Here are a whole bunch of pictures:

More pictures from Thanksgiving, where we went to the village Sunday morning.

Cats:

Hey! We get a good shot of the turkey too! See how small its breast is. It was a female turkey too.

Gypsies in our region are the best metal workers. They make these type of pots and rice doesn't burn on it, they barely stick.

Some of Peace Corps came on a visit so we went to the Indian restaurant in the city. It was okay, but I've had better curry in the US. Maybe cause I like my curry spicy and more flavorful and Romanians tend to like more bland flavors. It was still ethnic and fun.

My backyard dump (all the trash besides the compost stuff):
The cat helped by lying in the sun, he didn't collect the bottles, my neighbor did.


So I built these things so the trash won't fly around and there's a plastic section for the left and others to the right. Not bad for May '08 to March '09; minus the trash that was lit on fire and burned in November.
Game: Where's the cat? in the picture to the right.

Market, and it was on the 1st of March, it was bring and warm and nice.

Hum...their version of sour cream and onion chips. I tried it...and I like the sour cream and onion a LOT more. (I had thought it was really the same, but nope, it's dill).


Working on my local paper. There's a shop, and there's the post office selling the paper for me.

Still Winter. Did you know people use the branches of this type of tree for all sorts of stuff: fences, whipping horses, holding up plants for their vineyard, tomatoes, etc...

Some people (mostly gypsies to my knowledge) come with large bags and sell stuff to the mayor's office. So my co-workers were shopping for clothes.

My large fish called: nov-lak

Yum.

Over at Emily's for a girls' weekend. We made sushi and watched Casablanca. It's a good movie =) I liked it and it was digitally remastered so didn't look like an old film.

We used raw..or smoked fish: herring salad. I dont' know who would eat this salad by itself, but it was good in our sushi.



I don't know why, but there's a beam of light directed at the plate of sushi on the left, and I find it weird and funny.

Animals of Romania...behavior and sights

So did you know people raise turkeys too? Did you know that turkeys like to sleep on top of dog houses?
This one does, my neighbor's turkey. It's 2 years old, and the only one left in her yard.

I also noticed one day that chickens sleep in trees. Can you see the chicken? I looked in up in wikipedia...and apparently "wild" chickens have a habit of seeking safety in trees at night.

Who is this white fluffball?? The neighbors call him: obraznic (brat) [oh-brah-z-nick] and pufalet (means: small puff or smal fluff) [poof-ah-lez]. He's grown and he's still super curious and a pig when it comes to food. He does eat too much, he tries to jump on my window sill like the other cats, but sometimes he misses and falls (cause he's fat).
So...while I was stalking out the chickens in the tree, he freaked me out by jumping onto my back and sat on me. ...obrazic!

Another time, I was in this tree picking apples to make an apple pie (picture at the end) and I saw chickens there in the tree with me, and then Bijou scared me again by tugging on my ankle!! in the tree!

He is cute and fluffy and soft though...

I was on my way to the city...in the taxi van and there was a herd of sheep in the next lane over.
Even though it was weird and touristy of me to pull out my camera...I had to, for your guys' sake. =)


MMmmmmMMmm. Receipe is in the Pofta buna book I have linked onto this blog. I didn't use nutmeg though. People said they loved it, if they really didn't, I don't care cause I do!

I have made 2 so far, using apples from my yard. They are soooo, excuse me, They WERE sooo yummy. I ate 3/4 of one in 36 hours, and 1 time I brought it to the mayor's office and I shared it.

Package#2 - highly suspicious

The first package I got, from mom, I took no picture of.
It contained things such as seeds, yellow curry, dried chinese roots, teas and chopsticks.

I've since made curry chicken and I drank some of that tea (cause of the throat thing).

2nd package =)
I think I had my suspicions when I'd heard who was ganging together to send it.
I got: The most scump (expensive) [sk-oomp] toilet paper in Romania!
I was told to tell these friends (by people who saw the contents of my package), that there's toilet paper in Romania, and it's affordable. =p

About 11 hours after the package content police and I shuffled through this, I discovered the REAL reason behind this gift:
I got 3.98 rolls of better absorbing toilet paper from the US (due to the fact that 0.02 of the paper had a message on it, and I CAN'T WIPE MYSELF with that part!).

It got torn on its journey across the Atlantic, but I puzzled it back together.

Bonus gift, my friend (since 7th grade)'s mother owns a cat product company called Johnson's Pet Products (advertisement in exchange for the gift) so they sent me a thing of catnip too, for my neighbor's cats...or maybe for the cat I said I was going to get, but never did.
BTW: I'm not getting a cat. I have bug problems, and I can play with the dogs and cats and chickens outside my apt.
I filled a sock, and threw it outside, I'm seen no traces...

Nature and scenes of Ploiesti

I am back for a bit. Everyone I think is gone from school, but I'm here with the computer (calculator, which also means calculators too) to share some new thoughts and insights... or pictures.

Here's some photos of animals I see around Ploiesti and I've heard they're pretty common all over Romania. Here's a picture of a church near my home, and it's not that different from the sunsets in CA eh?

I tried to ask 2 language teachers if they've ever ridden on a horse drawn cart, but instead of: "Am pe căruţă?" I asked: "Am pe cartof?" Which means really really roughly, due to poor language skills still: "have you been on a potato?" Fun times, and many more to come.

Cats and dogs get along fine here.....

Ahhh. So here is a picture of food from my coffee shop. I've found a place to study! The ladies who work there are sweet and they ask me questions and they look at my homework and their food is relatively inexpensive and I'm the only one who studies there, so I can be there for 5 hours with no interuptions. Mmmmmm. Both those items cost 4 rons, which isn't too bad. A pepsi or coke is about 4 rons usually, a beer is about 3 rons. 1 USD = 2.5 rons.

So that cuppucino and cake cost 1.6 USD.

Besides going out, this whole weekend I studied. My confidence is up...not sure if my language skills really, but I can make sentences now, not great ones with the correct conjugations, but at least with nouns and verbs.