IST (In-Service Training) = Checking of volunteers' sanity after 6 months

There were some volunteers who thought this whole thing was boring and a waste of time. I on the other hand needed this "vacation" and it was fun...though jam-packed busy.
Again here was our schedule from 9-6pm every day
(but really more like 7:30am-9pm or 11pm every day =) )

We had language classes (grammer and different topics about Romania), meetings about grants, about how to get along with people, etc... But there was an underlying theme I observed in all of this: everyone made an emphasis on how "well we were doing" "how we were going in the right direction" "how blah blah blah"
It was great! I felt so proud of myself, I needed to pat myself on the back after every conversation with a staff member, BUT I think that was one of the points of IST: to make the volunteers not feel down about not communicating well, not knowing what they're doing in their new organization, not having made real friends yet, etc....
So: seminars, skits, dancing, etc...


My buddy Emily made a WHOLE BOOK by herself to help those of us still struggling with language. It's topic oriented and very cute and purse size. She's using it to fundraise for a student organization too!

Here are some volunteers with our name tags, discussing a a topic to present. Next picture is of counterparts who came to the conference. In order: Nils', Emily's, and then both of my replacement counterparts: the mayor and a lawyer.

We were at a hotel with 8 floors, so I took some morning pictures from the 7th (the 8th had a satalite dish and the door was chained shut). My eyes look crazy, but the background is pretty so oh well. I'm sure my eyes don't really look like that normally.


We ate sooooo well at the hotel!!! Yum!! Great service too! and oh! the Deserts, I didn't take pictures of them cause I was busy scarfing the sweets. Breakfast, breakfast, lunch, and for dinner we didn't eat at the hotel so we got money to eat where we wanted to.

That's buddy Jenn there copying language notes after class. =)

Most nights I went out because this was the first time I saw most of my colleagues from PST (about 5 months ago). Some people didn't eat out at all and saved the extra money. I'm a saver too, but when I am out to have fun I like to have fun. This food is Hungarian and it's called prnounced: Gooh-lah-sh. It's a zesty soup with beef stew chuncks and potatoes. For dinners that week I tried Hungarian and Italian.

Part 1: The Journey to Miercurea Ciuc

Also known as the coldest city in Romania.

I left my village on Sunday and spent the night at Emily and Nils' since we did have to leave at 5:30am (and there's no train from my village to where we were going). Not too bad of a ride, and our compartments were heated =)

Guess what I bought for 1 lei on the train! I needed those band aides for my shoes and for my scrapes from that bike incident. Tiger Balm!!!!! It's made in China and smells like the real thing. I've not used any since I was a child. I think it's for anything that hurts (except eyes).

I took these pics trying to get a good one of them two sleeping, but later I looked through them and thought they were pretty funny. The scenes are so different in every shot!


Yes for the next pictures. They're soo pretty! One is of the small villages nestled in the hills as we got closer to Transilvania/the mountains/the Hungarian villages in Romania. The next is a river shot.


Romania has oil too.

AND we arrived at the hotel! 7 hour trip = not too bad at all. We had a niiiiice hotel. There were weird Romanian tweaks, but great food, warmth, etc... some high profile people stayed in the same hotel with us that week. Weird hair dryer/US outlet adapter device to the left.

After I took a nice nap (there were no plans Monday except traveling), a few PCVs and I went in search of food. We found an Italian Restuarant!!! I ate Ravioli!!! Yay!!!!

Then back to the hotel we went. It was a chilly night: -1 C probably. We had the whole 1st floor to us, and part of floor 3. I said I felt like I was in the dorms again probably because I got to pad about from room to room in my fuzzy socks =D

And vola!! Sometime in the evening we saw the schedule in the lobby. It was jam packed with fun from 9am-6pm..and over, every day!

Sorry!! and I will be gone next week

This is a quick post while the computer is working: I will be gone to Miercurea Ciuc (the coldest city in Romania) for about a week: Monday-Saturday for a Peace Corps conference. To my knowledge, it's to check to make sure people in my group are healthy and if we're lost or confused/upset at our sites, our staff will give us ideas on how to make things go easier.

I'm ready to go, I had a hard 2 weeks (maybe ~ 1 1/2 weeks). I was pretty down about all the complaints I listed and etc...

There have been excited and fun things that I've done, but my computer isn't realiable enough right now for me to post. Like it's 10% reliable now.

I ask this now: WHEN I GO BACK TO THE US IF YOU HAVE A DEPENDENT LAPTOP YOU DON'T WANT ANYMORE I'LL TAKE IT.

I love my computer, but it's been over 5 years...and I need something for me to work from, to communicate from. ALSO IF YOU HAVE A SURGE PROTECTOR... Nothing could have saved the computer during that lightning surge, but having one might save the next laptop for my sketch electricity too.

(UPDATE): GREAT IDEA FROM A CONVERSATION....THINKING ABOUT IT THERE ISN'T REALLY ANYTHING I WANT AT ALL EXCEPT A BETTER LAPTOP...SO MAYBE FOR CHRISTMAS NO ONE GETS ME A PRESENT, BUT HELP ME A LITTLE AND I CAN BUY ONE.

Talk to you all when I get back!!!
Again, I will be in the US from 12/23-1/1/09 and I'll mostly be in SJ. We're having a Christmas party at my mom's newly remodeled house on Christmas day.

I suggested having a "gingerbread (not gingerbread, maybe snickerdoodle, or granham) house" competition. Why? cause it's fun and yummy! but it will be Mom's call I think.

Later =/

More details later but: I was at a...lunch where you eat to celebrate the dead. My neighbor's father died and we had a large meal to celebrate him 20 days after he died. There will be another bigger one after 40days. More later.


When I had no electricity and I brushed teeth by wind-up flashlight.



With Mihaela (teacher of Physics) (I know lots of Mihaelas: Mihaela of the public library, Mihaela teacher of Romanian, Mihaela of PE, Mihaela of kindergarden...etc...)
Anyway, we didn't just talk we did!! We remade the compost pile from what it was, to new. There's some positives about it: kids are using it1! but I am also sad cause ..some people didn't know how to use it and I found plastic and someone burned one of my recycling bins...=( Oh well. My vacation is Ciuc.


Again, later!!