We found the Romanian Walmart!

Today we ventured to Kaufland! Six of us went together and we took taxis there. I love taking taxis. I think it is just really exciting to see so many things in such a short amount of time when we are used to walking everywhere we go. Anyways…. Kaufland…. is just like a Super Walmart. They have way more stuff than the little G Market does. That is where we usually go shopping and it is much smaller. They had way more variety at Kaufland, too. At the G Market they have like 10 different cereals, but at Kaufland they had way more to pick from. I found a cereal that even looked like Coco Pebbles… hopefully it tastes just as good. We all spent tons of money and we hope to make it to Kaufland more often for the better prices. But we did have to pay for the plastic bags we used for our groceries. They were about 50 bani each which equals about 20 cents or so per bag. We were all packing our bags as full as we could. I’m glad we went; it was a fun Saturday adventure!

A Day at the Hospital

Here are some pictures from my day at the hospital. The hospital was really good today. I hung out with Kinsey and also with Rhett for part of the time. We were in charge of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors of the hospital. We visited and played with Marion first. He is such a cute little guy! He is actually from the orphanage and he’s been at the hospital for a couple of days now. I think he has some kidney problems, but I don’t know for sure. He is so cute and obviously a favorite of the nurses and even the other patients on the floor. Today this mom shared a little cookie with him. He was so happy!

After we played with the cutie for a while, we went and found this 6 year old girl named Alexandra. This was the first time I met Alexandra. She has some leg problems that are genetic, so she was stuck in a crib. We gave her 2 balloons (the first one was orange, but then she requested a pink one), 6 pink stickers she chose herself (we’re thinking that her favorite color is pink), some paper we all colored on, and lots of hugs. She kept asking us for hugs and she gave us kisses on the cheek when we left.

After playing with Alexandra we went and found little Pamela. She is 2 months old and I still don’t totally understand where her mother is. It is hard to figure out what’s going on or what happened to some of the patients because I’m not totally fluent with my Romanian… yet. Haha! I wonder if I will ever get close to that point with the language. But Pamela was adorable! We changed her and fed her today. Pamela wasn’t totally interested in the food in her bottle; she just wanted to suck on it. I hope she eats more later!

I really enjoy going and working at the hospital. We just get to spend our time playing with kids and holding babies! How fun! Its crazy how attached we get to the kids. We always want to go to the same floors to see our kids. Oh and an update on Fabion… I went to go see how he was doing yesterday and the nurses said that he had gone home. So I guess that’s good news, but I did really miss seeing him and spending time with the little guy.

Today is my special day!

It was my birthday today! YAY! I am now a big 20 year old. I'm no longer a teenager! Weird! We did so many fun things tonight… they all seem to revolve around food though! HaHa! We went and ate Chinese food tonight at La Cao and it was pretty good. We ordered a bunch of different things and then shared them. The Chinese here in Romania was pretty good, but it wasn’t very spicy. I can’t wait to go to Pei Wei when I get home! I love Pei Wei!

After the Chinese food, we went and got yummy Gelato! So good! The place we went to is across the street from where we live… How have we not seen it yet!!!?? I seriously might be going there like 3 times a week now. Its only 2 lei for a scoop of deliciousness, that’s like 80 cents. I got a scoop of caramel and a scoop of biscuit. It was really good and I can’t wait to try their other flavors!

After the gelato, we came back to my apartment and ate the cake that Rachel made today! Chocolate cake with whip cream. We even had 20 candles to put on top! Thanks for sending those mom! My group sang to me and everything. They are the best!

After the cake we played random card games and just talked and laughed. It has been a way fun birthday. I’m glad that I got to have a birthday here in Iasi, Romania. It was different, but way fun. I miss my family and I miss Jeremy like crazy right now. But I’m thankful that I am here. I have been able to experience so many amazing things already and I just got here!

What a good day!

I'm a happy girl!

Today, I got a package my mom sent me and a card from Riley today! I got home from the orphanage and Mario had come and left the package for me on my bed! Mario is a Romanain lady that is employed by BYU to make sure we are ok over here. I was so excited to open it… but I kind of wanted to save it so ate lunch first and then I opened it. Everything my mom put in it was so perfect! The frosting, the peanut butter, the fruit snacks, the suckers, the granola bars, the brownie and cake mixes, and the water bottle! Everything was just so perfect! My mom just knows me so well and she sent me the things that I have been missing the most (a quick fruit snack here or there, etc)! I seriously have the best mom ever! If there was some big competition for the best mom, then my mom would win for sure! I’m so grateful that she sent it! The package got here in just under two weeks and I got it right before my birthday which is tomorrow!! YAY! My mom is the best! I love her!
The orphanage was good today. The little babies slept most of the time that we were there, so I played with the bigger kids today and massaged their joints and tried to move their limbs around so that they will get stronger. I didn’t think that I would have as much fun with the bigger kids, because at first I was kind of scared of them. They have more severe disabilities and I wasn’t sure what I was allowed to do with them or if I would accidentally hurt them or something. They are also easy to ignore because they just sit there and rarely cry. But spending just 10 minutes with Monica totally changed how I felt. I really enjoyed spending time with her and then I realized that these bigger kids need just as much love and attention as the little babies do. It was so nice to spend some time with her and I was amazed at how quickly I came to really care for her. I am so excited to be working in the Isolation Room… the kids just need so much love.
The hospital today was so good. I was with Rhett and we were in charge of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors. On the 3rd floor we found this boy that was about 5 years old without a mom. This little boy was so banged up! He had an IV in his hand and one in his foot, a tube up his nose, and he had a breathing mask on too. He had a splint on his right arm and gauze taped all over him, especially on his head and shoulder. He was covered with a big blanket, but he was shivering and he had sweat all over his face. It was so sad… Me and Rhett didn’t know what we could do at first. We sat next to him and I just lightly touched his face while Rhett rubbed his hand that was clenched in a fist. We just tried to talk to him a little bit and comfort him whenever he started to cry. He looked like he was in so much pain. I just wanted to pick him up and hold him close to me. He kept shivering and he would just cry so hard sometimes. It was so sad, but I was so glad that I could be there and offer him the little comfort and friendship that I could. I just sat there and prayed that he would be comforted and somehow know how much his Heavenly Father loved him. We stayed with him for about an hour and a half and it was so hard to leave him there without anyone to watch over him. But we went and checked our other floors we were in charge of. We found another boy on the 5th floor and he had something wrong with his back… that’s what the nurses told us...we think… they were speaking Romanian and we aren’t fluent yet. Ha! Anyways… Rhett and I played with him. He was 8 years old and he was so cute. We blew bubbles for a long time and then Kinsey came and joined us and we played with a balloon for a while. It was a lot of fun. We talked to him a little bit in our broken Romanian and found out that he likes to play tennis and he doesn’t like basketball. We stayed with him for the rest of the time and at 5 o’clock we all met on the 1st floor to come home.
On the way home, Rachel and I decided to make something good for dinner and so we made German Pancakes! They were so delicious! We even made our own syrup! I am going to come back from Romania and I will be all domesticated and such and I will know how to cook so many things! We are planning on cooking meals quite a bit as an apartment! Tomorrow though we are going to get Chinese food… because it’s my BIRTHDAY! YAY! and it’s a Friday! How perfect! I found out where a good Chinese food place was last night from someone in the ward, so I am really excited to go check it out!
So today was such a good day! I am so blessed to be able to have this type of experience. I am so lucky to be the one that gets to love these kids for even a short time. I hope that while I am working here that I can help these kids realize that they are children of God and that he knows them each individually and cares for each of them, too. They have such sweet spirits and I am excited to serve them and get to know them better. I feel like I really can’t explain how I happy I am to be doing this. I just get the most amazing feeling when I’m holding them. I know that Heavenly Father watches over them and I can feel the love He has for them. I am so blessed to be a part of their world!

A Little Bit of Iasi

Here is how we soften our butter without a microwave! It was totally my idea!

Here are the yummy donut things that we just can't get enough of. They are called Langosi and they are filled with different flavors like cherry and chocolate.

This is the Palace of Culture and its right down the street from us. It is a museum.

Here is a cool church that we went and checked out.

There are stray dogs everywhere here!

This is the Villa where we go to Church; the Church rents the 2nd floor. Alicia, Rachel, and Rhett from our group are in the picture.

We've been busy!

It has been a pretty busy week! We now have our room assignments at the orphanage and we have also been working in the hospital this week. I will be working in the Donald Duck Room (it is also called the Isolation room). This room is filled with the little babies (some with disabilities and some without) and also a few kids that are older but have severe disabilities and are very low functioning. I am really excited to be working with all the sweet babies. They just get so excited when we hold them! Rachel will be working with me in Donald Duck for the semester. We will work in the orphanage from 9-12 every morning and from 2-5 we will work in the hospital. The hospital is a pretty unique experience. We divide up into groups of two or three and we take different floors to go and play with the kids that don’t have moms. At the hospitals here, mom stays at the hospital with the baby if they are sick. We see lots of mothers in their pajamas because they have been there for quite a while. The moms really have to take care of their kids and the nurses just do medical stuff. So the children without the moms are often left in their cribs for long periods of time, so we come and change their diaper, leave a clean one for the nurse to use (or else they use cloth diapers), and then we hold the babies and play with the kids. Some of the children are really orphans and their moms abandoned them after having them. Others do have moms but they either don’t live close to the city, have too many kids at home to care for, or they can’t leave their jobs to stay with their baby. I hope this all makes sense. This is what we have been doing this week. It can be really tiring at times, but I really appreciate being able to sit down and just relax when I get home every day!

The Tour!

Today we got to go see the orphanage. It was a lot nicer and cleaner than I thought it would be. It really looks like it could be in the United States. They do a really good job at maintaining it and keeping it really nice. I was nervous at first to go, but now that I have been inside and seen the rooms, I am really excited to go back! There are a lot of really cute kids there and a lot of others that need a lot of help. I’m excited to start working and figure out what room I’m in. There are three rooms: Donald Duck which has all the babies with severe problems (also called Isolation), Mickey Mouse which has some young toddlers that have disabilities, and Bambi which has the older kids with disabilities. There are also a couple of apartments that have higher functioning kids from the orphanage in them. One is Dancu and the other is Dacia. We can only go to Dacia in the afternoon, so a couple of us could go there instead of going to the hospital in the afternoon. Two of us from the group will be assigned to each room and also the Dancu apartment. We can kind of pick and choose where we want to go and my first choice would be Mickey Mouse and then maybe Donald Duck. They are all so cool though, so where ever I end up will be wonderful I am sure. We had a tour today and we start working there tomorrow.
Alicia and I also went to the hospital with Robby today for a couple of hours. He can only take two at a time for the next couple of days. While we were there we went to the different floors and asked if there were any kids there that didn't have moms, if they said yes, we would go to the kids and then change their diapers and play with them for a little while. Then we would go to a new floor and do the same thing. We bring our own diapers, wipes, and toys for the kids.


Diapers are just as expensive here as they are in the States and we would love to be able to have enough diapers for all the kids without moms, so if anybody is interested in donating money for us to purchase more diapers, just get a hold of my mom and we can figure it all out. Any help would really be appreciated... Thank you!

Brasov, Romania

We spent a couple of days in Transylvannia and here is what we saw!

The first caslte was beautiful! They had so many ornate carvings on the inside... but they charged us money for taking pictures on the inside... so I don't have any.

Here is Dracula's Castle! Well it really wasn't though... but they had vampire stuff for sale all around it and historical info about Queen Maria on the inside.

Here is part of the group about to go in check out what's inside of this castle.

Here is the third castle we visited.

Here I am at the third castle we visited! It was mostly cool ruins.

We went to church in Brasov. The lessons and testimonies were in Romanian, but I was able to pick out a view things.

We went up to the Brasov sign after church! It was really cool.

Here is the front of the sign... it is kinda like the HOLLYWOOD sign.

We are so little!

Check out this picture... we were wandering around Iasi and Kinsey took this picture of Me, Michelle, Rhett, and Robby. The boys look huge! I swear Michelle and I are not that little compared to them in real life.

We are going to... BRASOV!

We had our meeting today and we have decided to go to Brasov, Romania! It is a more touristy part of Romania and they have gorgeous huge mountains and big castles. It will be beautiful. Now that we are going, I am way excited. It was nice to rest a little, but now I’m ready to go explore something new! We are heading out tomorrow morning by train at 5:30. It will be an early day. It takes a while to get there and we have a layover in Bucharest, so we will get in around 4:00 pm on Friday. We are staying two nights in a hostel that sounds pretty cool (past groups have used it before) so we had the brochure. We will try and see all of the sites and then we will go to the Brasov Branch for church on Sunday and then get back on the train at about 7:30 pm. We won’t get home until 5:30 Monday morning, but we can sleep on the train and then we will have all day Monday and Tuesday to get ready to work in the orphanage on Wednesday. So there is the plan! It will be amazing! Check back for pictures soon! Well hopefully they will have good internet, so I can post them.

I'm Here!

Here are some pictures of the apartment! But I took these before we made it cute. There are three in our apartment and I'm sharing a room with Rachel! Our room is so cute! We organized al of our stuff this morning, so we are feeling better about being here for 3.5 months. We won't get to work in the orphanage until next Wednesday, so we have some time to adjust or we might travel a little, so who knows! We will see... I'm kind of exhausted from all of the travelling and exploring my mom and I did, so I kind of want to stay here and get more things organized! But we will see!

Here are some random apartments and I bought some bananas at the Piata!

Dear Romania,

Here I come! Are you ready for me?? I'm not sure if I'm ready for this experience. I'm scared and excited all in one. I know this will be great though! I can't wait to get started!

Recap!

Most beautiful country side: Austria

Most comfortable beds: Paris

Cleanest Streets: Switzerland

Most Graffiti: Rome

Biggest Metro System: Paris

Most Crowded Metros: Rome

Cleanest Metros: Vienna

Best Treat: Italy-gelatos! yum!

Most Over-rated Tourist Attraction: The Forum in Rome (we were sure we found it 3 times and we are still not sure if we ever saw it...confusing)

Funnest Place to Watch the Locals: Pisa

Coolest Place We Saw: Venice! amazing!

What We Could Have Skipped: Seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but we loved the town

Favorite Hotel: Vienna

Weirdest Thing: Paying to use the bathroom... what if I wasn't carrying cash?!?!

Worst Drink: Carbonated water that we keep buying on accident

Best Drink: Fanta Orange... so much better than in the States!

Where We Could Live: Salzburg

Where We Would Never Live: Rome

Biggest Surprises: Almost everyone can speak English and everything was so HUGE in real life!

Things We still Aren't Used to: Amount of graffiti they never paint over and lots of smokers

What We Would Change if We Did it Again: nothing with the itinerary, we would just bring the rest of the family (you, too Jeremy!)

Where we crashed after exploring all over:

Our little feet have been lots of places:

It was quite the task to find manhole covers that said the name of the place we were visiting... obviously in Venice and Vienna we were unsuccesful in our search.