The Trip

I've been avoiding posting anything to the blog... I started to post about the trip a few weeks ago and then the computer ate it. So I've not taken the time to come back and start over. I can't go into the massive awesome details here, so we should really talk in person if you're interested, but I can point out some highlights.

Our time in Romania started out at Caminul Felix... an orphanage for lack of a better term... but it's really set up like two communities of foster homes... 2 parents and 12 to 20 kids per house. They were beautiful happy children that warm up to guests quickly. We made fast friends with some of them, and we got to do a few art workshops with lots of them. They had a wonderful time drawing and coloring and just being all-in-all creative. We met some Americans that were there too and that was super helpful for us because two of them work there months at a time so they were able to show us around the town of Oradea and tell us more about the work that they do and the needs that the people have.

One great conversation we got to have with two of the house parents was telling them about being in NYC during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11th and having them tell us about living in Romania during the rule of communism and watching it fall. I think it's always tough for us to talk to people about Sept. 11th, but it was easier to open up to them as they were opening up to us.

Beyond drawing and playing with the kids, we also painted some doors and attempted to help level the volley ball court with sand, but this group of little boys came to "help" with that and so it really just turned into them playing in dirt and us getting nothing done. Also, we went to a cookout one night and I had Romanian sausage called Meech... I was sick for 2.5 days and am eternally grateful to Nancy for sending antibiotics with us!

So after the week with them we went to Cluj-Napoca to spend a couple of days with Heifer International. If you don't know about Heifer Int., look them up! They do wonderful things and this trip confirmed to us that it's an organization that we want to continuing supporting. This was definitely our favorite time in Romania. On the first day we went to a Roma village that had a goat farm... beautiful people and beautiful goats. They made us lunch right next to their barn... frying up some meat they'd slaughtered and some potatoes they'd grown over fires, and serving goat cheese they'd made. I was sure to drink the cherry liqueur they served so I didn't get sick again! It was a wonderful time. And the next day was just as wonderful when we were taken to another village that has heifers! Heifer heifers! As part of the rules of receiving gifts from Heifer, they gift their first born heifers to another family, but they also gift part of their milk to a children's hospital. We had a really wonderful time meeting these people and seeing Heifer's work up close.

Then it was on to our "vacation" portion of the trip! Rome, Paris and London.
Highlights include:
-Sweating at the Colosseum in Rome and having to tear myself away from the Sistine Chapel.
-Our little hotel with the shared shower in Paris overbooked and they had to move us to a beautiful studio apt. one block away from Notre Dame. We could hear it's bells while we relaxed on our bed. Paris was my favorite city we went to... Notre Dame and Musée d'Orsay would compete for my favorite parts about it.
-Seeing the chopping block and crown jewels at the London Tower... Big Ben is really cool... "London swings like a pendulum do..." As You Like It at the Globe... Tate, Tate Mondern, British National Museum...
-Getting bumped up to first class in on Virgin-Atlantic on our flight home. We had our own pods with seats and footstools that turned into beds...

I've not put pictures up in a public place online yet... if you want, you can friend me on facebook and see pictures there... or just wait til I get around to posting them on flickr or something.