In Country

Hello All,

We have successfully made it to Romania and made it through our first full day here. Before I say anything about our trip or time here, let me first say ... Woo Hoo! Obama Won! No, he TROUNCED (to quote a very questionable celebrity ... do you know which one?) John McBush and Bible Spice! My faith in the American people has been restored! But I did think, it's finally getting good and NOW I move out of the country? Oh, well. I am still excited!

For the most part, our trip went smoothly. We departed from Charlotte, and spent four hours at Dulles before boarding our transatlanic flight. Overall, Lufthansa was a disappointment. On flights with KLM, Air France, and British Airways, you get your own viewing screen with a decent number of films to choose from. On our 7 hr 40 min flight to Frankfurt, we had to use a common screen mounted to the ceiling, and had no choice in programming. To add some excitment to the trip, however, an old man collapsed while walking to the lavatory. I (B., at least for this paragraph) caught him before he fell all the way, and with another passenger gently lowered him to the ground. Apparently, he succumbed to a panic attack due to claustrophobia and fainted, poor guy.

With over three hours to kill in Frankfurt, we first located our gate, which was easy enough to accomplish but as it turned out we could not wait there, as they only allowed passangers on the next flight to enter the gate area. Actually, finding a place to rest in the Frankfurt airport was difficult--there is a serious dearth of seating there! We did manage to find a room with a a few free places. Oddly, this room was full of Indians--I felt like I was visiting with S.'s family again! (And yes, once again I felt like a giant, teehee.) Happily, the flight from Frankfurt to Bucharest was both comfortable and uneventful.

S. again ... After a VERY long day of flying (could Lufthansa make the economy seats any closer together or any narrower?), we made it to Bucharest in one piece, received all of our luggage ... also in one piece and were brought to our apartment. The apartment is just as nice as the photos indicated and our landlords were extremely welcoming and friendly. In fact, within the first hour they took us to the grocery store and then later invited us to dinner at their house. Our landlords are a retired couple and they have a son who is finishing high school. I feel lucky that they all speak such clear English since my Romanian is nonexistent, but hopefully I will learn more soon. While I was so grateful for the trip to the store, I was exhausted, overwhelmed and dirty (no shower for over 24 hrs plus airplane funk ... yuck!) and anxious to call my family and I have to admit, I kind of lost it a bit and started crying in the store. Fortunately only B. realized and our landlords simply thought I had the flu and attempted to give me some medicine (how generous). I did finally talk with my dad for a few minutes, cried on the phone with him, went back to the apartment, cried a bunch more and then watched Juno on our very large TV, which gets about 10 English language channels, including HBO. After, I felt a lot better. We had a nice meal with our landlords, hung out in our place, unpacked, I FINALLY got a shower and then sleep!!!!

Today we spent time walking around in our neighborhood and realized we live very close to the Museum of The Romanian Peasant and the Museum of Natural History, as well as many shops and restaurants. Also, many of the homes in this area are beautiful and there is a very nice large park nearby. We bought a few more provisions and found our way home. We eventually managed to make dinner (very gourmet ... spaghetti) and finish unpacking and doing a deep dust removal.

We have a meeting with Fullbright in the morning and hope to get to meet some more Americans who will also be here.

That's all for now ... hope you all are well. Please keep in touch. We miss you all soo much already.

And for those new parents in MO out there ... CONGRATULATIONS and how beautiful!