Peles Castle, remember? In Sinia

So this Castle, I went to before but Only saw the OUTSIDE. What a mistake!

We saw inside. We being: me, 2 people from the Ecological center, and 4 people from Luxembourg. Word = WOW!
We had to wear slippers.

And you have to pay to take pictures, but here's a taste of what's inside. Remember for me! The LAST TUESDAY OF EVERY MONTH there's a special tour to see more rooms!
My fav part: the stain glass windows were amazing!! The perfect giant class from Venice, the ...anyway, there's another castle in Sinia, but we didn't have time to see it. Hearst Castle = no comparison, this is the real stuff.

I saw tourists and I took a picture of them. They spoke Chinese, but I didn't talk to them and they didn't say hi to me either.

We have McD and KFC in Romania.

The start of CASR Tourist in Europe

What is CASR? Chinese American Speaking Romanian

So this will be me being a tourist in Europe, we'd better add an H- in front for Hot, just to be clear it's me. HCASR =)

Anyway, this was Tuesday when I went down to the city because I was leaving from the city at 9am the next day, so I thought I'd spend some time with Marie since she was leaving Romania soon (actually this week now) and spend some time with my language tutor, who also lives in the city.
I went to the Eco center (By the way, I was going on a trip with an Ecological center to visit other sites in Romania, they invited me to go with them the week before, and after the elections, the said it was still fine to go with them and they'd cover my costs if the Primaria couldn't. Sweet!!!) to drop my stuff off and There! Found out that Wednesday, was really meant JOI! Joi = Thursday!
Ergo, I learned make sure to understand times and dates in both languages and not to assume that the other person is getting all their translations right.

SO! I spent an extra day with Marie, and helped her clean her apartment before she left the country, I helped a tiny bit really.

This hot toots showed me that you can make root beer from mineral water!! I did not believe her at first, but wow!! It was like a Miracle!! Romanians don't like it though I'd heard, they think it tastes like meds. Only us Americans do.
Root beer FLOATS!!!
Ingredients: Mineral water, sugar, root beer extract, and skill.

I mentioned crazy random thunder/lightning storms here, with pouring rain. I tried to take pictures for you Katie!! They were across the sky!! But I couldn't catch ANY!! Here are a couple attempts =(

And here of course...mosquito bites. I got 11 that night in Galati, the 2nd night I was covered with repellent and got 1. Those ankle ones suck. At the moment, I get bitten quiet often and it's a good thing there's no malaria here. I could put repellent on all the time, but it's too hot to do that.

I'm alive

I didn't die or fall off the face of the planet. Instead I went on a trip from the East to Central Romania and saw all kinds of cool things and met all kinds of cool people, ate all kinds of cool things, etc... It was for "business" so I did learn things too, brain felt like a packed basket of plastic piece ideas shaking around.

So, I was tired after, and here I am at my site trying to find a niche right now, so I haven't been able to put my pictures and stuff up yet.

I will though!

I'd be excited if I were you guys. I felt like a tourist for the first time, and I'm soooo excited to see the rest of Europe now!!

Site link, Elections

A friend found this site and sent it to me:

Elections in Romania

From what I've learned and seen, I'm not surprised.

An ended chapter of Cynthia's Adventures

Today was the last day of school....
I've been to every school in this comuna, but there was one school where I enjoyed being at more than the others. They were funny, they got along, and I mean, in general all the teachers there were inclusive, for me being there every day for about a month and not teaching anything.
Here's most of us in this picture.
It was a teacher's retirement party, and we ate in a class while kids were partying in the other classrooms =)

Here's the elementary school teachers, I got them in a group for a pic. In this school, not sure about all of Ro, the primary teacher can teach the same class from grade 1-4. In my grade school in the US, we changed teachers and changed classmates every year.

Class 8 graduated, and now are on their way to different high schools, in different cities. We have no high schools in our comuna, which is a giant step for these kids I imagine, to leave classmates they've known for 10 years (if they attended kindergarten).

Here are a bunch of little enthusiastic kids from a class. I had a few goals for the schools, one was to visit every school and I did (not all the kindergartens though) and another one of my goals was to sit-in in different types of classes, and I did that too. I sat through the primary classes (grades 1-4) and through specialty classes (grades 5-8) a chem class, a history class, a biology class, a couple Romanian language classes, English classes, PE, and now that I think about it I did miss: mathmatics, religion, their elective/counseling class, and French.

Every grade here has a "mom" teacher assigned to them after grade 4. This teacher is their counselor and has an elective class with them, I think it's one hour a week. Maybe it would have been awkward to sit in, but probably interesting.
I thought that was nice, to have a teacher all to your class, and I forget the name of this position.

Here is me with Domna Sreguta...(I can't get her name...it's 4 syllables and I can't remember it). She retired after this year, we had a party for her.
On top of her leaving, my new friend Sorina is leaving too.

Here's a pic I made my tutors take with me, they're not all my tutors, but really the people I know best at this school. All very different people, but ...I don't know about labeling people as close friends after only knowing them for 1 month, but I think they're my friends.
All of them live in a different city, have different lives, but it was fun to sit in the teachers' lounge all day and talk to them in their 10 minute breaks, or if they have a free hour.
And so ends the chapter: Chilling in the Cancelarie cu Chic Chicas (hanging out in the teachers' lounge with awesome women)

And so begins a new chapter: Summer in Romania

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...

Word: Egg

Two words: Treasure Island


send me the pics if you have the old ones from last year =)


sorry other folks, inside Triathlon joke.