Season's Greetings!

Today was a beautiful and sunny day here in Bucharest and until evening it was quite pleasant for walking around, which was good since my schedule was more full than it has been in a while. It was nice to be active and now it is nice to feel the pleasure of relaxing after a full day. I can hardly call the day busy, as at no time was I hurried (or harried), but it certainly was steady.

B and I started the day by attending the opening of the Starbucks I mentioned in an earlier post. Yeah! Starbucks! The shop is nice and looks like a Starbucks for sure. It seems when Starbucks opens a new store, they tailor the menu a bit to local tastes, so unfortunately no peppermint mochas to be had. :( Why, I ask? I mean, who doesn't like peppermint, especially with chocolate? Anyway, the special Christmas drinks here are a Dark Cherry Mocha and Toffee Nut Latte. I tried the Toffee Nut Latte and it was pretty good. B had a Hot Chocolate and we shared some pastries. We also met the manager, who seemed very nice and she even gave us a sample of their Christmas Blend ... I'm looking forward to making it in the morning! It even smells good just in the package.

After the Starbucks run, we had a meeting with folks at the Center for Independent Journalism. The center is doing a project about the (in)ability of Roma to access health care and associated issues. It seems there may be things for both of us to do to help with the project, which is exciting and the folks we met there seem very nice and interesting. They also have a small library and in our short visit B was already able to spot materials he would like to see. The Center is pretty close to the archives where B has been doing most of his research so if he is ever stuck or unable to get materials at the archives, it would only be a short walk to the Center to be able to look at their materials.

After our meeting, I had to return home for my next Romanian lesson and B went on to do research at the Library of the Academy. While the Romanian lesson went well (I was even able to construct some sentences on my own from memory- short and simple, as they were), it is becoming increasingly difficult to communicate when I only know the present tense of verbs. I guess if I was a Buddhist, the present tense would be all I need, however, I think we can all agree that being in the moment and not being worried about past or present is not my strong point. So, I think learning future and past tense will need to happen soon.

When B got home, we had dinner. I thought it would just be a simple dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese, but I have to say the sandwiches were pretty good. The soup (from a Knorr packet) was awfully thin and uninteresting, but the sandwiches were on dark bread with a mixture of Tilitser (boring, but we already bought it) and Gouda (yummy!) cheeses with grilled red onions and tomato for me and salami for B. They were great! Now we are just relaxing and enjoying some TV and our Christmas decorations! We have added some photos of our humble decorations below. Happy Holidays! -S