis for their shows, which just amazes me. We then found an Australian Bar had a drink, then headed back to rest a little before our flight. However we were worried we weren't going to get back, because we didn't think we could fit on the subway! It was so packed there were people in every direction, we could hardly find a bar to hold onto and I swore if there were anymore people on there it wouldn't have mattered if there was a bar or not, because you wouldn't have moved anyway as we were sardines in there! This was a long journey which took me over 30 hours to get home and involved a lot of waiting, but it was okay, it could have been worse that is for sure! I did get to spoil myself when we arrived in Cluj, as I had to wait for my train because the only decent one was an overnight train. I was able to get a sleeper car though and rest, and while in Cluj I treated myself to a Starbucks and went to see a movie, which was really good and I really liked it. It was a good source of time killing. Then I went back to the station to wait and actually ran into someone from my old site who was heading back there. It was so random and I could not believe that I ran into her. So that was a big surprise. Then it was onto the train, and one more switch until I arrived back at my site. It was so good to finely be back here, where I understand the language and can sleep in my own bed. Now it is back to reality though, which is entirely alright, because it was a wonderful. This trip gave me experiences that I will never forget and created lifelong memories. I had so much fun and saw so many things and had so many experiences that can never be taken away from me. I am so thankful I had this opportunity and I look forward to creating more memories in the remainder of my service that I have left with the Peace Corps.

Well that should keep you all busy for a while, it sure took me a good chunk of time to write it!! I hope you are all doing well and having some adventures of your own. I miss you all very much and send you my love each and every day :)

Oh and if you have my current address, that is great but you no longer need to put my landlords name on the letter just my name and the address. It will find me just fine that way

Va pup

Va iubesc

Mi-a dor de voi

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So looks like my goal to get back into the swing of things is not working as well as I had hoped. I almost forgot again today, but remembered, so no worries.

Things have not been too interesting around here, just school mainly. We did have a pretty big project that was going on at school though, I was not a major part of it, but I was able to help out a bit. My school is involved in a bigger project through the European Union in which they are partnered with one school from Portugal, Spain, and Poland. Through this project they talk about implementing and sustaining project at their own respective schools. They check in with one another, and they help each other to succeed. So since they work together, they occasionally get together, which means that 8 representatives from these three schools came to our school. Since English is the common language, our language teachers and others who are proficient in English were busy translating everything. I was able to help with the fine tuning of the translations and to put little corrections to help the flow which was a really nice opportunity. In addition to this I was able to get to know the women that were here. I presented a little bit about the Peace Corps and what we do, the ladies were all very interested in Peace Corps and I think they were a little jealous for my school. Unfortunately for them, Peace Corps is not currently in service in any of the countries and out of the three PC has only been in Poland. From what it sounds like though, there English programs would really benefit from a volunteer, any native speaker not necessarily an American, and they are also open to new ideas. I hope that they can find a program that would allow them to have a volunteer of some sorts.

I was also able to take a trip into the mountains with them. We went to visit Peles castle and Bran, both of which I had been to in the past, but it was still nice to go again. I was actually able to help translate for them, so that was pretty neat. It was difficult as I am not fluent in Romanian but I get my point across so that is all that matters. They also had a goodbye dinner planned for them, which I was invited to, but unfortunately due to my outstanding ability to get colds, I had to stay home sick. So that is why this past week was not very exciting, as I spent most of it asleep or resting and trying to get over a cold. However I was introduced to a Romanian remedy that is very useful in getting rid of colds. My counterpart gave me some tuica (Plum brandy which is distilled and made entirely at home) which I then boiled with pepper and sugar. It was absolutely disgusting, but I slept great after that and my throat felt ten times better the next day. So now I am almost completely healthy, which makes me happy as next week I will be in Paris!

I can't believe that I am finally going to have the opportunity to go to Paris! I am so excited! I have always wanted to go to Paris, my entire life and now I finally have the chance. I will be there for 5 glorious days. I hope the weather is kind to us and I also hope that the leaves will be changing. I think that autumn in Paris would be spectacular to see. The colors of Autumn are truly a beautiful gift of nature. I am so thankful to see such beauty in this world.

Well that is about all that happened this week. There truly were no exciting experiences that happened over the last few weeks. I have just been getting adjusted to school and learning the students. I have some truly amazing students and in general they are really well behaved. Discipline is a big thing in the school and the kids are consistently reminded to adhere to this. The teachers are consistent and they do not let the kids rule them, it is the other way around at this school and I have to say that I like it. It is nice to see kids with respect, because when they respect me I have a great deal of respect for them and for their families as well.

Well I am off to do some projects and work on some information and plan for Paris! I hope you are all doing well and I miss you all very much. Take care and as always I send my love.

Va pup

Va iubesc

Mi-a dor de voi

~Pana mai tarziu

Sarah B.

So I made it through my first week at school alive! Yay! I think that overall it was a good week to. I was able to meet most of my new students and see where their classrooms are and who they are. Of course I really don't remember a whole lot about them right now, or very many of their names, but I am confident that by the end of the year I will know them. I will work very hard to get to know all of their names to. That is what attendance is for :)

So the school year started out just like any other year with an opening ceremony. The principle and vice principle gave a speech, as well as the parent's board, the police captain and the priest gave a blessing to the school. Oh and did I forget to mention, I had to make a short speech. I had known this ahead of time and prepared some things but I was still nervous. I decided not to read from the card that I had written and that turned out okay, but by the time I had finished my 15 seconds of speaking I was shaking from head to toe! Everyone is really friendly and all, but it is terrifying getting up in front of a large group of people, all who are looking at you funny because they know your the new American. Oh well it was just another experience and I lived through it.

This opening ceremony also involved some things that I had never seen before. First off I should explain that the school that I am teaching at requires uniforms. It is not a private school they just like the way the students look when they are all dressed in nice uniforms and look more respectable. So since they have uniforms they had a little "fashion show" for the kids. It was a really cute idea and the kids had a lot of fun with it and some of them did some really cute little "routines" on the "cat walk" :) Also this year they brought in some doves to release at the end of the ceremony. They had 10 in total which represents the highest grade that you can get, which I thought was a really cool idea. So other than that the first day was pretty uneventful and involved a lot of sitting around in school and chatting with my new colleagues.

So thus started the start of the school year, I met my classes and they asked me tons of questions about who I am and where I am from and what I like to do. So many questions and so difficult to answer the "What is your favorite_____?" questions when you don't have a lot of favorites. Oh well I guess that is good practice to get me to start thinking on the spot :) The kids are really advanced though, so I am looking forward to challenging them this year and seeing just how far they can go.

I am also going to be team teaching with some optional classes. Students are offered an optional class at my school and one of those is an optional English. We have 2 types of optional English, one of the 5th and 6th graders is a drama club. So we will learn the basics of acting together and at the end of the semester they will perform a play. The second optional English class for 7th and 8th graders is a movie club, they will learn about the basics of film making and we will watch and analyze movies together. We are not sure what we want to do for a presentation yet, but there has been talk of creating an alternate ending for a movie or creating their very own academy awards ceremony.

So also this week, in addition to meeting all my classes, I have been able to make some time for the kitchen. I have so far made a rice and vegetable casserole, a celery and bean soup, carrot cake and bagels. Yes that's right I said bagels from scratch. It took me an insanely long amount of time to make them and I am not sure if I will ever do it again, but the end result is pretty tasty. So I can say that I did make bagels from scratch at least once in my lifetime and it is nice to have the taste of bagels again after a very long break from them.

So that was my first week, eventful and relaxing and so far a great start to a new adventure. I am really liking it here so far and I hope that it stays that way, and with the support and great colleagues I have here I don't see that as a problem. Well as always I miss you very much and I hope you are all well. Take care of yourselves and keep me in your thoughts and prayers as you are always in mine :) Love you!!!!

Va pup

Va iubesc

Mi-a dor de voi

~Pana mai tarziu

Sarah B.

So I am finally able to sit down and get back into the swing of things. This summer did not provide me a lot of opportunity to sit and write blogs. Believe me I have wanted to, but I have been on the run all summer long. In addition to this I did not have steady access to the Internet, or to a computer as my laptop did not get back to me until my parents came to visit me. However that was alright as I saved a lot of money on shipping! Yay to that!

So let's see, since my last entry I participated in my 3rd and 4th of 4 camps this summer. Each one was different from the rest, which made it very interesting. My 3rd camp was held in the city of Onesti. It was a nice city and fun to see a different part of Romania, that was also in the Moldovan region. This camp I think was my favorite. The students were of high school age and had just about perfect English. It did not matter what task was given to them, they put a lot of energy and creativity into it which made it a great experience. We also had a barbecue at the end of the camp and we put an American spin on it. While it was traditional Romanian food (chicken, mici, tomato and cucumber salad, french fries, and fruit), I thought it would be fun to have a little contest. So we had some games that are traditionally played at barbecues in the United States. We had a 3-legged race, water-balloon toss, leap-frog race, scavenger hunt, potato sack race, and several more. The kids had a great time with it, and the prize was a homemade trophy filled with candy, which they thought was super cool :)

The forth camp was interesting and different as it was held at a cabin of sorts. The students were from a wide range of ages (1st-7th grades) and the surroundings provided interesting challenges. I was outside all the time and it was usually chilly and I was supposed to teach them English. I was not expecting these surroundings, but it ended up alright. We had fun and learned some new games and I think it was good in essence.

It was also interesting at the camp because it was in the mountains. So we would take hikes in the afternoon and we went to a couple of towns nearby. We went to a fortress and also to a waterfall, both of these provided quite a hike, but it was a fun time. Since it was in the mountains, it also happened to be very cold. Every night they started the heaters, thats right the heat was on in August! I couldn't believe how cold it was.

After that camp I went straight to my mid-service training in Sibiu. It was nice to be with friends again, and to see some of the other volunteers who I had not seen for a while. Then I visited with some friends and stayed in the Transylvanian region for a few days, from where I headed down to Bucuresti to meet my parents! That started the next adventure through Romania and Italy. I was able to take my parents to see 2 castles in Sinai and Bran, to see the older and traditional parts of Brasov and Sighisoara and to see some of the squares in Cluj. My favorite part however was our trip to Rome. We were able to see so many things there, including the Vatican and St. Peters, the National Museum and Forum, the Colloseum, The Spanish steps, Trevi Fountain. the Pantheon, St. Angelos Castle, and so many more things. We were able to go to some markets to do tourist shopping, and ate lots of pasta, pizza and gelato, and drank delicious Italian wine. While it was extremely hot, I feel it was better to be hot than rainy because at least we could go outside in the heat, whereas if it had been raining we wouldn't have been able to see as much. We were there for 5 days then came back to Romania for a few more and then sadly I had to say goodbye to me folks. While we fought like a typical family when they were here, it was still nice to be with them and extremely hard to say goodbye.

After I said goodbye I had to hurry my way back up north to pack my things up and move down south. That is right I was granted a sight change, and this year I am in a small city in southern Romania. The population is about 15,000 and is on the outskirts of the mountains, so it has some nice scenery. I am looking forward to starting a new and fresh year, and to meet new and interesting people. So far things are going really well and I have met a lot of great new people. I am very spoiled here so far, and have a very nice apartment. My favorite part however is the washing machine. At my last site I did not have one, and let me tell you washing clothes by hand is very tough, especially in the winter! I am more excited however by the school. The teachers are all so active within the school and I am looking forward to working with them and doing projects with them this year. I think I will be kept very busy, but I think it will be good, I work better under a little bit of pressure and if I always have something to do, I will get things done and I think that it will be a very productive and good year :)

So I think that is about all for now. I have given you all a good chunk to read. I will not get back into a schedule and will post every Sunday like I used to do. I felt bad not reporting all of the things that happened this summer, but circumstances prevented me from doing so. Now however I have my computer and steady access to the Internet so I no longer have an excuse not to update! I hope that everyone is happy and healthy and there are only good things to report. I miss and love all of you very much and will be home before you know it.

Va pup

Va iubesc

Mi-a dor de voi

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So I think it has been about 3 months since my last blog entry, well that would be because I have been super busy. So my last entry was a little bit whiney because of a bad week, so this one is going to be happier.

I have been super occupied all summer, but it has been in a good way not a bad way. I have so far worked at 3 camps, 2 with elementery aged children and one with high schoolers, I have visited 15 cities and I have a few more to go yet this summer. I have seen beautiful things, castels old churches, beautiful outlooks over the city, towers, museums, and much more. I have met interesting people from places including England, New Zealand and China. I have worked with new and interesting people with the camps. I have met children that are nothing but excited to learn from the strange but cool Americans :) It has been a very interesting summer so far and I am thouroughly enjoying every minute of it.

In these adventures I have been able to stay and see friends that I had not seen for a while, so in addition to seeing the sights, I was able to hang out with friends once again which is always nice. I have had some delicious home cooked meals, including ostrich and rabbit (that was only once), and was able to enjoy a glass of wine or a beer here and there with friends. It has really been great.

Also along the way I was blessed with the birth of my nephew, Fredrick Robert Henry Busse II, thankfully he is healthy and mom is doing well to. I can't wait until I will be able to hold him next year when I come home, but he won't be so little then!! My other two nieces are growing like weeds, everytime I see pictures or talk with them on Skype I can't believe how big that they are getting, they are just growing like weeds! Especially Josee, she is so tall now and has changed so much. Blair is also growing and is turning into quite the little swimmer from what I understand, I am so proud of everything that she has accomplished so far.

Let's see what else can I ramble on about. I will be going back to my site in a few days, just to leave yet again. I will prepare for another camp which will last a week, then go onto my mid service training, then hang around in the south for a few days and finally go to the airport to pick up my parents! I am so excited for them to come and visit me!!! I miss them so much. We are going to do some traveling around Romania, see the sites in Transylvania and then go to Rome for a few days. I am very excited to go to Italy, but more excited to see my parents and spend some much needed time with them. I am sure that once they get back they will have many stories to tell everyone and many adventures to share that were experienced along the way.

Well I think that is all for now, I know it was rather broad and vague, but the whole story would be way to long to write and could probably fill a book. I am looking forward to the rest of my summer and the experiences I have yet to have, it will surely be more of an adventure! :) I hope you are all doing well and I miss you all dearly. Less than a year and I will be home, hard to believe I have already been here for a whole year! I am sending you hugs and kisses!

Va iubesc!

Mi-e dor de voi!

Va pup!

~Until later

Sarah B.

Today I realized that exactly 1 year ago I began my adventure here to Romania. We left D.C. on the 28th of May and arrived about 30 hours later, on May 30th in Romania. We had an extremely long trip, full of jigs and jags, but if it would have been easy that would not have been any fun. Well needless to say this week matched and exceeded my difficult and long journey here. I don't like to complain, but I have had one heck of a week.

It all started on Monday, when I went to turn on my computer and it did nothing but beep at me with a black screen. So I took it into Botosani to get it looked at and they said that they could not look at it today, even though they said they were open, they failed to mention that there was no one there who could look at it when I called. So I left it there and then wondered around Botosani for a while. The day did turn out better however as I was able to see 2 of the other volunteers there and was able to spend time and talk with them, which is always something I like to do.

So this is how my week began, and let's just say it did not get better for a while. Tuesday came and I went to school and had 2 very bad classes. I then was finished and was able to go to my adult language class that I teach. I had some free time, so I was sitting on a bench and talking with a friend and a bird pooped on my head. So far not a good day! Now people say that a bird pooping on your head is good luck...well it did not bring good luck my way that day. So then I went inside and got cleaned up and decided to call and ask about my laptop. They told me they could not fix it because it was a problem with the keyboard and it is still under warrantee, so they promptly charged me 25 RON for doing absolutely nothing. So then I was so upset I went and bought minutes to call my family which did help me feel better, as it always does, but I did not end up teaching my class. The ladies that I teach were very understanding however and helped me immensely. I think I became a lot closer to one of them throughout this experience which is a blessing because I really enjoy talking to her. So I am still searching on how to get my computer back to either the US or to England or Turkey as there is a Best Buy store there as well. We shall see what we end up doing, I am sure it will work out it is just frustrating.

So just as you think the day could not get any worse, it finds a way. I came home to try to calm down and relax and figure out what to do exactly and I make myself some supper. About 3 hours later I become extremely sick, oh yes a case of food poisoning. I was up all night long, sick as a dog, and spent a majority of Wednesday lieing in bed and trying to regain some strength. Thankfully I am feeling 100% today, but Tuesday night I felt like I was going to be sick forever, and I hope that nobody ever feels like that. A little rest and water the next day did the trick and now I am back to resolving my problems.

So thus far the week has been better, I was able to borrow a computer from the school and I have connected the Internet as well. It took a while and 2 computers to get the Internet to work, but we got it to work. So now I can at least put up Yahoo messenger or Skype and talk to my family. So I am just glad that the week is over and I am hoping that next week brings more pleasant experiences. We shall see!

Let's see enough with the complaining. I came to an interesting realization today. I was helping some of my students today with an application they are filling out for a camp in Hungary, and was translating everything that they were saying with little difficulties. If someone were to say to me, "Sarah by this time next year, you are going to be advanced in Romanian and you are going to be able to translate simple to average texts from Romanian to English" I would have looked at them and said "You are absolutely crazy. Now, however, it is true. There are times when the language frustrates me, but I have learned how to communicate with indivduals, on a rather high proficiency level, in a year. Now I think that is something to be proud of! I am feeling a little nostalgic today, so we will also revisit the past a little. One year ago at this time I was in a hotel waiting to begin my adventure. I had no idea how close I would become to the people that I was going to spend the next 3 months with. I had no idea how strong and how quickly these relationships would form. I have formed an extremely close relationship with an indivudual whom I never would have befriended in the states, she is a great person, but I am pretty sure we would have never crossed each others paths, because we are both so extremely different. How was I to know that this person, who I did not even talk to in Washington D.C. would become one of my greatest friends. Here we however and I am very thankful to have her as a friend.

I remember when we were in Washington, and we all had a mixture of emotions. It was so great to finally meet people who were feeling the exact same things that I was. We were nervous, excited, anxious, emotional, concerned about communication, worried about the dogs, curious about the culture, and every other emotion you can put in there was most likely experienced by someone. When we finally did leave these emotions intensified, but did not become a reality for several more days as we were still kept together in a hotel. When we were separated however, things became real. Some of us faced problems, others did not, but one thing we had in common is that we all stayed strong and leaned on each other for support. This support was established so quickly, and so strongly and is very difficult to break and that feeling is something that I cannot explain in words. It is a bond that I have never felt before, but I am thankful for that bond and for having the opportunity to develop this unique connection.

Now here we are, 1 year later at our sites, preparing to end our first year of school. We endured the first few months at site, struggling with the language and different cultures. We trudged through the first school, some of us were experienced teachers, others of us (i.e. me) had to learn to teach in addition to learning how to communicate with the children. We endured a cold, cold winter, experienced the different ways of celebrating holidays, created our own Thanksgiving (thanks to the very hard work and hospitality of David and Veronica, and to Veronica's amazing cooking!) We have enjoyed the Romanian transportation system, sometimes it was pleasant, other times not so much. Most importantly we have learned the value of other cultures not by simply reading a book, but by living in the culture, which is an experience that is truly to be valued. This is something I have to tell myself often as it is very difficult to stay. I do love the Peace Corps and Romania, but there are times when I would rather be in the comfort of my parents home, living in a country where I know the language perfectly and can solve any problem at the drop of a hat without having to constantly seek assistance from others. Then again I know that if I left I would be extremely disappointed in myself and I know that some of my students would also be disappointed, so I will stay even though things are sometimes difficult, I know that it will be worth it in the end, because the influence I have and the things I will learn cannot be learned from a book and they will be lost if I do not complete this journey.

Well as you can see I am at the 1 year point when home-sickness is in full swing, I don't think the computer problems or food sickness helped either, but what are you to do. In a few weeks time I will be off traveling and in a few months time I will be seeing my parents and for that I cannot wait! Well I think that is about all for now, and my fingers are extremely tired, so I am going to do some other work that doesn't require so much typing. I hope I didn't bore you and I want to reassure you that I am fine, just had a tough week, but oh well that happens right. I am sure that it will all be resolved and it is not as bad as I think that it is. I hope you all have a fabulous Memorial Day weekend and that the end of the school year is good for all of you with kids. I am sending you all love, hugs and kisses!

Mi-a dor de voi!

Va iubesc!

Va pup!

~Pana mai tarziu

Sarah B.

Well not me per say, but all of the birds are having fun splishing and splashing in the puddles that are everywhere. Apparently May in Romanian means rain, rain and more rain. It is not April showers here, it is May showers bring June Flowers. It has rained everyday this week I believe and not just little sprinkles either. Today is particularly interesting. It will rain for an hour and then be sunny. Then rain for 15 minutes and then be sunny for 15 minutes, and the cycle continues. Oh well what are you going to do I guess.

So this week did not bring to many interesting things other than rain. The kids are all extremely anxious to get their vacation started, as are all of the teachers. The good thing is, I am basically done with the book, which makes me happy because now I can do whatever I want. The only problem is, I am so exhausted from the year, that I can't find the energy to come up with any good ideas. So if any of you have any good themed ideas let me know!! :)

The 8th graders at my school had their second exam this week - Math - yuck! It was never my strong subject, but I am sure that they all did well and I do know that it is an important subject. So that led me to have 2 fewer hours than normal, which was very much so alright with me, and ascension was also celebrated this week on Thursday. So the kids went to a celebration which also resulted in 2 less hours for me, which I was also alright with :) So I had yet another lazy week, which doesn't help my Spring Fever. Oh well just 4 more weeks and then freedom. I think I am going to take a nice little trip and hopefully see some friendly faces that I have not seen for a while :)

Oh I am also going to be helping out at a summer camp this year in Timisoara, I just found out my responsibilities. I have to come up with 4 70 minute sessions to entertain and educate the kids with. Two for younger kids and two for older kids. I am a little nervous as they are long time slots and a wide range of students. I am sure it will be fine, just coming up with the ideas might prove to be a bit of a challenge. At least I will get to see some more of Romania, which is always a plus! :)

My energy level for writing is very low today. Sorry folks, but one more thing, yesterday was my counterpart (Mona's) birthday and I never realized how many people I know born on May 15th. The count is now up to 5, 2 from college, 1 from a former work place, 1 PC volunteer friend, and my counterpart. The middle of may must be pretty awesome, so kudos to you all for having an awesome birthday.

That is about it for today, nothing much exciting happened this week. I hope that you are all doing well and that the end of Spring is bringing you joy and making you anxious for summer. I miss you all and am sending you hugs from across the ocean. Take care and I hope you have a great week!

Mi-a dor de voi!

Va pup!

Va iubesc!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So I would like to start off this blog to say Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's out there, not just to my wonderful mother. Without you we would not be where we are today and we are all so thankful that you are in out lives. Even though sometimes it may not seem that way, we truly are thankful. Now a shout out to my Mom. I love you so much, you have supported me my whole life and I am so thankful for you each and every day. You have been my rock for so long, along with Dad, and I am so thankful to have you as a part of my life. Without you I would have never been able to go to college, study something that I love, travel to Romania, or be a kind person. You have shaped me to be who I am and I am so grateful everyday. Thank you for always sticking by my side and never ever giving up on me, even though I wanted to give up on myself. You are amazing and I want you to know that not just today but everyday.

Alright now that we are all a little misty eyed, let's talk about my week. It was a fairly uneventful week, just the normal school. The week was a little bit shorter, I was freed from 3 classes because the 8th graders had to take a big test in Romanian. So the 8th graders from the surrounding villages came to our town, because it is the easiest to get to and has the biggest school. The test consisted of a 2 hour written test in Romanian, so they commandeered the school for that time frame. This test is very important for the kids because it says whether they will pass or not, and can influence their chances of getting into a decent high school. I cannot imagine being put under that kind of pressure. I mean we had standardized test when I was in grade school, but it was never the type that decided whether you would pass or fail the last 8 years of your education. I know that they have been trying to institute a high school graduation test in my state for a while and thankfully in my time it was not instituted as I am not a fan in the least of tests. I hope that all of the students did well, and with all of their preparation for Romanian throughout the year I am sure that they did fine. Next week they have another test, this one in Math. So it is not just one big test and your done, they have to take 2 big tests. After that it will be a little bit more relaxed for them. So I am sure that will help.

This week was a little bit difficult. It is so hard to keep the kids interested in what is going on inside, because the weather is really nice, so they just want to be outside the whole time. I am so happy that I am almost through the books, so then we can just have a little bit of fun in the last few weeks. Or so I hope we shall see.

I am also running into a problem with some of my students. They see me as more as a friend than a figure of authority. While this is not a problem with my 7th and 8th graders as they know better, it is a problem amongst the smaller kids. While some of the smaller kids can balance the two, those are few and far between. They always want me to come outside and play with them, but I notice that if I do so, the respect in the classroom is reduced greatly. While I want to encourage to my kids that I am an approachable person, I don't want them to think that they can do whatever they want in the classroom whenever they want to do so. It is a very fine line, and it breaks my heart to see how sad some of them are when I tell them that I can't come out and play with them, but at the same time I know that if I do there will be problems with some of the other kids in the classroom. This will not only make it difficult for me, but also for the kids who want to learn in school. I will take this one bridge at a time and we shall see how everything works out.

So I think that is about it. I don't really have any interesting or fun stories to tell this week, it was a little bit dull I guess. Oh well, not every week can be exciting right :) Well I hope that everyone is doing well and that you are having beautiful weather. I here that there was a possibility of snow in Wisconsin, after the Tornado touched down in Appleton. You just have to love how much the weather changes for us there. Only in Wisconsin can it be above 70 and snow all in the same week! Well at least we are rarely bored with the weather! I love you all and I miss you everyday. I wish you nothing but happiness and health this week and send you tons of hugs and kisses! Take care this week!

Va iubesc

Va pup

Mi-a dor de voi

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

I cannot believe it is already May! Last year at this time, I was freaking out because I knew I would be leaving for Romania in less than 4 weeks, and now I am here and I can't believe it has been a year since I felt that way. In 25 days I will have been in Romania for exactly one year. This past year has brought many ups and downs, I have met many interesting people and I have experienced many interesting things. Needless to say it has been an abnormal year, just because if I was still in the States, I would guess that I would probably still be were I was, but hopefully on a track towards graduate school. I am still looking into graduate school and have 3 schools on my list and should probably find a 4th just to be safe. None of these schools require the GRE so I am probably not going to take it. This could come back to cause a problem, but I do not have the time or energy to study for this standardized test, at least not now. Maybe I will change my mind in a month or so, or if enough people tell me it is silly not to take it, but as for now my decision is to shy away from it. We will see how that pans out for me.

So while I should be preparing things for school, I cannot concentrate and since I am a day late on my posting I figured I would do this instead. I did not get a chance to update yesterday because I spent the entire afternoon at the "forest" i.e. the woods with some friends. It was so lovely, the weather was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful and I just enjoyed the fresh air. I was exhausted however when I got home so I pretty much just went straight to bed! I slept really well though with all of that fresh air. I also went to the woods on Saturday with some other friends, each day we had a delicious barbecue! I love food cooked over an open flame and hopefully we will go for another barbecue next week as well. We played some cards when we were there, the guys played backgammon, and we even played a little soccer. I am terrible at soccer but it was fun to play.

So in terms of our transportation out there, it was normal transport on Sunday, but Saturday left something to laugh at. There were 6 of us going out there and we needed a car to go in. So one of my friends called someone in town, and he came to pick us up, not in a van, but in a car with a covered cab in back. So therefore if you don't have seats in the car, you make them in the cab from blankets and tires. Seeing as I was the oldest in the particular group and the American, they let me ride up front in the regular seat. I tried to get a picture of it, but they all jumped out to fast and I didn't get a chance to get any good ones. I couldn't believe it when I saw it and it still makes me smile when I think about it! :) Then on the way back I again got the front and the youngins piled 5 people into the back of a Dacia, needless to say there is not much room in the back of a Dacia!

So that was basically my weekend, relaxing outside and going for long walks, and enjoying the beautiful weather. My week at school was not too exciting. I taught, the kids were rambunctious, I came home to chill, and I prepared for class. We did a lesson on fairy tales for the English club that I started and that turned out pretty well and next week we are going to write our own fairy tale. I hope that the kids come with their creative juices because I know that they have them! We shall see. I think that this next week will begin the start of practicing our English play that we will put on at the end of the semester. It might turn into something pretty big...or so I hope because these kids are crazy talented in many things, they just don't always know it :)

Well I think that is all that I have for today, I better start preparing for school and thinking about what I am going to do with the kids later this week. Oh the fun of lesson planning, it just never ever stops! Hopefully next year it will be a little bit easier. Who knows! :)

I miss you all like crazy and think about you all the time. I hope that the weather is being friendly to you and that you are all happy and healthy! Just think in about 15 months I will be coming home, every 4 posts we lose a month! Just wait before you know it I will be saying that I will be home in 6 months! Stay happy and healthy everyone! Love you!

Va iubesc!

Mi-a dor de voi!

Va pup!

~Pana mai tarziu

Sarah B.

So this week was another short one, which is always nice for me :) We did not have school on Thursday because the teachers were on strike again, because of the problems with the pay and the insurance of a job for next year. I feel so bad for the teachers because they are having so many problems with salaries and whatnot, I am very fortunate to not be feeling these effects because I cannot imagine what I would do in their situation. However that did lead to another shortened week for me :) The strike was on Thursday and I do not have classes on Fridays so I only had three days this week. I don't know what I am going to do next week, I have a full schedule, which has not happened for the past three weeks! Oh well, I need more to keep me busy and motivated, it is good for me :)

So I have officially started a project. It is going to be long and difficult, but I think that it will be good for the community as does the community. We are going to be putting on a play for the community. So far this includes 4 short Romanian plays and 1 short English play. I will be going to the students on Monday and picking them out for their parts. I will be picking the most advanced students in English, but I am also hoping to pick a few that try really hard for some of the smaller parts. It is going to be hard to decided, because I think that all of the kids have potential. So we are going to put this play on and then charge people that enter a small entrance fee of 1 or 2 lei. This money will then go to the 25% that is needed for a grant that we will apply for. In addition to this hopefully we will be receiving some money from the mayor's office to fully meet this percentage. This money will then be used to purchase and install an asphalt soccer/play area for the kids. Here for physical education and for soccer at the elementary level they play it on a hard surface. While this still is a foreign concept to me, and I myself cannot do it because it kills my legs, they really do need it for their school to make the physical education program better for the kids. Maybe I can even teach them games like Hop scotch and 4-square when it is finally installed. This is the initial idea and I know with hard work and perseverance it can be obtained. The students also seem to be really excited about the play, so hopefully that energy continues until the end of the semester.

Let's see what else did this week bring. Oh I went into Botosani to go to a festival there. This weekend was a big holiday you might say, it was sfantal gheorge (Saint George) which is an important day for the Romanian Orthodoxes (the biggest religion here) and it was also Botosani's birthday for lack of a better word. So they had lots of stands available to buy things, tons of food, traditional dances (which I actually did not get a chance to see :( and live music. I stayed with another volunteer there and we went to see Bad Boys Blue. It was a band I have never heard of, but they were apparently popular in the early 80s (before me time!) and they actually did have a lot of good music. So it was fun to listen and dance and hang out with friends. I had a nice time there :) Apparently the festival was all weekend, so I am sure that Botosani was a happening place all weekend!

Now however I am back to the grindstone, lesson planning, studying Romanian, cooking, picking out students for the English play and I will probably be starting the SPA grant work next week. So I will hopefully be a busy bee, and hopefully the Internet will not be too much of a distraction for me! I love having the Internet here it is fabulous, but it sure sucks me in really quickly. It is a good source of distraction when I am trying to avoid doing an undesirable task. That should be a new resolution for me, more productive work and less play!

On a positive note, I have been doing better with getting more exercise. I try to walk about 4 kilometers a day, and I have been succeeding with that. I took a break yesterday, but I will be back to work today with the walking. I have already had a fairly productive morning with lesson planning, and will be doing my Romanian lesson shortly. I was slacking on the Romanian for a while but am now teaming up with my neighbor. We are hard at work on grammar, which is my week spot. I never know how to end the words, because that is where they but the ownership, plural and the words. Oh and they are normally irregular, so it is just memorization for me! Yipee! Oh well if I keep working hard I will eventually get there, and in time it will just start to click...or so I hope!

So I think that is about it for the week. I wish I had something else interesting to say, but due to a short week, with little excitement I think that is about it. I hope that the weather is treating you well and that you are all able to enjoy Spring. It is warmer here, but so dusty and when it is windy it makes it very difficult to be outside! However I am happy that the snow is gone! I miss you all a lot, and always feel free to send me an e-mail if you want to talk more or tell me some exciting news, I love hearing from you and I promise I will respond! Or you can always get Skype and we can schedule a time to chat :) I always like that! Alright well Happy Sunday everyone and I hope that this week brings you smiles and cheer!

Va iubesc

Va pup

Mi-a dor de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So after a long and nice 2 week vacation I have to go back to work tomorrow. I suppose it is about time, I mean that is why I am here in the Peace Corps, to teach English, but it is sure nice as it is in any job to have a little break from time to time. It wasn't all fun and games the whole time though. I did have a week of pure relaxation, but last week I was at a conference in Sibiu. The conference really did have a lot of interesting and useful information. It was about encouraging healthy behaviors in youth, but it wasn't just limited to eating healthy, it also focused on pollution, vandalism, reducing your risk for HIV/AIDS and basically anything that would gear to helping a youth grow up to be a better person. One thing that we would like to focus on here at my site is encouraging the youth to spend less time on the computer and more time playing outside, spending time with friends and reading and doing homework. So I guess that means we should lead by example and I don't even want to tell you how much time I spend on the computer each day. All I know is that it is way to much, and it is not always for communication and researching...all too often it is for entertainment purposes. I would like to start a once a week activity with my students where we all get together and play a game for about an hour, maybe on Saturdays. I think it would be cool to have a cross cultural exchange, one week they can teach me a game that they play here and then the next I can teach them a game that I used to play in the states when I was little. So if you all have any suggestions for fun phy ed type games I am all ears!

So there is not to much to say about the conference, it was a lot of sessions and then afterwards we were able to spend time with one another. Which was really nice because I don't always get to see people from my group. My site is a little hard to get in and out of, and if I go anywhere it has to be for a weekend and generally on the weekends I am lesson planning and I have an adult English class, but from time to time I make up for it during the week and we skip the adult lessons or change the date. So it was nice to see some of the people, especially those who are really far away from me, for example in the southern part of the country or in the far northwestern part, because we have this little thing called the Carpathians separating us :)

Also I received some potentially good news this weekend! I am trying really hard to instill the idea of fundraising in my community. They want to put some asphalt behind the school so that the kids have a soccer/handball court to play on and so that it is just something better than dust to have their phy ed on. So my idea is to have a play at the end of the semester, but not just one big play, but rather several small plays so that everyone in the school can participate. Then the parents and other relatives can come to see the play if they want, and either they can give a donation or we can charge 2 or 3 lei for a ticket. This way I can show them that when a lot of people work together and they give a small amount it really does have the potential to go a long way. So I brought this idea up in my student council, and it did not go so well. We have some money left over from the Halloween party and they said we will just offer that to the mayor and then he can cover the rest. I also should add that we are applying for a SPA grant and in order to be accepted we have to prove that we have 25% of the funds first. This is really hard for me to accept because I feel like I am not doing my job here. Maybe I am being a little stubborn and selfish, but my idea of the Peace Corps purpose is that we are supposed to provide and instill ideas that will continue on after we leave. If we just ask the mayor to cover the rest, and receive the SPA grant, they will have the opportunity to apply for a SPA grant after I leave, because it is something generally found through the Peace Corps. I just want to encourage them that if their community works together they can achieve things, and they don't have to wait for someone to hand things to them, they can go and get it themselves and I think that is more satisfying in the end. I did find someone who agrees with what I want to do, and she happens to be the directors wife. She really seems to like my idea and seems to want to work with me, so we will see what happens. So please keep your fingers crossed, and hopefully I am not posting this prematurely! We shall see and only time will tell and I will let you know how things evolve. So with that I would like to end on a happy not and share with you some of my favorite stories that have happened here at Peace Corps, that I myself have experienced, or have heard through the grapevine.

1.) This actually happened this week at the training. There was a bit of miscommunication over dinner and I ended up missing everybody by a little bit for dinner, so I had nobody to eat with. Not a big deal or anything so I just went to the store and bought some bread and cheese and a few veggies to eat on a park bench. So I found a place to sit, and once I was finished I was going to call some friends and meet them somewhere. However my plan did not work out quite as I planned, because these friends ran into me eating my bread and cheese on a park bench as they say like a homeless woman. Needless to say I was rather embarrassed, but picturing me on that bench I am sure it was a site to see. I endured some ridicule, but it was all in good fun, and just another story to remember here.

2.) My second story is from my very first day at my site. So I arrived at around 8:30 in the morning after a night train, in which I did not sleep well, and I had not slept well the night before either. So I was going on about 8-10 hours of sleep covered over the past 2 or 3 days. My friend Ionut picked me up from the train station and then informed me that we were going to be going on a picnic a little bit later. I thought okay, a picnic in the afternoon I will rest for a little bit then I can handle a few hours outside on a picnic...or so I thought! Well we left early in the afternoon, and 6 hours later we were still there, at one point I actually fell asleep on the grass and woke up with a bunch of cows surrounding me! I laughed to myself because of my exhaustion, but then after about 8 hours on the picnic we went home. So I was introduced to the Romanian concept of a picnic, all in good fun though.

3.) This one has to deal with a case of mis-speaking, and before you assume no it was not me! So we had been in Romania for about 2 or 3 weeks at this time. We still did not know much about anything especially the language, but we all liked to go to the terraces after school and have a beer or two. So one of our volunteers was trying to be nice and let someone else out from the table, but he tripped over a backpack, feel into a fence and broke it! The staff saw this and came over to ask what was happened. So the waiter says to the volunteer in English "What happened?" and our volunteer responds with "Imi pare bine" which means "Nice to meet you" instead of "Imi pare rau" which means I'm sorry. We still do not let him forget about this event and it makes me giggle still!

4.) I have a student who is in the 4th grade, he is ridiculously adorable and sometimes quite the little troublemaker, but I have a hard time being angry with him. A few weeks ago he asked me for a book in English, I told him I would look when I had the time, and see what I could find. About a week later he asked me if I had looked, and I had accidentally forgotten, so I told him, "You know Daniel, I am old and sometimes old people forget things, but I will write it down and I will look for you this week." He accepted that and then when we were walking into the school after our lesson outside, he proceeded to hook his arm around mine as we were walking into the school, so I said "Daniel, what are you doing?" and he responded with "Your old I am helping you." I struggled greatly to hold back the laughs and couldn't help but think, man this is a smart kid. Sometimes these kids just make me smile, and on down days I just need to think of them!

5.) Finally a short one I heard through the grapevine. I have some friends who smoke here and one of my friends shared his story with my about mis-speaking. So we have to words here that for us can be a little bit easier to mix up as we are not native Romanian speakers, tigare - cigarette and tigan - gypsy (but it is not a very nice word). So my friend was buying cigarettes one day and accidentally asked for tigan, while the cashier didn't think it was so funny it made me and him laugh because he had asked to buy a gypsy essentially instead of a pack of cigarettes, oh the things that we say sometimes that are completely wrong, just make me smile!

So those are my 5 fun stories after what I realized is a ridiculously long post, sorry if I have bored you. However, know that I love and miss you all and think of you everyday! I hope you are all doing well and that mother nature is being nice to you and allowing Spring to grace you with her presence! I think of you all everyday and I am sending you all hugs and kisses!

Va iubesc!

Va pup!

Mi-a dor de voi!

~Pana mai tarziu

Sarah B.

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Easter and were able to spend it with family and friends and didn't forget the true meaning of Easter :) My first Easter in Romania was wonderful! Easter is even bigger than Christmas, and like Christmas they have celebrations and traditions that are different and fabulous. To start out there is a mass cleaning, it is basically Spring cleaning. People in Romania clean their houses from top to bottom until they are spotless. Now you have to remember that the houses here are already very clean, but they do a super clean before Easter. I asked why this is so right around Easter and the explanation that I received was that if you greet Easter with a clean house then a nice Easter will ensue. I thought that was really beautiful and interesting.

So to go along with the tradition I decided to clean my apartment. While it wasn't as well cleaned as other places I was pretty proud of myself, and it took my quite some time. As many of you may know, I hate cleaning, I do not like to do it at all! If I am at a place of work I don't mind cleaning because I am getting paid for it, but at home I do not like it at all. So even though my place is still small, it took me about 4 hours to clean, not fun, but the end product was really nice :)

So the festivities begin here before Easter actually. It was raining unfortunately so it wasn't as interesting as it normally is I guess but I still thought that it was really interesting. For one thing they have a sort of bonfire in the fields. There are usually many of them, upwards to 20 or 30 I guess that you can see from the bridge in the center of town. These bonfires are started from tires. Yes you read it right tires, while the smell is not so pleasant and it is dark so you can't see the insane amount of black smoke. The really interesting part, and not so safe I am sure is the spinning of the tires. So some of the guys take a cable and tie it around a tire, then they stick this tire into the fire and wait for it to catch on fire, they usually wait until it is going really good. Then the proceed to drag it outside of the circle of people and spin the cable around their heads so that the flaming tire is flying in a circle around them. It is a super cool thing to see and I was very impressed by it and I am looking forward to seeing it again next year!!!

So then after the bonfires we headed to the church. There is like a midnight mass that happens and it is really quite beautiful. Everyone is gathered with candles in which they receive the light from inside the church, the priest comes out and does the blessing, then everyone proceeds to the cemetery to put their candles by their family plots. The really challenge is getting there without having your candle go out...needless to say I did not make it all the way there with a flame...I tried but it was still interesting to be part of that cultural experience and very beautiful as well.

So that brought us to Easter Sunday. I have to admit it was a little odd not to be getting up at 5 AM and heading to the Sunrise service at my church and seeing my Dad and sometimes brother off to help with the Easter breakfast and then going to the school gym to enjoy a nice breakfast with family and friends of my congregation but I had a nice substitute. I did not go to any church services as they were all held the night before, and I could not make it up that late. Some people stay up until around 4 in the morning...and I just could not do that. I went over to a family's house that I greatly enjoy spending time with and we had a lovely dinner along with Tory, the former volunteer that was here before me. We had lamb, sarmale, salata beof, beets with horseraddish, garlic, eggs, mamaliga, I tried racitor and delicious deserts along with wine, coffee, and of course tuica! So this racitor that I mentioned is something that I am not a fan of in the least but it is a traditional dish here especially for holidays. What it consists of is basically meat in a gelatin and I tried it and hated it the texture was terrible and it was extremely salty and I could not handle it. Fortunately since Tory was here before me there was not to much hope that I would like it because it is not a dish that Americans generally like because it is so different than anything that we have in the states. The salat beof is actually quite delicious though, it consists of mushrooms, carrots, potatoes, eggs, mayonnaise, mustard and garlic all combined together and it is very tasty! Also I had lamb for the first time, and it is yummy! I was a fan, it is sad that it has to be a little baby that we are consuming, but it may be even more sad that it is so tasty...not sure but I enjoyed it, especially with the garlic.

So they also have a game with the Easter eggs. You have to knock the Easter Eggs together and whoever has the uncracked egg wins and it is supposed to be good luck...sort of like the wishbone that we have. It was interesting and I won one side and lost the other side. I am hoping to win more next year! We shall see what happens!

So then I decided to go see some friends in Suceava yesterday, which was really nice and I actually witnessed another really interesting Easter tradition which is the bringing of the food to the cemetery the day after Easter. What it basically was, was that people would bring a picnic lunch to the cemetery and eat it there and I think that they may also leave some food there for the individuals that have passed. It is part of the Orthodox tradition and I wish I could have went into the cemetery to see it, but I was on a bus. It was very interesting to see the scores of people that were in the cemetery and all of the cars, it almost looked like it could have a been a funeral, but there were people at just about every plot, as a part of the Easter tradition.

So that brings me to the close of my first Easter in Romania. I may be a little bit late on my next post as well, as I am not sure how exciting this week is going to be as I am on vacation and I will be going out of town next week as well to a conference in Sibiu, a very beautiful and historical city in Romania. So it may be a bit, but don't worry I will post!! :)

I hope you all are doing well and that the Lord brought you a pleasant Easter and you were reminded of all the good things that are in your life. I am thankful everyday for all the blessings that I have, but more than anything I am thankful for the wonderful people that I have been blessed with (hint this is especially for you reading this blog!) I have so many wonderful friends and family and I am thankful for you each and everyday! I hope that Spring is coming to you as well, and that the sun is shining more and bringing pleasant weather. Take care and remember to smile today!! :)

Va pup

Va iubesc

Mi-a dor de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So spring has finally sprung, the snow is gone, the winds are here and it is raining! It was not the thunderstorm that I was hoping for, but rain is rain, now maybe there won't be as much dust outside!

The wind has been absolutely crazy here. I think that if I went outside with an umbrella yesterday I would have been able to fly just like Mary Poppins! I tried to go for a walk yesterday, my goal has been to do about 2 miles a day and this goal is very attainable. There is a road that I enjoy walking down because there are not a lot of houses which leads to less people staring at me as I am walking down the side of the road, as exercise is a fairly foreign subject here. I was fine when I was in town, but as soon as I left town and entered the country side, there was no more protection from the wind. I felt as if I looked like a mime who is pretending to move a very heavy object, except I was not pretending! I was attempting to walk into I would say about 30 mph winds and it wasn't working so well. So yesterday the stat was Weather - 1, Sarah - 0. So I tried again today, the wind had died down, and it was a little overcast, but I wanted to go before the rain came. While I was on my walk the rain decided to come, I got a little bit further than yesterday, but again the stat stands at Weather - 2, Sarah - 0. I am hoping to beat it tomorrow when I try again! Oh the weather will not deter me, I want to enjoy the outside now that it is not freezing cold!

So other than the change in weather there is not to much going on this week. I had a rather unpleasant Monday with one class, but I am hoping that turns around this week. We shall see when I let them know what the consequences of their actions are. I hope that will encourage them to behave better...for some it may do nothing, but for others it may work. If I can influence one child to choose a better path, that is a success in my eyes. I just have to remember that when all the other ones are driving me crazy! ;)

This week my dear darling brother celebrated his birthday, now I have to wait another 300 and some days to remind him that he is temporarily not older than me. Oh the fun times I have with that! If you are reading this big bro, I hope you had a great birthday and I will be home to celebrate with you in 2012! Sorry I missed the big 25, but I will be home for 27 and for the later ones, and after 30 it is all downhill anyway so I will be there to witness that spectacular event ;) Just kidding I know you will be awesome for another 50 some years!

Also my Mom and Dad will be celebrating their anniversary this week! They have been married for 26 years! Yay Mom and Dad! Sorry no party this year Mom and Dad, I think after the money spent on last year's party and present and the fact that I am half way across the world will put a stop to that! Just think though maybe you will get another awesome party for your 30th anniversary! Just stay married for another 4 years! :) Just kidding again, I admire my parents so much, they have had such a great marriage (in my opinion and I hope in theirs too!! ;) They raised me and my brother in a great environment and always showed us a great example of love, communication and family importance. Mom and Dad you made me and Fred who we are today and I thank you for that! You rock!! As you can see March is a busy busy month for our family, but I wouldn't have it any other way!!

Well I know that is a short entry...but that is about all I have for today. I have to try to change my sleeping schedule because daylights savings time just hit us! So now my body is a little off, but I am sure I will recover just like we all do every year when the clocks change!! :) I hope that Spring is finding you all well and that flowers and trees are starting to bloom and decorate the landscape that is emerging after a long cold winter. I also hope that the Easter Bunny treats you well, but also while you are enjoying your sweets, ham dinners, and hard-boiled eggs that we do not forget the true meaning of Easter and why we are celebrating it. We are truly blessed everyday and I know I am thankful for every blessing that you all have and the ones that I have as well!

I love and miss you all and hope that your week is full of sunshine and the beautiful melodies of the songbirds. Enjoy your week and I hope the weather is nice enough to permit you to go outside and enjoy Mother Natures miracles!

Voi iubesc

Mi-a dor de voi

Va pup

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So this week was a little more interesting than the last, I have been feeling better and now I am another year older and also until Tuesday my brother Fred and I are the same age! So for 2 more days he cannot claim that he is older than me! Woohoo! I am an equal :) I used to pick on Fred so much when we were younger during these 5 days, because I would not let him claim that he was older than me, because we were the same age! I also loved the story mom used to tell us, I guess that Fred (or me) not really sure which, used to ask why we were the same age, so mom would tell us "Well, Sarah is a new 5, and Fred, you are an old 5 and soon you will be a new 6." I think that is just adorable, and that makes me realize how I have such a smart mama!

So the beginning of this week was pretty normal, and pretty slow. I stole one of my friends techniques for discipline in the classroom and we will see if it works. My students were being really loud so I made them write sentences over and over again until the end of the hour. They did not like it to much, but I hope that encourages them to quiet down...I don't know we shall see.

So most of my week started from Wednesday on. I had a bunch of St. Patrick's Day lesson plans, all of which worked really well. My students had to write how they would catch a leprechaun and what their wishes would be as well as what they would do with the pot of gold. I was really impressed with their creativity! One group said they would have a girl leprechaun who would lure him into the pub and then they would catch him, another group said they would invite him over for a dinner and then put sleeping pills in his food and once he was asleep they would tie him up. It made me laugh so hard. I was really impressed with their answers for the use of the gold however, I think that 5 out of the 6 groups said that they would donate their gold to orphans, which I thought was really sweet of them! So then after that I went home and baked my goodies for the next day. I decided on Apple Crisp and Brownies. In addition to this I also had ice cream to go with both of the goodies because brownies and apple crisp are always better with ice cream!

That brings me to Thursday, the best day of the year, because that was the day that 24 years ago I was brought into this world! It was actually a really great birthday. I wasn't sure how it was going to be, but it was just a perfect first birthday in Romania. My day started off (and remained) great, I came to school a little bit early so I could make sure that I had everything that I needed for my treat for the day and was able to talk to the teachers for a little bit before class. Then I had to go up to my first class, by myself, which is normal because it is difficult for my counterpart to get there right on time due to transportation. I saw one of my kids in the hall and he went sprinting into the classroom, which isn't abnormal, so I didn't think anything of it. When I got into the classroom however, I knew that something was up because there was only one student in there, and I could not see anymore of my kids, even though I knew that I had seen one of them go running in there. As I went further into the room I could see them behind the desk, and then they all popped up and sang Happy Birthday to me. I think it was the cutest thing I had ever seen and I was impressed that they had remembered that it was my birthday as they were only 4th graders and I had only mentioned it once to them last week. So the day continued on and then the teachers decided that they needed to buy me a present so they got me this really nice red purse, and as many of you know, I love purses! So that was also a really nice surprise. Then I went out to a family's house, someone that I really like to visit a lot and they made a really nice dinner for me and a cake and they had a candle for me and sang to me as well it was really nice. After that I went to Botosani to hang out with my counterpart and we had a few drinks and just hung out for a while. It was a really nice birthday :)

So then that brings me to the weekend, where I was a traveling :) I went to Bacau which is a city in Romania that is about 3-4 hours south of where I am. I went to visit another volunteer there because she is going to be leaving in about 4 weeks because here 2 years will be done with. So I raided her apartment for things that she is not going to be taking with her and also was able to spend some time with some friendly volunteer faces again. We had a great dinner of Tacos and then on Saturday I got another cake, a carrot cake and was sung to again. It was so nice and it was a delicious cake with homemade cream cheese frosting, which as we all know is just downright delicious! So we just hung out and had a good time, had a few drinks, made some good food, went dancing, went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3-D, and enjoyed the beautiful weather of the weekend. It was really nice and the traveling was really easy to, the bus back was a little tricky to catch as it was late and went to a different line at the station, but I made it on and made it back in time to get my lesson planning done, do some organizing, update my blog and talk to my dear brother for a while. So all in all the week was really nice, and now I am looking forward to closing up this blog and relaxing for a while :) I hope everyone is doing well and that Spring is peeking its head out for you as well. I also hope that Spring will decide to emerge and the nice weather will stay for good! I don't know about all of you but I am done with the cold weather and am ready to move onto sunshine and enjoying the outside! I love and miss you all and wish all the best for you in everything that you do!

Va iubesc

Va pup

Mi-a dor de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So I am pretty sure this post is going to be pretty dull. Sorry if the title is misleading! :) I did not do a whole lot this week as I had a doozie of a cold. I had not felt that under the weather in quite some time! I even stayed home from school one day, but could only stay home one day because my counterpart also had a rough week in which she had a funeral to attend so someone had to be at school. My worst day was Wednesday I think, and that was when I had to go to school. I could not stand up without feeling dizzy so I actually had my 8th graders do all the writing for me. They thought that it was amusing and I just dictated from the chair what they were to write :) I was thankful that I was with my group 1 kids that day, because that made it possible for me to stay seated and they would do as I said and help me out.

I am slowly starting to feel better, which is a relief. I have more energy and I am hoping that I can start going on my daily walks again soon. The weather became cold again so that prevented it, and then I came down with this nasty cold and that further prevented it, but I think that if I can get back into the swing of things and get some daily exercise that will help.

I wish I had some funny stories to tell this week, but unfortunately I have none. Oh wait I do have one. I was listening to NPR's "Wait, Wait, don't tell me" (which is a hilarious show!) and I was surprised to hear Romania's name on it! Of course it was for something silly, which I just loved because Romania has a very interesting personality (for me as an outsider at least). So apparently there was a mayor in a small town near the Hungarian border who noticed a problem and decided to put up street signs to help control the problem. "What are on these street signs?" you may ask, well they consist of a man on his hands and knees caring a bottle with the words "Attention drunks". Apparently there has been several accidents in which drunk individuals crawl out into the road and pass out there, or walk out in front of oncoming traffic, and it has resulted in many problems. Since there is not much that they could do about the incoherent pedestrian population, they decided to address the driving population. The sign is hilarious, and I do hope that it helps the problem! :)

Other than that not too much to report here. I am looking forward to being another year older this week...it sure did come fast! I will be making some goodies for my fellow teachers at school and I am hopeful that they will enjoy them! :) I don't have a whole lot planned for my birthday, as it is in the middle of the week, but I will go visit a family here that I greatly enjoy spending time with and then over the weekend I am going to visit another volunteer and we will hang out and have some fun :)

This week I will also be talking to my director about a project that I would like to begin. I am hopeful that he will like it and if he does then I will tell you more about it, but I don't want to jinx it before it even gets started. That is about all for this week I think. I hope everyone is doing well, and that the weather is looking nicer by you and the robins are starting to appear and stay while the snow is melting. I miss you all like crazy and think of you everyday! I hope that your wallet's are being kind to you, and that the grace of God is with you each and every day. I love you all!!!

Va iubesc!

Va pup!

Mi-a dor de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So I thought for sure that Spring was here to stay. We had so many wonderful days, I didn't even need a jacket, I had lovely walks outside with the sun shining, and then what do I wake up to yesterday...oh yes snow! I guess that winter and spring are the same in every country and place, it always likes to tease you a little bit before it is here to stay. Oh well, it will be here soon...or so I hope! I would love to have a snow free birthday!

So I had some travel adventures this past week. I had to go down to Bucharest for a Dr.'s appointment and the trip down there was pretty uneventful. It was a night train so I just slept the whole way...or at least tried to sleep! It was a pleasant trip and nothing interesting happened...but I guess that is a good thing. So then I got to Buc and slept a little before my Dr.'s appointment because my train got in early, then wondered to the hotel after a while of chatting with other volunteers. It was actually an interesting journey to the hotel, the place where we normally stay was booked, so they had to put us volunteers into the extension place called "The Nest". So I had to wait for the guy to come get me to drive me over there, because I guess it was kind of a hike. The guy turned out to be really nice (I forgot to ask what his name was...you know me always forgetful!) but we had to stop at his other business for a little bit which was this cool little coffee bar, because he had to do some errands there. It was all cool, and I got a free cup of coffee out of the trip and the opportunity to see an interesting new place in Bucharest! If I could ever find it again I would love to go back there and try the different foods and coffees they have there. So then it was off to "The Nest" and I just had to giggle at my room. I was the last person there, so got the last and consequently the smallest room. It was tiny, but comfortable, that is all that matters and I was able to watch some of the Olympics! It so happened to be figure skating that night so it rocked because the is my favorite event! It was also nice because I was able to see some other volunteers, chat with staff, and just see some friendly familiar faces again :)

So then Saturday came around, and I thought that my train left at 9:30, well I double checked my ticket that morning, at about 8:55 and discovered it left at 9:10, super uh-oh! So I had to run to find a taxi, overpaid for an extremely short trip, said a quick good-bye to the other volunteer I was with who I had just met, and ran frantically to my train! I made it, with about a minute to spare! It was crazy, I should have been more careful with my times! That was the closest I ever came to missing a train. So I made it to Braila to visit with Trisha, another volunteer. I was planning on spending the night there, but we could not figure out where the bus left from, so we happened to go to the bus station and there was a bus that was leaving at about midnight from there, so I decided to go that route. I made it to the bus, and talked to the bus driver about how I needed to make a second bus in Botosani. He told me not to worry that we would be there by 5 AM, I was relieved at first, but then once in the bus, became anxious because we were making more stops than I thought were necessary. When we finally arrived in Botosani it was 5:20 and then we made what felt like 10 stops, including stopping for gas, before we made it to my station, by then it was 5:30. Luckily there was a second bus going through Trusesti and I am really lucky I said something to the driver before-hand, because he had to stop the Maxi-taxi that was leaving as it was already pulling away from the station. The important thing is that I made it home, I almost missed to different forms of Transportation on the way home, but I made it in one piece and was able to spend the day relaxing a little bit as I was thoroughly exhausted from my travels that weekend!

Oh and in case you were wondering, I went to Bucharest to get some blood work done because I was feeling a little off and tired all the time. No worries I am fine, just a little low on iron and calcium. Do you think that they are going to kick me out of Wisconsin for the low calcium thing? I sure hope not! I am starting to feel better already though and trying to make changes in my diet to be sure that I make up for these lost nutrients! Maybe the good folks of Wisconsin should send me a good ole Wisconsin cow to help with my calcium deficiency!

So that brings us to this week. Nothing too exciting happened last week, and I was to tired on Sunday to post, so here it is I guess. School went pretty good this week. There were some days where my students were just a pain in my butt, but that is behind me and I am hoping for a change this week, where it will be a little better and less stressful, we shall see if that happens. So this week in English club we had a lesson on Superheros, we created "The Last Phantom Banana Puma" who's job was to save the animals of the jungle before his evil brother "Mr. Tiger" became the king of the jungle! It was pretty fun. I also had a student tell me I was old! This is how the conversation went

Me: "Daniela you need to talk louder, I am old"

Kids: Look confused

Me: "I'm old right"

Andrei: Sighs "Yeah"

Me: Gasps in shock

Andrei: Realizes what he has just said and starts to laugh hysterically

The funniest part was not even that it was when we were in class, Andrei is in 8A group 1 and I had class with them that afternoon and the word old was actually in the vocab list, which caused him to laugh hysterically yet again. Oh some good times with my students and the silly things that they say!

The rest of the week in school was pretty uneventful, just teaching as usual, no super funny things with my students. Oh I forgot to mention that March 1st is like a holiday here in Romania, in general in Moldova they give presents to the men, and they give the women little things to put on their shirts, they have different designs and whatnot, I will try to remember to take pictures of them and put them on my facebook page. So I received a lot of pins, as well as a flower, a chocolate bar, and a gift that had basically a perfume and some make-up in it. I am wondering what will happen tomorrow at school because it is March 8th, another holiday in Romania, but this one is specifically just for women, so they generally get the gifts...we shall see what happens and I will keep you posted!

I also had my English class for adults this weekend and it was a huge success. I had 6 students this time around, and they were all excited to learn, and very proactive in class, and told me what they wanted to learn and we all worked together, and I am hopeful that it works out pleasantly in the future as well, because I feel like they really got something out of it. Which makes me happy and makes me feel that I am doing a good job here.

In addition to all of this with my regular classes, English club, Adult Lessons, I am also working on starting a secondary project which is actually quite big and will divulge more information when it actually gets underway, in addition to organizing a Spelling Bee with my counterpart, looking into grad schools, and studying for the GRE, so needless to say I have lots to keep my busy.

Yet another week this winter has passed, on the bright side it is getting warmer, on the dull side it is still grey and there is mud everywhere! I am anxiously awaiting the appearance of spring and drier weather so I can go for walks outside without coming back looking like the swamp monster!

This week at school was actually pretty good, all of my lesson plans worked out, I hope that next week brings the same. I think I am finally starting to realize what works with what kids, and generally I plan to much, but that is good because then I do not run out of things to do! There is nothing worse than the feeling of standing in front of a class with nothing more planned and not a clue as to what to do next, I have to say I am not a fan!

I also started an English club this week. I only had 5 kids come, but the ones that did come seemed to have a great time, so that made me happy. We just played some games, including ROMANIA where they had to list all the words that started with the letters and whoever did it first one. As well as a form of Rummy with categories -- that one they really liked. I enjoyed watching them have fun with English as well and they were all really creative and that makes me happy to see all of their bright ideas coming out :) I also tried LINGO with them, but that didn't work out so well, I think it was a little to specific, but we can always try it again later. I think they were taking it a little to seriously but that is okay, you win some you lose some. Then we did tongue twisters, they thought that was positively hilarious and I just love watching them laugh and having fun with English. I hope that we can have more kids next week so we shall just have to see. I might have to change the day of the week, but it is always a little hard to get things started, but you have to start somewhere right :)

I also started a class for adults. I only had 2 students but I think with more word of mouth that more may come and with fewer people it is always easier because I can give more individual attention! :) The two that did show up are extremely nice people though and they are so smart. It was so weird to be in front of two people who are there because they truly want to be. I am so used to being in a classroom where I am constantly asking kids to be quiet and to stop this and that and trying to talk over them, that I didn't know what to do with myself for the most part. I just had their rapt attention, it was crazy! Good but crazy! I hope that they liked it though and I hope that they continue to come. One of the ladies that came is actually a psychologist at the school so I would love to further my relationship with her and learn more about her studies as a psychologist here in Romania. It is always fascinating to hear about Psychology and it is fun to talk about the different ideas and it would give my Romanian a run for its money and hopefully help me to improve it more and more!!

Other than that not too much else is new here. Just waiting for the warm weather to come about. It is really windy out today, I can hear it running up and down the hallway and against the windows and even through my chimney! Maybe that means a storm is coming or maybe that is God's idea of a dryer and some of this water will disappear that is standing around outside.

Oh and a bit of good news as well. I would like to wish my Daddy a "Happy Birthday" the good Lord blessed him with another happy and healthy year. Even though he knows it I just want to say that I love my Daddy more and more every day and I am so thankful that the good Lord has blessed me with such a supportive and understanding family. I would not be where I am today without there help and no matter what they always want what is best for me. I think that credit goes to both my Mom and my Dad, they gave me such a wonderful environment to grow up in and continue to be a blessing in my life everyday and for that I am truly grateful.

Also I am happy to say that I will be the proud aunt of a nephew come July. I can't wait to see pictures of the little guy and to see all three of my lovely nieces and nephew together in a picture. I am so thankful for the 2 beautiful nieces I already have and I think that my brother could use another boy around the house to help him keep his sanity (what little of it he has left :p!)

And thirdly I would like to say congratulations to my wonderful friend Becky, on February 15th she welcomed her first son, Jack LeRoy IV, into the world. He was born at 7 lbs 6 ounces and 20 3/4 inches long. I am so happy for her and her husband and I hope that they continue to have a life filled with joy. They have always been such a lovely couple and now they are a lovely family. Again congratulations!!!!

Well that is all that I have for today, next week I will probably be a little bit late in the posting, I have to do some traveling, PC related, but I will hopefully update with a positive adventure filled week! I hope that you are all doing well. I miss you all and send you tons of love from Romania! I think of you all everyday and I hope that you continue to think of me and keep me in your prayers :)

Va Iubesc!

Va pup

Mi-e doar de voi!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

Hey all, I hope this Valentines Day finds you all happy and if you have a loved one to spend it with, good for you, and if not well there is always next year and we always have other single friends to spend it with. Last night I talked with my old gazda in Targoviste and she asked me if I was still single or if I had a boyfriend, and of course I am still single, but that is just fine with me :)

So this week I don't have a whole lot to report. I just kind of tried to get back into the swing of things. It was actually kind of a rough week and I learned a lot of stuff. I don't really want to complain about my crappy week, so we will just leave it at that.

I am hopeful that next week will bring more interesting things to say and only in a good way, because I am going to be starting my English Club so hopefully the kids will come to it. At the end of the semester I am hoping to put on a play with the kids so we will see how that works and what not. This week I am just going to play games with them and we will see how it goes from there and then I will hone in on more of what they want, because that is the real reason that I am starting the club. Also next week I will be starting my class for adults, we are just going to see who is interested in it and what they know and what not, so it will just go from there, we shall see.

Let's see what else was I going to say. Oh I went to see Tory's (the volunteer that was here before me) old family and I had a great time there. It really made me feel a lot better just to hang out with someone, eat some great food, and drink some great wine! It was a lot of fun!

So now I am relaxing on my weekend and apparently going to church with one of my student's. I don't really want to go, but who knows what it could be, we shall see. After that I will come home and chill out and make sure I am prepared for school tomorrow! :D

Oh one more thing that I forgot to say, last night I started looking up grad schools, because I want to go back to school when I get home. I am planning on studying psychology more, specifically adolescent and child psychology or marriage and family therapy. The reason I am putting this up here, is if you know of anyone that I can talk to about these schools and who can help me find the right school I would greatly appreciate any of the contacts. I would like to go to school within state just because it would be a lot cheaper, but I am willing to go out of the state, hopefully not to far away. So if you could put your feelers out there for me I would really appreciate it, that way maybe I can establish some contacts before I get home and I can figure out what I want to do a year and a half from now :) I think that is all for now, so we shall see where life takes me these next 18 months :)

Alright will I think that is about all for today. Sorry I didn't really have anything interesting to say this week, but I guess we all have those weeks and after last weeks update, not so sure you would want to read another one that was so long!!

I hope that you all are doing well, and I miss you all like crazy! I love you and think of you everyday, and just thing in 18 months we will see each other again! Also I want to send out my luck to Becky, who is just about to have her baby and will probably be in the hospital tomorrow having him. I know that you are going to be a great mother and good luck with the delivery! I love you and miss you and can't wait to get home and come visit you in warm Arizona!

Alright that is all for today, we shall talk later. Oh and Lizz if you are reading this, we need to Skype!!!!!! I miss you!!!!!

Mai vorbim!

Va iubesc!

Mi-e dor de voi!

Va pup!

Pe mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

Wow what a week it has been, well actually two weeks actually I guess. I was away last Sunday so that is why I did not update. This past week we had our February break, it is in between the 2 semesters, so they take a nice week off and I happened to take advantage of the break and go out and about :) I had a fabulous time as well so now here will ensue the adventures of my journey :)

My journey started in Suceava, Romania, where I spent a lovely evening with Melody, one of my group members. It was so nice because I never really got the chance to get to know Melody during training, I knew I liked her but never got to know her. So it was a lovely chance for us to talk and hang out before my train early the next morning. While I was in Suceava, Melody took me to see the world's largest traditional Easter egg. On my facebook page you can see a picture, I am just a little midget compared to this egg, I couldn't believe it!

So then the next day was pretty uninteresting, I just spent the whole day on a train, 12 1/2 hours to be exact. There was this cute little girl in my compartment though and every time I brought something new out like a book or some work, or my crafts (counted cross-stitch) she just thought that was the coolest thing. She was really cute and had a good time looking at what I was doing, as well as the beautiful scenery outside. We traveled through the mountains, since I was going from Moldova to Transylvania. It was such a shorter trip than going around the mountains, it would have taken me more than 20 hours if I would have gone that way!

So then I arrived in Arad to spend a few days with another volunteer, Shaneka. It was nice to spend some time with her and see her city. We walked around, she introduced me to some of her friends, and to here really fun landlords. We also had a chance to go to a museum, and I found a map with Trusesti on it! I was so excited, it was a really old map too so that proves my town does exist and it has been around for a very long time :) So Trusesti exists just like Reedsville does it just might not be on every map :) Then we also went to another museum called the butterfly museum and while we were there there was actually the largest traveling reptile exhibit in Europe. While the exhibit was really cool, I felt so bad for the reptiles because there would be these big ones like pythons or alligators and they would be in a cage that was about 1/4 of the space that they deserve. We also saw an alligator in a box with water, and nothing else, no trees, no grass, no foliage, nothing. You know it is something when you feel sorry for alligators and pythons. There was a gila monster that was trying to stage a break out, he had enough space, but it was entertaining because I have never seen any zoo animals trying to escape from there confines, but I guess I can't blame him.

So then we hung out and chatted some more, and on Monday I went to work with Shaneka, and saw what she does at her site. It was really nice and I got to practice my Romanian with the kids and see what exactly her organization does. So the org that she works for helps individuals who are living on the street or have very very little at home. They proved a hot meal and showers, as well as laundry, and for the kids they offer help with homework and something fun to do or just a warm place to hang out for a few hours. It is really nice for them, and it is something for them to hold onto and enjoy even if it is only for a few hours each day.

So then I was on my way to Hungary. It was just a 4 hour train ride there and I arrived at about the same time as my colleague Connie who I was meeting there. So we checked into our hostel, which was lovely. They had showers, washing machines, comfortable beds, a kitchen with everything, a common room, friendly staff. It was great, it was like staying in a really big apartment, just something nice, a home away from home. So after checking in the adventure began.

The first night there we walked the journey to Buda and on the way ran into the Opera House. Unfortunately we did not get to go in, but I did see a picture in a museum and I wish I could have seen the inside it looked absolutely fabulous! The outside was beautiful though as well, the detail that goes into these buildings is amazing and unbelievable. From there we ran across St. Stephens Basilica. I have never seen such an amazing building. The outside is beautiful and just plain awe inspiring. Then we went inside, the beauty just went on and on. I wish I was more gifted with words so I could give this basilica all the credit it deserves, but I can't. I took pictures as well, but they did not do it justice, I was just honored to be able to see it first hand and take in all of its beauty.

So from St. Stephens, we continued our journey to Buda, and actually ran into a shop that sells Polinka, which is a rather strong liquor, which is a Hungarian specialty. We decided to go in because they had free sampling and I wanted to try some. We didn't happen to buy anything but it was interesting to see all the different types and to hear about it the process and how the different proofs work. So from there we made our way to the Danube, to cross the chain bridge, which is a fabulous suspension bridge over the Danube. I loved it and it was so nice to see the whole city. Then we made our way to Buda castle, we wanted to see Pest from Buda, and the journey up the large hill was worth every step. I also took pictures of this, but it's beauty cannot be captured again. I have never seen anything so beautiful in all of my life. When I was up there looking at all the lights in Pest, the lights on St. Stephens and the Parliament, it was like every trouble in the world went away. It was just spectacular, I just wanted to stay up there and enjoy this site for hours.

After walking around some more and enjoying the old castle district, we decided after 5 hours of walking it was time to go home and enjoy the homemade meal that the hostel offered on Tuesday nights. So we went back and enjoyed some company and a good warm meal after a long day of walking. It was very interesting at the hostel, we met people from all over the world, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Holland, and around the city as well, for example more would be Austria, Portugal, Italy, France, China, Japan, etc. and all of them spoke English perfectly, maybe better than me! I could really see how English was the universal language, it was just very interesting to me.

So then I crashed for the evening to get ready for another day of walking and exploring. So the next day we made our way to City Park to see the statues there, and then to the castle on the lake. While on our way to the castle, we actually ran into a spa and went in to see it. It was beautiful I wish we had the money to experience it, but we didn't quite have it...oh well maybe next time! It was actually a spa with an outdoor pool and it was interesting to see the people swimming around in the warm water while the snow was coming down around them. It was simply glorious. So then we found our way to the castle. Again the glory of the castle cannot be expressed properly, it was fantastic. The architecture was simply stunning and the details into every little thing are what made this castle an outstanding building. We actually went in to check out the museum as well and it was nice to see all the animals. We went up into a room that had a lot of taxidermy in it and the attendant was having fun with us, he wanted us to take pictures next to everything, he knew about 3 English words, "come", "photo", and "souvenir" it was hilarious. We actually came upon a bear and he had me stand on the exhibit next to the bear for a picture. I just had to laugh because I have never experienced anything like that. It just made me giggle.

So then we took the second oldest underground in Europe (next to London's) to get back to the Buda side. We walked past the Parliament, my absolute favorite building in Budapest. We did not get a chance to go inside, but I was just happy walking by it. I just loved seeing it from every angle, and to see it from the bridges and lit up from the Buda side of the Danube. I could not get over it. So we made our way over to Buda again and walked around in the hills and the castle district again and just enjoyed the sites again. It was spectacular.

Then we made our way home, bought some supper and chilled out and enjoyed some company and recharged for the next and final day in Budapest.

So we started early again, and made our way to the Buda side again to see Liberty Statue. This statue was so glorious, you could see it from every bridge right on the top of a hill and it was just spectacular to me. I was just amazed by it, so that is why we went. It was a long journey up there, but it was worth it. The view from the journey was amazing and we took a lovely picture of me sitting on the stairs overlooking Pest from Buda, just fantastic. I think I would have loved it up there at night, seeing all of the city just lit up :) So we made it and it was spectacular and there was a nice little circle with vendors and interesting people and again a wonderful view. Then we made our way down and crossed the bridge yet again to find the central market. There were so many wonderful things there and I wish we could have purchased so many things...but I had to use discretion and decided upon 2 small bottles of Polinka, I figured it was what was traditional for Hungary and it will be worth enjoying with friends later on in the summer probably :) From there we went to see the Jewish synagogue, but did not go inside because it was too expensive, but the details on the outside were great and it was still a magnificent building. Then we went to the Lutheran church and the museum and looked around. It was nice to see something that I can relate to again, and the ladies at the museum were so lovely and basically gave us a private tour of the church (for free!) so that is always cool! Let's see after the church we made our way to the house of terror. This was about how Hungary was effected during the Holocost and communism. It was a spectacular building, but very disheartening to see everything that they people went through during this time. It puts into perspective how lucky I have always been, I have never had to go through anything like that.

So then it was time to go home, we made our way to the train station and began our journey home. It was rather long, because we were about 40 minutes late, but what are you going to do I guess. So I was able to rest before my next train ride on to Suceava again. That train was on time, but long, 9 1/2 hours. I was so glad to be so close to site. It was nice because I happened to get a very nice taxi driver to take me to Melody's and it was nice to chat with him and he was impressed with my Romanian :) That made me happy. So then I enjoyed a little more time with Melody and got some more rest and made my way back to site the next day.

So after this fabulous vacation, I arrived home and thought I would get some laundry done before my water went off. I went to turn on my tub, not my shower, so I had to push down on the faucet and the faucet fell right off! I just wanted to cry. Thankfully all the water went into the tub, I also shut off the water, but I had to wait for my tank to empty before it would stop. I was able to call someone and we got it fixed, but it was so frustrating after such a great vacation. Now it is all fixed however, and the faucet is much better than the one I had before. So I did get lots of laundry done and now it is back to the grindstone for a few more months until summer break :)

I hope you are all doing well and I miss you all like crazy and sorry for the long post, but I had a lot of adventures to talk about :) I hope you survive the snow and cold, I here there is a big snow storm scheduled to hit the east coast! Hopefully nothing like that comes into the Wisconsin area! I hope you are not freezing and that you are all happy and healthy. I love you all so much!

Va iubesc!

Va pup!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

So this week was an interesting week, it was actually the first time since I have arrived in Romania that I have truly been homesick. Now don't get me wrong, this does not mean that I don't miss people and miss home, but I usually don't think about it all day. This week I thought a lot about home, and believe it or not, it was because of the weather. I walked outside on Monday morning, and it was like I was walking outside of my house in Wisconsin, the weather was exactly the same as a typical calm Wisconsin winter day, I could not believe how much it felt like Wisconsin, the only difference is that I was halfway across the world, in a country that does not speak English. Now it is in the freeze of the season, it is very cold and continues to feel cold. I cannot explain why it felt like home this week in particular, but I think it is because it has been cold, but not crisp, if that makes any sense. The feeling was just unbelievable, how similar it was, I did not think I would experience anything like that here, especially with something as common as weather.

Well enough about homesicknesses. This week I also had the opportunity to be presented with many interesting cultural exchanges. I am amazed at how creative people here can be from time to time, especially when they don't have something. I am referring to sleds. The sleds here are the old school wooden ones that are lifted up on 2 tracks, if they are not homemade, I can imagine that they would be pretty pricey. Thus many people may not be lucky enough to have their own sleds. This however does not stop people from sledding, on no, they create other things from sleds. Sometimes it may be a makeshift snowboard from a stray board, or my favorite is the use of a simple shopping bag. Oh yes, this week I went sledding on a shopping bag that was cut in half and let me tell you it did the job. I may have gotten a little more snow on me (and some down my pants!) but I got the same effect, a fun, fast, ride down the hill. All this for the price of a bag (about 40 bani-15 cents) a heck of a lot cheaper than a sled! I just found it interesting that even though they might not have exactly what is needed for sledding, that does not stop them from having fun! I just found that to be an interesting cultural exchange and a lot of fun!

So to go along with the cold, cold weather here, we have also had quite a bit of snow this week. It did come at a good time however, everything was brown and dirty. It made me think of Jerry, one of my old customers from quick trip, whenever we would get snow he would always say, "Ah it was time, the old stuff was dirty!" It is so true, it was pretty brown and ugly, but now that there is a fresh layer of snow it is pretty again. The method of street clean-up is interesting here, actually not interesting, but pretty much non-existent. Most of the time we do not have to much of a sidewalk, so there is nothing to shovel, but sometimes I think that people drag something over the snow to push it down, so there is a path off of the road. Most people however do not use these makeshift sidewalks however, when it snows they just walk in the road, because that is where it is the most clean and the cars just go around you anyway :) It just seems a little dangerous to be walking on a road with packed down snow and cars, but thankfully the cars only drive about 20 mph through the city in the winter so we don't have to worry much about cars losing control in Trusesti!

Something else that I find interesting is my kids amazement with something as simple as a pencil, even my older students! So this past week I did a lot of review because they were having a test, so we played Jeopardy. I decided that since this was a tougher game I would give the students who won a pencil. Now to me this is nothing special, even though they had designs on them. To my students however they thought that it was the coolest thing they had ever seen. One of them even said, oh a pencil from America! I don't think that it matters to them what it is, but if it is from "America" that instantly makes it cool. I think it is also something new, because I don't think they receive prizes from other teachers, or play learning games in other classes either. The interesting thing however, is that the fascination with objects from the States does not stop in general school. I was with one of my friends and she saw my box of goodies that I have for school. She was so intrigued looking through it and thought that everything was cool, even the pencils, the pens, the dry erase markers, the design paper, the eraser tops for pencils, even the pencil sharpeners and calculators. This stuff is so easily accessible in the states I hardly ever think twice about it. It was a fresh reminder about how things as simple as a pencil sharpener or a box of crayons can be taken for granted, especially since we can find it just about anywhere in the US, even in the smallest towns. I feel blessed to have witnessed this simple but eye opening event.

I had yet another interesting cultural exchange this week (it was a week chock full of observances). So I was having a tutoring session with my counterpart and we were talking about classes. I have a problem with some classes in terms of respect. Sometimes I think it is because I am too nice, I have always hated giving out punishments and bad marks. I also think it is because I am the youngest teacher there, and of course since I am an American. My counterpart brought up an interesting idea, not so sure how I feel about it though. She comments often on my use of facial expressions, I have always been a person who expresses who I feel based on my facial expressions, that is just who I am. Apparently however, someone who uses a lot of facial expressions when they speak is considered "alintati" or spoiled. I am sorry to say, but I think that is just strange. I was a little offended as well, because it is something so simple, and so a part of who I am to express these feelings. I just find it really odd, and I don't really understand it. She said this maybe be a problem, because maybe students think I think I am better than them or something, so they act out as a sort of defense mechanism, and students who also express themselves like me can relate. It is just odd, and not something I would have ever thought of. I don't know talking about it makes me a little upset, because this is something that I like about myself, and it is hard because it feels very insulting to think that it could be looked upon negatively. I don't think it is a bad thing, and maybe I can convince other people that there is nothing wrong with expressing your emotions through expression, it allows people to see who you are, both the good and the bad :)

Well that pretty much recaps my week, lots of exchanges, cold weather, oh and 2 packages, one from church and one from my folks. It is always a pleasure to be spoiled :) Now I am just going to try and prepare myself for next week, maybe go pretty easy on the kids because it is the week before break. I think that for my February break I am going to go to Budapest with another volunteer and maybe explore Transylvania a little bit, we shall see what I have the time and money for, but I am almost positive that I am going to go to Budapest for a few days. I just have to get my vacation time in before it is too late! I have to use vacation time if I leave the country no matter what, even if it is during a break, but if it is in the country during a break, I don't have to use it. So hopefully I can get all of that worked out :)

I think that is about it oh and I do have a few recommendations for you all

Song: Kris Allen - "Like We Were Dying" -- He was this past years American idol and he just has a really smooth fun voice. This song has a fun melody and is just nice to listen to.

TV Show: Big Bang Theory -- Just ridiculously funny, I laugh every time I watch it and the humor just keeps getting better. It is a show about nothing really but has some really good one liners and funny, quirky characters.

Book: The Giver -- I read it very quickly and was engrossed in it, just a spectacular book that is easy to read and has some interesting political tones to it. It is typically something that is read in grade school but I just recently had the opportunity to read it and I really did enjoy it. I think that you will too!

Hope that you all are doing well. I miss and think of you all often and I hope that the new year has brought you many blessings. While you think of the blessings that you have, I also ask you to think of the people of Haiti, keep them in your thoughts and prayers for there is much suffering there. I know that with help, prayers, and generosity the people of Haiti will make it though this terrible disaster. I am thankful that I live in a location that does not have such tremendous natural disasters and I hope and pray that my family and friends continue to remain safe. I miss and love you all so very much and hope you are doing well! Just think you will see me again in 19 months and it will be like I was never gone! Love you!!!!!!

So I think that I am finally back on track. I was a little off there around the holidays, but I think that was because I had a lot of variation in my schedule so I was a little lax on my blogging updates...sorry about that!

Well I hope now that I can get back to my regular schedule of updating every Sunday. It was a good way to go and a good way to reflect on the events of the week! This week was back to normal for the most part. I was back in the classroom, and had some good days and some not so good days. That is life though right. I think the not so good days were coupled with the fact that I have a cold, so that made it difficult to concentrate and also my tolerance level for misbehavior was way down. Some of my classes have gotten a lot better though. I started a new behavior/participation chart and the students have been fairly responsive to it. Some classes more than others. Sometimes they are not super excited about the stars, but they definitely do not want the red checks and sometimes all I have to do is hold the red marker in my hand and they stop misbehaving and start participating well.

Right now I am trying to work up the motivation to plan my one lesson that I have to teach tomorrow. The kids are having a test for the most part tomorrow and Tuesday, so it will be an easy week for me, I will only have to plan for half of the week. I am having trouble coming up with ideas, so sometimes if I focus on something else for a little while the ideas just come to me. I hope that they do well on the test however, they are good kids for the most part, but some of them are a little bit lazy, if they just put forth a little bit more effort and believed in themselves I know that they could do it. I guess that is what I just need to work on, is believing in them so that they will believe in themselves. We shall see about that and I will just continue to have faith in them every single day!

So this week we had a little twist in our schedule, we had to teach on a Saturday! Back in October I believe it was, we had a day where the teachers went on strike, so we didn't teach. The teachers were striking because the government is talking about cutting their salaries. I know it is the same in every country, but why do the budget cuts always have to come from education, I mean I know the decision is difficult to make, but without a good education system there is no way that we are going to make things better in the future. To train future leaders, we need to educate them first. I think that education is the fuel for a better world....oh well maybe they will figure it out eventually and maybe one day our political leaders will be willing to take a little bit of a pay cut rather than our teachers. Well you might be thinking, why did we have to make up a day if it was a strike? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Well yes it does defeat the purpose, but apparently the teachers were paid for that day, so they had to make it up. Oh well what can you do. So I just played games with my kids to help them review for their test next week. I was supposed to have 3 hours, but when I went to go get my last class, they had all went home. Oh well what can you do, I was a little annoyed because I had put work into the lesson, preparing Jeopardy, which I actually cannot reuse, but oh well. Kids will be kids and I didn't want to be there any more than they did.

So it looks like for Valentines day we are going to be selling flowers, they will decorate the flowers and put a little note on them to someone they "admire" I think that will be sweet and it should be a nice way to raise more money for the kids in the student council to do more things like maybe sometime in the spring they can have a school dance. Traditionally that is only done for the high school here, but I thought that would be something that the students would enjoy. Another thing I know they did last year was had a carnival and I think that would be something they might also enjoy. I guess we shall see what time brings us and what the kids might want to do when that comes around! :)

Our February break is coming up so I will have a week off and I hope to do something fun and interesting. I want to go visit some people maybe, I have heard about a few activities that are going on, I just want to get out of my site for a little while. It should be fun and just something different to do. I am not a huge fan of traveling, because it takes me forever no matter where I go, but it is worth it once I get there. It will also be good for me to see what else is out there, and more about the country of Romania, I want to have as many interesting experiences here as I can!

Oh and I fixed my sink all by myself...I also broke it first...but then I fixed it! It was clogged so I took it apart...bad move, because when I did so...the part where it screws together sort of cracked. Well I went on my way and I found a replacement part and it was a pain in the but to screw back in because it was tight and I didn't have a screwdriver and it was slightly bigger than the last...but I got it screwed in and it doesn't leak or anything and works like a charm! I was just excited that I fixed it all by myself! Look how well my Daddy raised me, I am just a little handywoman! Just an odd side not for all of the feminists out there (my friend Carly would get a kick out of this) My spell check does not recognize the word handywoman as a correctly spelled word, but it does however recognize handyman as a correct word, I think that we need to call Websters and have them make their dictionary more politically correct, maybe that will be my next goal!

So that is about all for this week, no exciting stories to say, it was a pretty slow week. Hopefully this next week will bring more excitement, but we shall see! I am just trying to instill some new and better habits this new year, like keeping a cleaner apartment, drinking more water, watching my spending more and eating healthier. So far this weekend I have been doing well....and I hope I can continue! It is sure hard to eat healthy when you live all alone and don't have your weight watchers buddies to keep you company and keep you motivated, but I am going to try to do better in this new year and to take better care of myself like I was in the States! We shall see and I know I can do it! Well I better be off to lesson plan...I still do not have any ideas...I have to do something with parts of the body and the verb to get....so many not appropriate things come to mind with those two subjects...I have to make sure my students don't put them together that way! LOL sorry just a little tired and not really even that funny!

Oh and before I forget I wanted to extend a congratulations to my friend Bridget and Claire. Bridget just had a healthy baby boy, Noah Joseph, 5 lbs 11 oz, Jan. 5th and Claire had a healthy baby girl, Autumn Victoria, 9 lbs 21 inches, Jan. 7th. Both babies are beautiful and healthy and I am so happy for the both of them! I wish you the best of luck and I hope that you have so much fun with your new little angels!

That is all for now, I hope you are all doing well and that you are not too cold in these winter months, just think before we know it it will be warm again...or so I hope! Love and miss you all!!!

Voi iubesc

Va pup

Mi-a dor de voi

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

Hey all, sorry again for the break in the posts...at least I hope that I still have people reading it an I have not bored you to death yet!

So let's see what has happened since I last left you. Well it was shortly after Christmas and I was actually in Bucarest visiting an old friend. Ioana, is a young lady that I actually met when i was in college. She is from Bucuresti and is currently going to school in Belgium! So she has been to school in four countries in all, The US, Romania, Germany and Belgium, that is what I call impressive! She also takes all of her current classes in English, though she is practically a native speaker, I am still impressed because it is a second language!!

So it was nice to spend a few days there, I was able to go to the People's Palace, which is the second biggest building in the world aside from the Pentagon. While I did not tour the whole place, because most of it is actually empty, I went to an art exhibit there. While I didn't understand most of it, because I don't have much of an understanding for art, it was interesting all the same. I had the opportunity to meet some of Ioana's other friends who were very interesting, and to set foot in the second biggest building in the world, so all in all it was an interesting experience, and there were some really cool pieces there. For example there was a set of windows which were broken, which may not seem interesting, but they were broken into exact symmetry, so it was like you were looking at a mirror, they were exactly the same. At first it was not so interesting, but when I found out what it was...pretty interesting.

Other than that it was pretty much just hanging out, we did some shopping, walked around the town, enjoyed a few beers, and Ioana took me to Universitate and explained all about the history of Romania and the revolution that took place there. It was interesting to actually be in the location and learn about the history from someone who is actually from Romania. While we were told about it in PST quite often actually I never had the opportunity to be with someone at the actual location and to have a Romanian explain to me all the locations while we were actually standing there, so that was a pretty cool opportunity! :)

From there I was on my way to Braila, to spend New Years with some volunteers there. We brought in the New Year with a bang, had a great time watching fireworks, drinking champaign, eating delicious food, and doing some traditional Romanian dances. It was a great time! Oh and over the break I also decided to get a hair-cut (In Bucuresti) and while in Braila I decided to let the girls die my hair, just to a darker brown, and I do have to say I like it a lot and I am thinking I will stick with it, just something a little different but I think it is more complimenting to me :)

While I was in Braila I received a little bit of a shocker as well, I was planning on taking a bus home, so I called the company to see where they were leaving from...just to find out that they were not actually leaving that day! Because of the holidays many places are closed, even on the 2nd of January, they usually go back to running normally until the 3rd of January. Thankfully there was a train, but it took me 12 hours to get home instead of 7 by bus. Oh well, just another detour along the way, but I got home anyway and that is all that matters in the long run.

So now I am back to school and back to normal. I am hoping to do more things this semester now that I am more used to what is going on around here and my language has advanced a bit. I have some new systems set in place for the classroom and had to give my first set of bad grades today because I caught some of my students cheating. I hated it, but I knew that if I did not stand behind my rules they would walk all over me and not respect me in the end, and I do want to gain there respect, so even though it stunk...it had to be done :( So hopefully these students will not cheat again....we shall see!

So how about them Packers huh. I signed into my yahoo messenger today and the Packers came up because of some bad calls that were made. Let's just say I saw the picture and I saw the instant replay of that fatal last play, and all I have to say is......"HOLY FACE MASK!" I don't know if I have ever seen anything quite so blatant. But oh well what can you do it is in the past, I just wish that the Pack could have called a challenge on it, but there was nothing called, and there was no doubt that it was a touchdown....even if it was because of a face mask.

Oh and I have decided I am going to give some recommendations...I don't know if they will be permanent or not, but maybe...we shall see..these fall into the lines of entertainment so recommendations for

Movies: The Secret Life of Bees

~Dakota Fanning is absolutely fantastic, as is Queen Latifah and the story is absolutely fantastic and heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time.

TV Show: Glee

~Just plain fun, upbeat and silly all at the same time

Book: 1000 Splendid Suns

~One of the best books I have read in a long time. It tells the story of one woman's sorrow and triumph, living in the oppression of Afghanistan. Truly amazing, I was shocked, happy and sad all at the same time, I highly recommend it.

Music: Ke$ha

~Just plain fun and I think that you will enjoy her song TikTok, which I am sure that you have heard on the radio :)

So if any of you are still reading this and have any suggestions for me on anything I will take it...and if you want more opinions from yours truly let me know...but maybe I will just keep typing them....we shall have to wait and see!!!

Love and miss you all and I hope that you are doing well!!!!

Va pup

Va iubesc

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

I have to again apologize for my delay. Things around here have been busy with IST, and the end of the school semester before vacation and now with the holiday season! I couldn't believe how fast time has gone!

Well I believe I left you right before I left for IST. Well IST was fantastic, it was so great to see everyone again, I really did truly miss a lot of people and it was so nice to see their faces and to talk with them again. There were some people that I had not seen or even spoken to since PST, so it was wonderful to catch up again. While IST was fantastic...the ride there was less than satisfactory. While I had taken this route before and had an excellent experience as it was a nice big bus that was not crowded at all I was convinced that that would be my experience again. Well I was wrong, it was a crowded maxi taxi which was hot and uncomfortable. This time I at least was not alone and my colleague and I could complain together. Oh well it is just something we can go on to laugh about :D

When we did arrive in Predeal however, it was lovely and since I talked to the driver ahead of time he dropped us off right at the driveway to the hotel so we did not have to wonder around Predeal. I probably wouldn't have minded though because it was absolutely beautiful there. We were right in the middle of the mountains, and I was able to see just a glimpse of the beauty that Romania has to offer, it was absolutely fantastic and if I have time and money I would love to return!

While I was in Predeal we were able to take some language classes, and I actually took a LPI (Language Proficiency Exam) as well, and thankfully my language has improved! I still have a long way to go, but my conversation skills are a lot better, but with time and practice I can only get better! That is what I like to think anyway!

So then it was time to go home and finish up the semester, which was nice and just ended up being us singing Christmas carols with the kids. It was fun. I know I probably should have updated then...but I forgot! Sorry everyone! I did however get a chance to run into town because I had a package. It was from my former Kwik Trip co-workers! I was so excited, it was an awesome package as well! So heavy though, I cannot imagine how they got it to the Post Office! The man at the customs office handed it to me and it had broken open in transit, but was always in a big ole post office bag and was kind of like "Here ya go" and I am thinking "How!". Thankfully however he allowed me to borrow the bag since I could barely lift this package and actually ended up dragging it most of the way home in the fresh snow. Thankfully it was there!

Oh the trip home is another story! The maxi taxi driver decided that he was going to pick up every person along the way, who had the most baggage in the world. I thankfully had a seat right in front, but I just wanted to teach this driver the word no! We were squished in there like sardines, I am glad that I was not one of the people standing or sitting in the back, that must have been extremely uncomfortable. Oh well what are you going to do that is just life and in the end I made it to my destination safely :)

Let's see after that I ended up spending some time with some of my students. It was actually really fun and nice to get to know some more people in town. I learned some new card games and taught some new card games, went sledding and went on a sleigh ride, it was fun and I am glad that I did the snow activities while the snow was around because starting on Christmas it began to rain! I could not believe how warm it was, but the snow stayed around for Christmas, so it was still white :)

After that I traveled to Botosani to pick up my friend Carly and do some shopping as well. It was fun and interesting. It was interesting because we went to this traditional dancing event and waited outside in the freezing cold for at least an hour, until our other colleague Deborah spotted the woman how runs the shows at the cultural center so we were able to wait inside for a while. Yet when the parade finally arrived it was less than satisfactory and long, and we couldn't see a whole lot because we were inside so we stayed for a while but then decided to leave. However we could not leave out front because that is where the show was, so we decided to leave out the back, but when we got back there, there were a lot of dancers in the back room and we were again locked in by people. However Deborah being the persuasive person that she is somehow convinced the people to put on a show and start dancing, so we basically got our own private show of traditional Romanian dancing. It was crazy but very interesting!

So I spent some time in Botosani and then returned home with Carly where we relaxed, watched movies, I made cookies, ate some good food, hung out with some friends, waited for Joslyn to get into town, then ate some more food, met with some more local families in my town, and just spent some time talking and hanging out. It was really nice. We only stayed in Trusesti until the 26th and then Joslyn and I made our way down to Bucuresti, which is where I am now. I am currently visiting an old friend from who I met in college. She is a native Romanian who was studying abroad at UWEC. So it has been very nice to see her again and to catch up and to see what her life is like (which is absolutely fascinating to hear about!) and just to see Bucarest from the eyes of a someone who grew up here. She knows all of the interesting places to go and how to get around, so it has been a really interesting and worthwhile experience.

Then tomorrow Carly will arrive in Bucureti and we will spend the day in Bucurest and then leave for Braila where we will spend New Years with another volunteer. After that it is back to reality and I will begin my second semester of school. I am looking forward to this semester and hoping to make it better and to learn more this semester, so we shall see :) Well that is all for this post. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, and enjoyed your time with family and friends. I missed you all very much and just thing in 2 Christmases I will be home for it! I also hope that you have a Happy New Year and that you bring it in with a bang! Just think I will be there to bring in 2012 with you, which really isn't that far away. I love and miss you all and hope and pray that only the best comes your way. May all your hopes and dreams come true and may your New Year be full of only the best. You will hear from me again in 2010!

Voi iubesc si va pup!

Mi-adore de toate lume!

Pana mai tarziu

~Sarah B.

Hey all I know it has been ages since I have updated, and I apologize for that, things have been crazy and it just got behind me. I promise I will have a heck of an update for you when I get back to the site after the New Year, I will have a month to make up for! Maybe I will break them up just a little bit, but I promise I will do better next month with the updating and they will be more regulated :D

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and that you have a Happy New Year. You have no need to worry about me I have been spending all of my holidays over here with friends, the Peace Corps is great for forming new friendships and support networks that help you out when you need it the most so I am never alone on the holidays. Eat lots of yummy Christmas treats for me and I hope you enjoyed your turkey, ham and stuffing! For the Busses, Sebos, and Millers I am sorry I missed you last week at Christmas, that would have been nice to see everyone, but we will figure out a time to get together no worries! Love you all like crazy and Happy Holidays to all!!!!!!

So I know it has been a few days since I have posted...but my last ones were so long, I am sure you all needed a bit of a break...as did I, my fingers were tired from all the typing! So.....since I last posted I took a couple of trips into Botosani, which is where my counterpart. My counterpart (Mona) is the English teacher at my school and she will be watching over and guiding me in my next two years hear in Trusesti. I was able to spend some time with her and get to know her a little bit and see her town, which was nice. On my way home I had a bit of an interesting experience. I forgot to pay when I first got on the bus (I paid when I got off, no worries) because I wasn't sure exatcly how this particular bus worked. So when I was going to my seat a man started to talk to me...I thought maybe he was the man who took the money...but then realized he wasn't. I am sure that he was harmless...but he didn't have any teeth, and it is hard enough for me to understand the Romanian in this part of Romania with the accent...but at no teeth onto that and it becomes even harder! I can hardly understand when people speak English with no teeth much less Romanian! It was funny though, because the lady in front of him told him to leave me alone...so that was interesting.

So I returned home for a day or so...and then made my way to Botosani again, for a Beer Festival. I didn't actually spend much time there, I just hung out with some other volunteers in Botosani, which was nice. When I was at the festival however it was absolutely crazy! There were people everywhere, tons of food, tons of beer, live music and rides. If we could have managed to walk in a straight line without having to weave in and out of people I am sure we would have stayed for longer and looked around more, but it was super crowded. I am sure I will go again next year though, and I will know more Romanian then...so it shouldn't be as difficult. Also when I was in Botosani I was able to hang out with one of the other volunteers from my group...it was good to spend the day with her. However, the best part of my trip there was making tacos! Yes, that's right...I said TACOS! A volunteer from group 25 is there (actually there are 2 from group 25) and she had some seasoning packets for tacos, I got to cook, made homemade tortillas and some great tacos...it was so good! Maybe the best meal I have had since I was hear in Romania...just because it was nice to have American food again. Well actually Mexican food...but very popular food in America :)

So then I returned home for a day of relaxation before I had to begin going to school. My first day, yesterday, was kind of tough. It was hard for me to understand anything...I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do, and it was generally a bit negative yesterday. The two schools in my town (The high school and the elementary/general school) are combining, so this means that some people will be out of a job, mainly a director. So I am not sure who my director is going to be yet...since they haven't made a decision as of yet. So there was a lot of stress with that, and apparently there is going to be a meeting during the 1st 10 days of class so the teachers will lose out on 10 days of pay...more to add to the stress. I also felt really nervous since my Romanian is not that good yet, so I was scared to speak. So I just felt a little low yesterday, today however was much better!

I went to school again, even though I did not have to, I wanted to get myself out there. I am glad that I did, because I met my community mentor today. She is the woman who is going to help me out in town, show me around town, answer any questions I may have, just be a general help to me. She is super nice as well, so I was able to practice my Romanian with her today. I even helped her set up her classroom, which was fun. Then after school, we went to the market and I went to her house for lunch and we chatted some more. I still have a long way to go in terms of the language...but with practice I will get it and she was very patient with me...which was nice :)

After that I came home to study a little bit, catch up on some e-mails, talk with some other volunteers, and relax. Now I am here writing my update.

So I always talk about what I do everyday, and I try to include how I am feeling. Generally I am feel pretty good here, some days are more dificult than others, but you find that everywhere. The people in Romania are generally very kind and hospitable. I am enjoying my time here very much. I have learned a lot already without even realizing it. For example, we are very luck to have stoves which we don't have to light with a match, they light themselves. We are also very lucky to have water that runs all the time. I don't have running water during the day here, and while I have learned to live with it, and it is fine, we are still lucky to not have to worry about it. I know that we also complain about the gas prices a lot, but we are very fortunate to be able to have cars of our own, and though it may cost a lot of money to keep our cars, we always find a way. Here many people have to get around with the use of carts and horses...not because of their lifestyle choice...that just is the way that it is. I am not complaining about anything, in terms of the PC lifestyle...I am extremely fortunate. I never thought that I would be sitting in my apartament, with electricity, updating my blog on the Internet. I always imagined myself in a hut in the middle of Africa, fighting off bugs and maybe other creatures. Just goes to show you how different life can be. No matter where life takes you, we always need to remember to count our blessings, we will always be watched over and we need to be thankful for what we do have...not always wishing for what we could have. I know I am thankful for everything that I have had, and for what I have now...I am truely blest...always :)

Well as for my adventures...that is all for now....hopefully I will have some more to post soon, but we shall see. Oh and I have an address now, so if you would like it please let me know and I will get that right to you :) I love and miss you all. You all are in my thoughts and prayers, and please keep me in yours :)

~Until later

Sarah B.

So life in Trusesti has been interesting so far. Just when I think it is getting dull, something new and interesting comes along. So yesterday I was just taking some time for me...again, as we all know I can be the queen of procrastination and wasting time. I decided that since my garsonera (studio apartment) was clean and the laundry was drying outside, that I would go for a walk. So I left in my oversize T-shirt and shorts to go for a nice walk. I had every intention of being back in about an hour to Skype with a friend...but of course this is Romania and you never know what is going to happen.

As I was walking I ran into my director's son, so he asked if I wanted to go talk with his mother. This was my perfect opportunity to speak in Romanian, so I was going to take it, I had been waiting for the chance to speak with her! I really actually missed speaking in Romanian. So I went up there and she was making lunch, so of course even though I was not hungry because I had already eaten lunch, she made a plate for me. I ate a little bit, but was full very quickly! It was great to have a chance to talk with her, because she is very patient with my limited Romanian skills, and she is very good with simplifying things. We talked about Trusesti, her job, the other saturi (villages) in the communa, a little bit about her family, the American economy (that one was tough!), how to make cheese, how to make bread (I learned the word for yeast (drojdie), which was interesting because since I had never seen yeast before I did not know what it looked like, but her description was great and I got it!) We talked about where to buy vegetables, why the smaller magazines were better than the supermarkets, my counterpart and my visiting her in Botosani, just a lot of little things, but it was really great to have a conversation. Then when we were sitting in the kitchen chatting, we heard music, there was a wedding party going by. She asked if I wanted to go to the church to see the ceremony, so I instantly said yes, because I was curious! I told her I would go home and change, but she said not to worry just to go as I am because she was going to go as she was. Alright I thought, why not, well she drops me off with another Romanian, and she goes home, because she isn't dressed appropriately! As if I am, lol...oh well that is Romania! Well the woman she left me with, (an employee at the school) said the same thing in not to worry, so I didn't even though I felt entirely underdressed, but it was still interesting. The church was beautiful, and the service wasn't too long, but everything is repeated 3 times. Even though I did not understand anything, I still understood the ritual, like when they exchanged the rings, when they took their first walk together, when the priest made a sermon, etc. It was interesting, because unlike in American weddings, their are no actual vows, the bride and groom do not actually say anything during the ceremony, it is only the priest that speaks. The next time I go to a wedding, I will try to take pictures of the various rituals and then post pictures with explanations of them.

So the wedding was beautiful and interesting. After the wedding, they of course gave me tuica (plum brandy), because what is an encounter with a bunch of cool Romanians without tuica! It was strong stuff, and I felt very odd drinking it in a church, but the preist said that it was okay, yes I met the priest in my nice apparel. Oh well what are you going to do. Nobody really seemed to care, so it was all good.

So after that I went to the apartment of the high school math teacher because she is my age and learning English. My motive for going there was to speak in Romanian with someone my own age, and to ask her to be my tutor while I am here. Since she is my neighbor and she wants to learn English it seemed very convienent, especially because in my lessons, we will have to focus on Romanian, and in her lessons, we will have to focus on English, so hopefully each of us will leran better! I offered to pay her as well, because the Peace Corps gives us money for tutoring, but I don't know if she is going to take it. One of the reasons I also thought she would be a good choice is since I will not be able to give her much, maybe I could make up for the lack of that with free lessons in English and we would be about even.

Oh and the reason that Catalina (the math teacher) wants to learn English is because she wants to do a teacher exchange program in the states. So she would go there to teach Math for a few years and a teacher there would come to Romania to teach math for a few years. It would be a really awesome opportunity for her, and she has always wanted to go to the States, so I hope that I can help her learn more English in the next 2 years that I am here so she can obtain this dream!

So after that, I was exhausted, 6 hours of Romanian is a lot, so I decided to go home and relax. I read for a while, putzed around on the Internet, and then noticed that my dear friend Susan from PST was online. So we Skyped for an hour and a half, it was so nice to talk to her. P.S. Lizz if you are reading this we need to make a Skype date! So that was nice and we got to catch up and see each other, and the best thing is is that it is free! I love the Internet when it is free!!!

Let's see I think that is about it for yesterday, I did start up a random conversation with one of my neighbors when I was walking to the store in the morning, that was nice because she understood me, and I understood most of what she was saying. I really need to work on my comprehension, but it is so easy not to listen and to tune things out when you don't understand. I will work harder on listening to everything however :) In time I will learn, that is what everyone here likes to say, and I know that it is true, but we all know how patient I am when I want something, I want it now! LOL :)

Alright, that is all for now, I will be going to Botosani tomorrow, so hopefully I have some fun stories to share about that. I love and miss you all and I hope that all is well. I love getting pictures, so if you want to share any that would be great. I think that I have my address, but I am just waiting on verification, I want to be sure that it is right, it just seems to short right now, before I share it, but I will get that to all of you who want it ASAP.

Va Iubesc si va pup, la revedere si o zi buna! (I love you all and kiss you all, bye and have a great day!)

~pana mai tarziu (until later)

Sarah B.

So, to continue on with my story, I was taken on a picnic. So when I heard the word picnic, I assumed an afternoon in the forest, maybe 3 hours at a maximum, well I need to remember that I am not in the US anymore, and I am in Romania now, a picnic here is an entire day in the forest. We left at around noon and arrived home at around 8. I slept well that night at least. It was funny when we were going there, we first turned off of the paved road onto the gravel road, and then off of the gravel road and onto the grass, I had no idea where we were going! It was sure beautiful there though, it was so nice to see the rolling planes of grass and the beautiful trees of the forest! I really liked it there a lot, even though I was tired. It was funny there were a bunch of cows grazing in the pasture and there was a small lake there, when I was walking around with my directors daughter-in-law, we saw a cow just swimming across the lake, it was the funniest thing I haved seen, it was completely submerged in water! I was entertained at least!

So after that we ate lunch, we had mici (a sort of sausage), chicken, french fries, tomatoe salad, soda, sarmale (ground up meat and rice in a cabbage roll) and of course bread, that comes with everything as does potatoes! The food was all really good though, and they make the fire in the ground, which was also really neat. So after lunch we sat around for a little while, and everyone around me was talking very quickly in Romanian, so I did not understand much as I was extremely tired as well, so I actually ended up falling asleep on the blanket. When I woke up, we were surrounded by cows, that's right cows. The cows that were grazing, came to see what we were up to. They weren't there for long, because the boys that were herding them steered them away from us, but it was strange to see them so close to us, especially since I didn't know they were there until I woke up. Then I tried to stay awake for a while, we drank some coffee, and I listened to them talking some more. After that we went fishing for a little bit. There was little luck however because there was too much crud in the water, it was difficult to find a decent place to throw the line. It was fun to go anyway and my director's daughter-in-law caught a fish, she was really excited about that.

After fishing, we went back to eat some supper, then talked some more, they gave me tuica (plum brandy), and then we cleaned up and went home. When I arrived home, I read for a little while and then fell asleep, it was so nice just to relax and sleep in a nice comfortable bed. I actually think that it was still light out when I did get to sleep.

Let's see that was Sunday, then on Monday I wondered around town with my director's son, hung out at their place for a little bit. After dinner, we went to the house of the high school math teacher, she is learning English and is good friends with the high school English teacher, both of who are around my age, so hopefully I can develop a friendship with them, that would be nice and we had a lot of fun talking, so we will see. I still have to find a tutor, so maybe the one who is learning English can teach me Romanian and I can teach her English, that might be cool :)

So then I arrived home late as has been usual since I arrived here, and I was awoken at 6:30 on Tuesday morning by a phone call, my mom and dad! It was so good to hear from them, especially since it was a suprise! I love suprises that are pleasent like that. Well I had not had much sleep, only about 6 hours and since I was so excited, I could not go back to sleep, so I decided to take a walk around town for a little bit, that was nice and I found a really nice place that I will probably go to sit and read sometime. It is a little bank alongside the river and it was just so peaceful, and of course along the path that lead there, cows were grazing, that is a given around here :)

On Tuesday I got the Internet, so I was spending a lot of time on there, trying to catch up with things. It is so nice to finally have unlimited access to the Internet. We had access in Targoviste, but I felt so bad for spending any length of time on the computer, because there were so many people who wanted to use it, and everything that I wanted to do took time. I did go to cafe's from time to time, but it is so much nicer just to sit at home and work, and besides my computer is rather heavy to lug around. We did actually end up getting wireless at school, but we didn't have more than a half and hour at a time to work on things, and seeing as I had a lot of catching up to do, that wasn't much time to work. I made it through however, and these past few days I have sent a lot of e-mails, figured out a lot of thiings, and gotten hopefully reconnected with everyone that I can! So after that I took a nap for a little while, called a friend, and then walked around town with some new friends for a little while.

That brings me to Wednesday, on Wednesday I chilled out at home a lot, did some more work on the Internet and then in the evening I went to Lake Prud. This is the lake that divides Moldova and Romania. We actually camped out there, it was really nice, the sunset was absolutely beautiful and the scenery is beautiful as well (all of these pictures are posted to my facebook page). I simply love it there. So we had a gratar (BBQ) out there that night, I watched all of the crazy kids being crazy fun kids, I tried to speak in Romanian, but did not do so well, and we slept out there. It was cold at night, and not very comfortable, but I made due. On Thursday we went swimming, well I should say I only went swimming on Thursday, some of the others went the night before when it was really cold, but I opted not to! That was fun and we layed out on the beach for a while and relaxed. My back burned a little bit, but not to bad, I am not quite as white as I was before. So when we returned home I took some more time to catch up on the Internet (noticing a pattern here huh) and read and relaxed for a bit.

That brings us to Friday, I walked down to the piata (the local market) as it is held on Fridays, and apparently I only saw half of it, but it was crazy. My little town holds the piata every Friday, so people from the smaller villages in the communa, come to Trusesti for things, there were people and horse caruta everywhere! I have never seen so many people before. I wanted to take a picture, but I was afraid that I would be in the way of people, maybe I will try next week :) The fresh vegetables there are amazing though, and those are available everyday, on Fridays they have clothes, macaroni, rice, cheese, meat, honey, jam, everything that you can think of, so I am going to have to really check it out next week!

After that I went to school for a while, I checked out my classroom, I was going to try to start organizing it, but that didn't work so well because there is so much stuff in there right now, so I am going to wait until later to see what is mine and what is not and what will be there and what can be moved. I was able to talk a little bit in Romanian however, and that felt good, when I have no other option but to speak in Romanian I do a lot better, since I don't have a fall back, but I really do enjoy the language! So after that I returned home to change and then went fishing for a little while. One of the guys I was with caught a fish, but I did not catch anything...oh well that is life! :) Then I returned home to relax and study a bit, and now I am here updating my blog so you all know how I am doing!

Just so you all know, I am doing really well, I truly like it here and I am looking forward to starting work. I think that I will be traveling a bit and I truly want to see the rest of the beautiful country. I do miss my new friends that I have made through PST, but thanks to the technology in Romania it will be easier to keep in touch with not only them, but also all of my great family and friends at home in the States. I hope to see the mountains sometime soon, and also to travel to the Black Sea, maybe next summer, there is just to much going on right now to do so. I also hope to travel outside of the country as well, when in Europe, you might as well travel when and where you can! I am currently working on obtaining my address, items for me will probably be sent to the school, more than likely in my name, but we are working on that and as soon as I get that to those of you who want it I will send it on. Other than that life is good, I have not started working yet, but I am sure once I do I will have some interesting stories to tell you! Thank you all for all of your support, always feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you have any specific questions that I am not answering, or to tell me what is going on back home because I am really interested in your lives as well. I know you all have great and interesting stories to tell me as well and I want to hear them!

Alright well I hope all is well, I think I have given you all enough to read for now! Se Iubesc si cred despre voi in fiecare zi! I love you all and think about you everyday!

La revedere!

~Until later

Sarah B.

So since I do not have access to Internet at exactly this moment (I will obviously when I post this) I am typing this out ahead of time, looking out my window in my garsonera, in my new town, and listening to some fun country music.

Wow so much has happened since the last time I have posted. It has been so busy finishing up with PST. I have been trying to study, and was preparing for my LPI, and on top of all of that I was trying to spend as much time with my new friends as possible before we all went our separate ways. Now that we all have it is crazy to think that we are just starting on our new journey that will hopefully inspire and change us for life.

Well let’s see here…a recap of the last 2 weeks. So, as stated before I have been studying for my LPI (Language Proficiency Interview) which I took last week. I did alright, but I know I could have done better, but it was enough to pass, but that just inspires me to want to do better on the next one, because we will have at least 3 more while we are in country to see how we improve over time J So in the mean time before my Interview I was trying to spend time with friends and prepare to leave for site. After the LPI we all went out to celebrate being finished. We were able to have a party with all of the Peace Corps staff and it was really a good time. We even got into a leg wrestling competition, Chelsea is a champ at it and it was fun to watch her kick everyone’s butt. She owned everyone, including the guys who you would think would be stronger, but Chelsea had it down to a science and was pretty much undefeatable. I did challenge her and needless to say, I failed miserably, but it was all in good fun.

So we all had a good time at the party which was on Thursday. On Friday, we all swore in. It felt so good to finally be out of limbo, because for the past 11 weeks we had all been working so hard, but we technically were not employed by anybody, because we were still just trainees and not volunteers yet. It was pretty emotional, for several reasons. I think first it was moving because it felt that all my hard work was finally paying off in the end. I had tried my hardest to learn the language, to learn about the culture and to learn about the history. We were in school from 8-5 everyday, and we were all exhausted, but in the end it was right. We worked hard for a goal and achieved it. I also think it was emotional because we have all officially become a part of an American organization that is maintained and support by not only the government but our country. I am officially here representing the United States of America and all that we stand for. It is a very intimidating idea, but I am up for the challenge. I am very glad that I have been blessed with such an amazing opportunity to make a difference in the world…no matter how big or small it will be in the end.

Friday night, we all had a goodbye party and just hung out and had a good time. We were lucky enough to have a place to stay overnight and just chill out and have fun together one more time. Then Saturday came. What an interesting day that was for me. It was the start of my newest journey, and thankfully I did not have to take this journey alone. I was with my friend Deborah, and we left Saturday at around 1:30. We took a maxitaxi to Ploiest which was very hot, but we made it fine. When we got to Ploiest, we needed to get to another volunteers place so we needed a taxi to get there because of all of our luggage, well no taxis were down there, so a man in a car volunteered to take us. We were a little leary, so we called the woman we were meeting and she said if he would charge 5 lei total that would be fine. So since we were together we figured it would be safe, so we loaded up and gave him the address, it wasn’t far but he did not know exactly where it was and took a few wrong turns, but in the end we made it there so that is all that matters. So we got there and then had to get all of our stuff up to the 4th floor. Luckily for us, Susie had an elevator, so with a couple of trips we made it up there. Then we just got the chance to chill out and relax for a little while, which was nice because the last couple of days had been intense and we knew that we would have quite the journey ahead of us since we were taking a night train.

That brings us to the train station. We went a little early to buy our tickets and tried to go the cheap way and take the bus to the station, but it was closed, so we had to find a taxi again. That all went fine, then we got to the station and bought the tickets. I however forgot to ask for a sleeper car, and when we went to ask about it, we found out that they did not have any sleeper cars and we were going to be riding in second class on a midnight train…which for a couple of American women is probably not the safest place to be. We would more than likely be fine, but we wanted to make it to our destination without any problems. So Deborah called her counterpart and spoke with the lady at the ticket booth for us and we worked everything out, we were not in a sleeper car because they were full, but we were on first class so that was better for us. One task done, so we went back to Susie’s to eat dinner and relax a little bit more. Then it came time to leave, so we loaded up yet again and were on our merry way.

So we arrived at the train station a little early to find where we were going. I had to ask where the line was (the same lady was at the ticket booth, and she was irritated with us before, so I am sure she was really happy to see me again J ) so we figured out where to go. Lucky for us we got to hall our brick filled luggage down a flight of stairs and then up another one. It was a blast and a good work out. Then we had to find out where our train would come in, Deborah thought that it would be up a ways, so we waited, well when the train came our adventure truly began. So the train got there and we were by car 5 and needed to be by car 10, I was trying to find it and they were ready to leave. Deborah had gotten on the train, they were blowing the whistle, Deborah was yelling at me to get on and I couldn’t find her, I found her and a man helped me throw my stuff onto the train as it started to move. So I barely made it on the train. So we are in car 5 apparently and need to lug all of our stuff to car 10. So we figure it out and Deborah goes to take some of her stuff to the car, while I wait with the rest of the stuff. While I was waiting for her, a drunk man decides that he wants to talk to me, I got rid of him by telling him that I needed to call a friend, it was just too bad that I couldn’t hear anything on the phone because both of the trains were too loud as we were both on a train at that moment, but the drunk man left so that is all that matters. So I waited for about 30 minutes and Deborah finally returned and we took the rest of our belongings to the car, it was such a long walk and with narrow aisles made it even more interesting, but people were very nice and helped when they could. When we arrived in our car, there were 2 women in there, but they were extremely kind and one spoke English. The one who knew English was actually a Biology teacher in Botosani, which is where Deborah (an environmental volunteer) and my counterpart live. What is interesting however is we all need to make contact while we are here and she said she would be interested in doing projects with either of us. We exchanged contact information and may have just made our first new friend here, which it was such a breech of faith, who would have known that we were going to meet someone that we would instantaneously connect with. I hope to talk with here again and as I figure out my place and my ambitions in Trusesti to utilize the resources and knowledge that she has to make the biggest difference that I can. I am glad we were able to speak in English, because my Romanian was failing me as I was tired, in shock because I almost missed the train, and just overwhelmed from leaving everyone. But I do plan on getting in touch with her again sometime soon, hopefully if Deborah and I get together for lunch or dinner we can invite her and get to know each other better.

So then we arrived at the train station and Deborah and I went our separate ways. Thankfully we both had private rides and did not need to worry about lugging our stuff onto a bus or a maxi taxi. So I got to Trusesti, and went to my directors house for some breakfast, we did not stay there for too long, because then they took me to my new home. Now when I first saw this place on my site visit, I was in shock, I did not understand how anyone would be able to live in it. It was messy, it was under construction it was crazy. When I walked in yesterday, I was floored. It was clean, the walls were painted, the furniture was set up nicely, it was amazing. I am very happy with my new home. So they then left me to unpack a bit, and to clean up and relax a little bit, before we left for a picnic. I was going to say no to the picnic, because over the past 48 hours I maybe got 8 hours of sleep, all of which were not sound sleep, but I thought I should go, I need to get acquainted with my surroundings and I should spend time with some of the people in my town. So around noon we left for what I thought would be a short outing….boy was I wrong.

Since that was really long I left a cliffhanger. I am going to spend the night on the beach tonight with some new friends, so hopefully tomorrow I will continue on with my story!

~Until later

Sarah B.

So life in Romania continues to go well. I am actually at school on a Saturday...you know me I always need to study! It is nice though because I was able to have a conversation with one of the language instructors, since we all awnted tutoring they opened up a weekend session. It was nice just to sit and talk in Romanian and to practice, I am really learning to love the language and I try to use it as much as I can. I have never really studied a foreign language, but I am beginning to wish that I had. I think it would have made it a little easier in the beginning to learn and I think that it would have helped me to develop an appreciation for the Romanian language earlier.

Going along with that note, the difference in language in the schools in Romania is very interesting. Most children start at a very early age, learning at least one foreign language, the most common are French, Spanish and English. Generally children beginning learning somewhere between Kindergarten and fourth grade. It is mandatory for students to take a foreign language here. I think this can be a blessing and a curse at the same time however. I think it is great that students need to learn this because I think that it does create a greater understanding and respect for other parts of the world, which I believe is very important, but I also think it can have a negative effect. Some students may develop a negative view towards the language and cultures because it is something that they are forced to learn and they just will not try because they do not want to, but I am hoping that this is not the case for a majority of the students. The practice of a mandatory second language has been enforced for quite some time and it does seem to be a pretty intrigal part of the culture, and those who take it seriously are farely fluent if not completely fluent within the language.

Oh sorry another sidenote. Yesterday we had our LPI (Language Profeciency Interview) simulation. I was really suprised because it went really well. I know that I am developing the language and I am able to communicate with my gazda, but I was very happy with my rating. I was rated at an Intermediate High, and we need an Intermediate low to pass the final exam. When I was talking with my regualr instructor however she thought that it was a decent rating, but she thought I could have been an Advanced Low, which was really cool to me. My instructor is a tough grader...so coming from her that was a great compliment. I was really excited for that! I also had another instructor say the same thing to me...so I think that I will be passing the final exam if I keep working hard...so that just pushes me to want to do better and better everyday!

Alright, enough about language, even though it controls my life right now :) I am trying to enjoy my last few weeks in Targoviste, in 2 weeks I will be on my way to my site. I am a little nervous to leave everyone, but I am excited about starting to work with the students and my counterpart. I think that it will be a very interesting and fufilling experience. So this weekend I am trying to spend time with my friends, since next weekend I will be training for my peer support position. I am excited for this training because I think that it will be very interesting, but because of this I want to make the most of my final free weekend! Today it is farely warm here, so we might go to the pool! I hope we do, I miss swimming and it will be nice just to lie out and try to attempt to get a tan!

Let's see what else is new. It is diffiuclt to say right now because I generally do the same thing everyday...I go to school and then after school I go home to chill and do homework and then I go to sleep and start over. Once I get to site I will again have a routine, but hopefully I will be having more interesting Romanian experiences because I will be speaking totally in Romanian all the time. I am sure there will be some interesting stories from that and I am sure there will be many miscommunications...but we will see :)

Oh I will be trying to get my address shortly, I will not post it directly onto my blog...but if you want it please either comment on the blog or send me a message on facebook, or send me an e-mail (sm.busse@gmail.com) to let me know that you want it and I will send it to you that way.

Well I think that is all for now...I will try to change things up a little bit to send some interesting stories your way. I hope all is well! I miss and love you all very much!

~Until later

Sarah B.

So it is becoming increasingly difficult to find time to make posts, but I am here and I am trying my best. I am enjoying my life in Romania, though it is very busy, it has been a wonderful experience thus far.

Well let's see what has happened since my last post. I went to see my site this past week, I returned home on Friday morning after an overnight train ride which went very quickly as I slept the whole time....not very well, but sleep is sleep. When I got home I did take a nap however and for those of you who know me very well...you know that does not happen very often :)

My site was interesting, but I think I am going to enjoy it there greatly. It has 2 streets in it with one intersection, so it is very small. There are about 2000 people who live there, and from what I have seen so far, the community is very friendly. It was so nice to be in a small town environment again, I could feel the community ties and everything which is something that I have really missed being in the city here in Romania.

I did not really do a whole lot on my site visit, I met my director, saw my school, tried to talk a little Romanian, badly I might add, met my counterpart (the individual who I will be teaching with) and walked around the town. I did get to see the Moldovan border as well and went to the beach. That was fun, it was so nice just to sit and relax in the sun, and to attempt to get a tan :) My director kept telling me to get out of the sun because I was so white, but I told her that that is why I needed to be in the sun, I was in need of a suntan! I did not burn however, so that was nice, my tan lines have evened out a little bit, but they still need some work :)

When I returned back to site, it was back to work as usual, and we started right back into language classes. We have been learning a great deal of grammar lately so that is always fun, but I feel like my language skills are slowly getting better. I am trying anyway and that to me is what matters in the end.

Lets see what else is new, this past weekend it was extremely hot, we even got to over 100 degrees, and I usually do not get to warm to quickly, but I was hot this weekend. It has been lovely this past week however in about the 70s, so that is definitely nice I have been enjoying it. Oh and on a random note, the mosquitos in Targoviste are crazy, they are everywhere. They are not so bad at my gazdas house, but I know other volunteers who are being eaten alive. I was hoping they wouldn't be bad here...but what are you going to do...it is just a fact of nature.

So on a closing note, I am preparing for a similution for my Language Proficiency Interview, we will have the simulation tomorrow. We need to pass this exam in order to become volunteers, and I was worried about it, but I think that I will be alright...at least I hope. I have learned a lot this far and I definitely have enough to function here in Romania, and the town that I am going to speaks no English...so I have to learn it. I am excited for it however and I know that it will be a great experiece. On that note...I need to e-mail mom and dad and I would love to get e-mails from all of you and I will try to answer them the best I can. I love and miss you all!!!

~Until later

Sarah B.

So I have officially been in Romania for 6 weeks and last week we finally got our site placements! We have something to look forward to after these very difficult and challenging weeks learning the language and the culture! I am so excited!

So after that introduction I bet you all wonder where I am going to go...huh? Well I guess I can share that bit of information with you! I will be going to Trusesti, it is in northern Romania, about 30 Kilometers from the Moldovan border. It is a small town which consists of several small towns which makes up a comuna, in which there are around 5500 people but in my town there are only around 2000. So I got what I wanted a small town!

While I am in Trusesti, I will be teaching grades 5-8 and maybe 4th grade as well. I am so excited to start working, but nervous at the same time. I will be replacing a volunteer there, Tory, and she is absolutely amazing, so I do have some big shoes to fill. She keeps telling me that I will be great, but it is intimidating because I have seen how amazing she is! But Tory says I will fit perfectly in this site, and I trust her judgement as well as my program manager, they all really know what they are going to be doing!

So small town rural life in Romania awaits me. I don't know a lot about my city yet, but I do know that I will not have running water during the day....but Tory has told me how to get around this. I also know I will have access to the Internet in my apartment so it shows that technology rules here! I know that all of you love that! In case you didn't notice, I did say my apartment, I will be living alone! I do like living with a gazda family, but it will be nice to have a place to call my own! I can cook again and as we all know I love to do that, and I will be able to be in control of my own diet! I have not gained any weight, but I haven't lost it either, but at least I am at the maintenance point.

Let's see what else is new...I think that I am picking up on the Romanian language pretty quickly. I was very proud of myself I had a very long discussion with my gazda the other day. We talked about my family and her family, what my parents do, how old my nieces are, how old my brother is, my grandparents, I even was able to explain that my grandfathers died before I was born. This concept was difficult, but she understood, so I was excited for that!!!

Oh another interesting thing that has happened. I now understand the meaning of don't let the bed bugs bite. Yes I have had an encounter with bed bugs. My gazda did get rid of them, but my arms and legs are still feeling the brunt of the attack. They do not hurt at all, they are just a little annoying since they are everywhere and they itch. The PC and my gazda worked together however and as far as I can tell they are gone. I slept in my room for the first time again last night, so we will see if they are gone or not...let's hope they are gone. I was looking for them last night before I went to bed, but I did not see any, so that is good! Only time will tell!!

Other than that things are going great here. I am learning a ton, nervous about leaving my clan of Americans, but excited to start working in the Romanian school system and to experience small town life in Wisconsin. I miss and love you all!! Iubesc voi si te pup! (I love you all and kiss you)

La revedere (Goodbye!)

Until Later

~Sarah B.

So things have been super busy here we finally finished practium and it went well. High School was a little bit harder for me, but I was glad for the experience. My last day of lessons went well, so I was glad that we ended on a positive note. I really enjoyed teaching and I was told I was a natural in front of the classroom, so I did not experience the nerves, which was nice to know. I just remind myself that I am the expert in the language and it is my native language, so why should I be nervous! I loved teaching though, I think I am going to have a great time in my two years here.

So other than that we just did a lot of language and lesson planning this week. I did have my site placement interview which we talked about possible sites, and I requested a small town, so I think I may get that! I hope so as we all know the city and I do not mix very well, you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl!

So I hope that you all had a Happy 4th, we had a gazda party here but unfortunately it rained. Well actually that is an understatement it poured and we were outside in a park so it was kind of a bummer, but hey it was worth a try. After the gazda party I went home for a little while, but then the volunteers had their own party. It was a ton of fun and definitely an awesome 4th in Romania. It was nice to be able to spend such an important holiday for the USA with the great new friends that I have met here.

So as I mentioned earlier, on Wednesday I find out where I will be going for the next two years. I am a little nervous, but excited, it will be nice for it to be more concrete. I am nervous about leaving however because as of right now I still have my American bubble that I am in since I am continually surrounded by at least 35 Americans, I am excited to work, but it will be sad to leave them. I am hoping that I will be in a small town, with beautiful scenary because it isn't as depressing as the bloc apartments are, and there probably will not be a lot of English spoken there so I will be forced to learn the language. That is the best way to learn the language however is to completely immerse yourself in it. I am experiencing this at my gazda, she does not speak a single word of English, not even yes or no, but I think that I am improving. I am working really hard to pick up the language, and I am enjoying speaking with my gazda, especially since it is getting easier to comunicate.

Let's see, not a whole lot else is new here, just the end of practicum and language lessons. I am having a good time meeting new people and trying new experiences while I am here. Life is good here so far and I cannot believe that I have been here for 5 weeks, it is going by so fast! My language instructer says she has faith that we are all going to pass the LPI - Language Proficiency Interview, so that makes me feel good. I am nervous about it since it is just 6 weeks away and then I will be starting my service right after that.

Well that is all for today. I hope you all are well and not roasting too much in the states. It is ridiculously hot in Romania today, but other than that I am fine here. I love and miss you all!

Until Later

~Sarah B.

So today was the end of our first week in practicum, I was sad to leave the students, they were all so awesome! They were so good about participating in class and had a ton of fun with the games that we played! We even had a few of them who made pictures for us, they did these crazy drawings of our names, they are really artistic! At every break they would all be up at the blackboard drawing and writing out things, they were amazing! They also took a bunch of pictures with us today as well, I am glad that they liked us! I am nervous about next week though I will be teaching high school so it is going to be much different than middle school....oh well I am sure that it will go fine.

I am excited for tonight, I will be going out with a bunch of my collegues, we all like to hang out together on Friday nights it is a good end to the busy week. We all have fun and just chat, it is a good way to get to know one another, and just have fun!

This weekend I am planning on lesson planning and shopping. I will be going to Second Hand stores, which are like Goodwill or Savers in the states, so hopefully I can find something. There is a lot of them so I am sure I will be bound to find something. After shopping I will be going to lesson plan. I have the high school students next week so I think I am going to focus on Social and Cultural Issues for the week...as we all know I love to study people and hopefully they will be interested in learning about people as well!!

Well that is all for today...the weather is hot, but not unbearable. I hope you all are doing well, I miss and love you all bunches!!!!

Until later

~Sarah B.

So in my last post I was very nervous about starting to teach....that was just silly of me. It has been great so far, the kids are fantastic. I think that Carly (my partner) and I may have just gotten fortunate though, these kids are truly fantastic. They are all really good at participating and very interested in what we have to say, it has been so fun. We haven't done a lot on specific vocabulary, but we do a lot of conversation in English. They are very advanced in their English, especially since they are only in the 5th and 6th grade. I am a little nervous about how it will be once I get to my actual site, as there will be a greater diversity in the levels of the students, but I will accept that challenge once I get there.

Tomorrow I will be teaching again, as I will be until next week Friday, but it is only for 1-2 hours a day. On Monday we just had fun and played games to gauge the level of the students and get to know them so they were comfortable with us. That went over really well (it was all Carly's idea...she rocks) so then we were able to get to know the students and get to know there likes and dislikes. From there we based our lessons on what they like. We already knew that we were going to talk about the parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, and verbs) but we changed our guides since then and based it on what they liked. So on Tuesday we talked about Magic and Fairy Tales...the kids loved it! It was so good to see them interacting and becoming creative! Then today we talked about adjectives and people and related them to popular people and describing them. They have such an extensive vocabulary that they became really creative! It was great! Tomorrow we will be talking about verbs and sports and maybe dancing and music...I hope that we have fun tomorrow as well and we will continue to review the parts of speech.

Finally on Friday we are going to talk about the US. The kids are really interested in what goes on in the US and I think they will be really interested in hearing about it. I think they know more about American pop culture than any of us know however, they knew so many people today, it was crazy!!

I am continuing to learn Romanian, it is a dificult language, but I am starting to be able to form sentences with my gazda. I can understand a lot more than I can speak which is pretty typical, but I am trying not to be afraid to speak, because I know that it is important in the learning process to make mistakes and just try.

I have been walking a lot as well, which is good, but I haven't been eating vegetables as much as I would like. They eat a lot of warm food here, but once I get to my own place I am sure that I will be able to eat more fresh foods and vegetables, but I think I may try to talk to my gazda about foods that we like and I will say that I like vegetables all types of vegetables maybe I will get more vegetables then!

Let's see I think that is all for today, I am going to go shopping this weekend for clothes so I will let you know how that experience goes. It should be interesting and I will be able to practice the vocab that we just learned! That is all for now, love and miss you all bunches!!!!!!

Until Later

~Sarah B.

So not to much has changed since my last post, but I had some time so I thought I would take advantage of it.

Yesterday we had some practice with lesson planning. I was really nervous about it at first, but now I feel a lot better. I never thought I would be able to come up with ideas for lesson plans, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. I am not sure how it will be once I am on my own, because I feel like I come up with a lot better ideas when I am able to bounce ideas off of people and build off of their ideas as well as my own. It is always nice to think outside the box!

So tonight I am getting together with some of my collegues for food, beer and lesson planning, hopefully we will come up with some good ideas and enjoy ones company in the process. Everyone here has a bunch of different ideas and personalities so we compliment each other well.

So on Monday I start teaching, we are teaching in pairs for three hours a day. I was lucky enough to be paired with my friend Carly (well we actually picked the pairs) so we are going to team teach on Monday and then on Tuesday we will start teaching individual lessons. There will be 3 hours a day and one day I will take 2 hours and Carly 1 and the other day it will be the opposite so that we each teach the same amount of time. I am a little nervous to get in front of a class of 30 students, but I think team teaching the first day will help break the ice and I just have to remember that I have a suffiecient knowledge of English and the kids are there to learn and not judge. I am sure that it will be fine, it is just a little nerve wracking.

I know I sound kind of rosie right now, but there are bad times as well. In the US however I encountered tough times as well, but we all push through it and concur the tough days as well. It is nice how I have only know my colegues for 3 weeks, but it feels like I have known them for years. I am glad that I have made friendships so quickly, because with such an intense experience you truly need those experiences.

I think that is all for now, everything is good and I continue to learn a great deal everyday. I miss and love you all and hope that everything is well. Oh and to all the father's out there, expecially my fantastic Dad - Happy Father's Day! Also to the Busse/Sebo clan I hope you have a great time camping this weekend, enjoy the company and be sure to relax as well. Have fun at the flea market and golfing as well!!! Love you all bunches!

Until Later

~Sarah

So things around here have been absolutely crazy, they keep us so busy here that I have very minimul time to get onto the computer and when I do I don't have a lot of time to post, but this morning (it is 8AM) here I am taking the time just for all of you!!

So school is going well, we learn a ton everyday, but the teachers are all really nice and they all want to help us a lot. All of our lessons are conducted in Romanian, which I thought would be difficult, but I am not often lost, which suprised me, but it was a pleasant suprise! I have to study a lot every night, but seeing as my gazda only speaks Romanian, there is a definante neccessity to learn Romanian quickly!

In addition to language lessons we also learn culture about Romanian. We had a diversity session last week which was very interesting just to learn about the different aspects of the others in the room, and see how diversity affects us everywhere. I feel that I have observed some diversity here in Romania, but I am looking forward to more first hand experiences, both positive and negative, because as we all know it is not always easy to learn, but worth it in the long run!

This weekend we all went on an Integrated Field Visit. We had 7 groups go to 7 locations and it was very interesting. We were able to see some schools and the different types of working environments that we will have. Most of the schools we have went to thus far have been very nice with computers and internet! I have to keep in mind that I won't necessarily have this luxuery, but that would be nice. The classrooms are a little different, as the seating is almost always based on tables, I have yet to see an individual desk, but it is an interesting environment.

It was also nice to see the volunteers in their site and to see how they have integrated theirselves into the community. Some related more to the students, others to the teachers and still others to the entire community. It was also interesting to see them interacting in Romanian, I did feel a lot better about the language. I know that it will be hard work, and I will have to continue to study hard, but I know that in time and through practice it will come.

A few things that I took away from this weekend were that this job will be very difficult, but in time and with perseverance I will make it through and it will be the best job that I will ever have. It was nice to see how adjusted the volunteers are but at the same time it would be interesting to see what the first couple of months were like, just to know what to expect at first. The end result is nice to see, but it would be nice to be able to see the process as well, just to be prepaired.

Let's see what else to say. Before I left we were informed about the dogs, in our training city there are dogs everywhere! They are big, small, black, white, skinny, fat, sleepy, they are just everywhere! So we of course thought this was normal, at our IFV site there were hardly any dogs. Apparently our training city has more dogs in it than most people have ever seen who visit the city. It is unreal! I have been lucky enough not to encounter any cruel dogs as of yet, but I am definitely keeping my guard up, I do not have any desire to be bitten by a dog!

Next week we will be starting our practicum! Yikes! This means that I will be in the school teaching!! We will at least be working in groups, which will be nice so we will not be completley alone. I am nervous about being in front of a group however, but I know that as long as I plan adequately and try to take more activities than necessary and put the neccessary work into it I know I will be fine!

Let's see I think that is all for now, but I will try to get a post up again soon. I miss and love you all and if you would like to call me that would be great, my parents have the number so shoot them an e-mail or give them a call.

Until later

~Sarah B.