A Busy January

Well, I am back in Romania for my second round.  I've had a terrifically busy month, so I haven't found the time to update the blog until now.  At the moment I'm in Ciumani, on the second leg of my four-city tour around Romania.  The first semester has ended and the second semester doesn't begin until February 20th, so I have some time for travelling.  There will be lots to share with you after my return.  For now, I'll stick to the stuff that happened in January.

Although I missed my leaving my friends and family in the US after such a short visit, it was still nice to see all my friends in Constanta on my return.  Josi and I decided that we wanted to welcome all our friends back from Christmas break with a "Bine Ati Venit La Constanta" party.  We made some Romanian food and we celebrated it on Giorgos's 20th birthday.  We cooked ciorba (sour soup made with bors), sarmale (stuffed cabbage rolls), mici (sausage without casings...they kind of look like poop, but they are delicious), mamaliga (polenta), and stuffed mushrooms.  It was our first time cooking sarmale without the assistance of a Romanian, but we managed to turn out something quite tasty, despite the deceiving layer of charred black sauce that bubbled out of the baking pot during the four hours we cooked them.  

Josi rolls up the sarmale.

The sarmale in the pot, before we add some tomato sauce.

For the birthday boy we set out the pastries...that survived...

Giorgos's birthday cozonac.

Since it was Giorgos's 20th birthday, Josi picked up some little cakes and pastries on her way over.  THEY WERE SO DELICIOUS!  We set them out for dessert (Well, to be completely honest, two never made it to the party.  I'm slightly ashamed to say that they were simply too delicious to share...even with the birthday boy.)  We also decorated a cake for Giorgos.  Since the theme was Romanian cuisine, we had some cozonac, which is more of a sweet bread than a cake.  We had no icing to use to decorate the cake, so Josi and Camille got their creative juices flowing and embossed Giorgos's name into the cozonac using peanut butter M&Ms.

Happy 20th birthday, Giorgos!

I started Weight Watchers the next day.

On the 12th, unbeknownst to us, anti-government protests had begun across Romania.  They were initially in response to healthcare reforms that had prompted a popular health official to resign.  After the controversial bill was floored and the health minister re-instated, the protests mainly died down.  But while they were up and swinging, they were very serious.  In Bucuresti, the gendarmerie (let's just say they're like state troopers in riot gear) were called in after protests got violent.  In dozens of cities across Romania, people were protesting.  They weren't just protesting a health care reform either.  Topping the list of complaints: austerity measures that cut public sector salaries (like teachers') by 25%; an increase of the sales tax from 19% to 24%; the discontinuation of subsidized heating, effectively doubling the entire country's heating bills in the coldest winter in a long time (read on for more details); and general corruption.  People were calling for the resignation of President Basescu ("Down with Basescu!" / "Jos Basescu!" was a popular chant) and demanding the elections be moved up.

Josi lives near the Primaria (akin to the State House), where the people of Constanta were protesting.  In the clip you can hear them shouting "Jos Basescu!"

My second week back we had the first snow that really stuck, and we were so excited.  Now, it 's a bit funny...

My second week back was the final week of classes before the start of the exam period.  Because of the set up of the course I teach, this was also the week my students needed to present their final projects.  The end of my week was filled with mountains of assignments--most turned in last minute--to grade.  On Friday, as usual, Josi and I went to the International Café, a project of Youth With a Mission, Constanta.  Each Friday they have a café night, and this particular week the theme was Chinese New Year.  One of the YWAM team members told us about Chinese New Year in her home city, Hong Kong.  There were a few games and we got to paint ourselves “blessings” in Cantonese.  I chose to write “Improve your studies”—for my students.  Amid my busy week, I again found time to conspire again with Josi.  On that Saturday, we had a pancake party. 

I forgot to photograph them while cooking, so here are the reheated ones I had for breakfast. the next day. 

                                 

A Romanian specialty for dessert is clatite, which are basically just crepes.  Somehow, the translation has been ingrained into the mind of every Romanian youth that the proper English translation for clatite is pancakes.  No matter how often I try to protest this injustice and dishonor done to the flapjack family of fluffy golden griddlecakes, no one seems to understand the important difference.  Thus, I was determined to bring the true pancake to Romania.  As such, I brought with me a 5 lb. bag of pancake mix, a pint of real maple syrup, and a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's.  (I’m sure some of you are revolted at the thought of pancake mix.  I usually make my own batter and I could certainly do so in Romania, but the giant bag of mix added a nice dramatic effect.)

For our party we also cooked bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, and homefries.  It was very delicious.  Maybe they were just being polite, but I’m pretty sure everyone liked the pancakes, even if they weren’t about to replace them for clatite in their cooking.

My next week was filled with grading, going to my Romanian course, and drinking lots of tea with Josi and sometimes Achilleas at our favorite new coffee shop, Times.  Times just opened in the ground floor of the building adjacent to Josi and Achilleas’s apartment building.  They have a huge selection of yummy teas for a good price.  We have now tried each of the 16 or so flavors they sell and narrowed down our favorites.  I daresay that I am on the path to becoming a tea snob.  I used to never drink tea, because I thought it tasted so horrible.  (I blame my mother, who only ever drinks black tea with milk but no sugar--no offense Mom!  I, on the other hand, have found that I love fruity teas, with a little sugar and no milk.)  Now, it is my go-to hot beverage at restaurants.  (I’ll be honest, the only reason why hot chocolate doesn’t hold this position is because I dieting right now, but I really do enjoy tea now.) 

On Wednesday of that week Atilla and Angelina had to make a day trip to Bucuresti, so Josi and I tagged along.  Atilla swung by my apartment at 6:30 to pick me up.  I was sleepy.  When we left Constanta the weather was fine, but we were driving into a snow-covered Bucuresti.  Once during our day the car got stuck in its parking space, so we three ladies got out and pushed.  Thanks to our brawn, the car was freed from its snowy confines.

Bucuresti in the snow.

I helped free the car with my awesome strength.  Fear me.  Really.

Friday of my third week back Josi and I went to the International café again, and then we met Angelina and Atilla at the new mall for a special evening of late night shopping with huge discounts.  We were shopping from 10:15pm to 2:00am.  We got some excellent bargains.  The winning buys of the evening: two pairs of fingerless gloves and 7 sets of jewelry, each for only 5 RON (about $1.50).  Afterwards, we went to a 24 hour pizzeria for a late night snack.

That Saturday was a chilly chili day.  A deep cold swept across Eastern Europe at the end of January, and Constanta was not spared.  It was the sort of cold that bit down into your bones.  Going outside was dreaded, and the wind off the Black Sea was very unhelpful.  After I woke up I headed to Josi’s apartment.  We made chili con carne, drank hot tea, and then we both turned in early.  The next day we shared our pot of leftover chili with Daka and Achilleas, then made a run to a small store to satisfy Josi’s chocolate craving.  Everyone was getting a type of candy bar called Kinder Bueno, which I’d seen on shelves in Constanta but had never tried.  Upon hearing that I’d never enjoyed a Kinder Bueno before, Daka insisted that I have the second pack he’d bought.  So I had my first Kinder Bueno.  It’s a bar with 4 “puffs” of hazelnut crème filling inside of a crunchy, fluffy, cookie sort of coating, then enrobed in milk chocolate.  It was yummy, but fortunately for my waistline, it wasn’t so life shatteringly good that I now have to buy them every time I see them in stores. Phew!

My first Kinder Bueno.

I took the final exams for the first semester of Romanian class on the 30^th and 31^st.  To study…well, I didn’t really study… I was a terrible student, and as a teacher, I am ashamed.  I did put a little extra effort into practicing, however.  I had a few friends speak with me in Romanian and I instant messaged with Daka almost exclusively in Romanian several times, and he gave me his seal of approval, as someone who’s been learning Romanian for three years.  And lucky me, my professors agreed.  I passed both the oral and written exams, with a score of 8 out of 10 points.  In Romania, the grading scale ranges from 1 to 10, 10 being the highest.  In order to pass, you need a 5 or higher.  An 8 is lower than I’d prefer, but considering I could only attend about 1/3 of the classes, rarely did my assignments (because I rarely went two days in a row), and--as I have already confessed—I really didn’t study for the exams, I’m counting it as a win.

Earlier in this post I mentioned something about how it was a little bit chilly at the end of the month.  It was positively (no…better make that negatively) frigid.  I took to wearing double socks, double gloves, yoga pants under my jeans, and an extra sweater under my jacket.  For a while I even wore two scarves.  The temperature was in the -20s Celsius. (Pop math quiz: figure it out in Fahrenheit!)  To put it in perspective:  the Black Sea started freezing along the coast of Constanta.  This is not common.  My landlady said this is only the 3^rd time in her lifetime that this has happened.  I’m glad I got to witness such a rare occurrence…but it sure was cold!

The frozen Black Sea, from my apartment.

February 1^st, Josi and I went down to the Cazino to take a closer look at the frozen sea and to get some great pictures.  It was breathtaking.  

Icy railings at the Cazino.

All along the shore are these giant cement jacks.  I'm told they are used to prevent the waves from eroding the shore.

The sea wasn’t frozen over completely.  Really there were just small ice floes floating on the top, all of which were concentrated on the shoreline, pushed in by the waves.  So it was still very fluid; we could see the waves moving.  It looked like a writhing field of snow, as if some fearsome giant worm was making its way toward us under the surface of the snow and ice.  The waves at the shoreline were about the same consistency of a Slushy.  We got a lot of great photos, but our fingers were so cold by the end.  We both felt as though our fingernails would fall off, they were in so much pain.  But God saw our suffering and sent the cheapest maxi taxis right away to bring us to my apartment.  The next day we left for Suceava, where my trip around Romania began, but that’s a story for another blog post.

The Year Comes to a Close

I won't be in Romania for Christmas or for New Year's Eve, so this will be last post written from Romania for 2011.  I'd have really liked to experience a Romanian Christmas, but I would miss my family and my boyfriend, Nate, way too much to stay away from the United States.  Since most of my friends in Constanta are returning to their respective home countries for Christmas, I might have found myself mildly bored anyways.  So, I'll be returning to the US on Thursday evening.  I'll take two flights: Bucuresti to London and then London to Boston.  It looks like a short little trip when you look at the departure and arrival times, but then you throw in the seven hour time difference and car travel on both ends and suddenly I'm travelling for about 22 hours!  Lucky for me, my friend Atilla is flying out of Bucuresti for Istanbul the same day, so I get to carpool to the airport in Bucuresti, rather than taking a series of buses or trains.  Woohoo!

Giorgos, who has, in fact, eaten pasta before.

Now, last time I posted I made mention of an upcoming pasta party.  I also mentioned that it was inspired by my friend Giorgos's inexperience with that delicious food.  Well it turns out that Giorgos has, in fact, eaten pasta before.  He has had little experience with noodles and apparently does not think that anything eaten by Italians counts, so a different use of terminology made our original goal of the pasta party a moot point.  Oh well!  Fortunately, just about everyone in the whole world who ever lived and did not have an allergy or sensitivity to gluten or wheat or normal food in general (*cough* LJ, *cough*) loves pasta.  So, everyone was still happy to come to our pasta party.

The ingredients for our pasta party

Some of the prepared food (but not all!)

We may have gone overboard.  I say may because the surplus of pasta we had actually helped to contribute to the overall vibe of the party, which was a success, so perhaps if we had merely made an appropriate amount of pasta the pasta party would not have been quite so fun...  Or I could just be making excuses...

Plenty of pasta

Based on this photo, I estimate that we purchased 4.3 kilograms (9.5 pounds) of pasta...for 7 guests.  Perhaps more than a pound of pasta per guest was more than we needed, but we really wanted to have a wide variety of pasta available.  We ended up only cooking about 3 kg of it... well, maybe it was more like 4 kg after you add in the homemade ravioli, which was pretty dense.  At any rate, everyone ate to his heart's content and then I continued to eat nothing but pasta ever since, and I was joined by people for leftovers, who consumed four meals of pasta.  Somehow I couldn't persuade the strapping young men in attendance to bring home bucket loads of the stuff.

I did not cook on my own, though.  I was assisted throughout the entire process by the magnificent, irreplaceable, Josephin.  And after a few hours, we were joined by my perfect counter-part, Hates-to-cook-but-loves-to-clean Angelina.

Josi gets creatively crafty

Josi was also the brain behind our decorations for the evening.  Besides making pasta and pasta sauce, we also tried to have a flag for each nationality present.  So, we bought flag toothpicks, but this set didn't have Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, or Russia, so there was a problem.  We decided to hack apart the flags of other countries to create flags for our guests.  This is where I should mention that I have no office or craft materials at my apartment.  I had: a blue pen, a black pen, paper that was printed on one side, candles, and sewing scissors.  With these materials, Josi created a Bulgarian flag and a Greek flag.  We considered making a Turkish flag, but the whole crescent moon and star thing was complicated, and we just ran out of time and got lazy for the Russian flag...  At any rate, considering the materials available, particularly that we were using melted candles as an adhesive, we did spectacularly.

The Greek flag, before we sealed it shut with wax and before we trimmed off the extra stripes on the bottom.

I won't go into painstaking details about the food present.  Suffice to say there was pasta in lots of shapes, and there were several varieties of sauces.

Daka and Josi just couldn't wait to try the tortellini.

I fear I've gotten off track.  I should have told you the attendees of this pasta party several paragraphs ago.  The responsible writer in me knows I should just insert may cursor in the text somewhere and remedy this problem, but an unidentified, lazy part of me would rather explain all this to you and then tell you now.  Clearly that lazy bit of me won out.  At any rate, in alphabetical order by ethnic nationality: Daka of Bulgaria, Josi of Germany, Achilleas of Greece, Giorgos the Macedonian from Greece, Angelina the Russian-Tatar Romanian who was born in Uzbekistan, Atilla the Turk, and Katelyn from the United States.  No two ethnicities were duplicated at our party.  Yay!

Our lovely guests

After dinner we played Apples to Apples.  Somehow Giorgos won.  (If I just leave that without explanation it sounds a bit mean.  Giorgos, God bless him, has the worst English skills of the bunch of us.  Apples to Apples is basically a vocabulary game.  He won rounds several times without even knowing the meaning of the word or phrase he was playing.  And he won the entire game.)

Other things of note at our pasta party: Daka brought homemade ketchup from his grandmother in Bulgaria.  It was my first time trying homemade ketchup.  It was yummy and has some sort of unidentified (by me) ingredient that tastes like Christmas.  I'm hooked.

Ketchup from Daka's grandmother.  I didn't snap a photo until I'd  already finished half the bottle.

On Saturday I went ice skating with a group of kids and trainers from Money Sense.  It has been four years since I last went ice skating, and I expected to be dreadful.  Far from it, after four laps or so, I no longer had to touch the wall at all!  This was truly a miracle to me, but I went on babbling about how grateful I was to my grandmother, since I was 1/4 French Canadian, and surely this was the reason I could stay upright on ice skates.  I am proud to say that I only fell once, and it was all Emil's fault!  One of my Money Sense students fell on the ice and I had no choice but to stumble to a hands-and-knees stop or to tragically skate over his fingers.  Sure, a good skater could have avoided the fingers without falling, but I was willing to sacrifice myself to save Emil's fingers....I'm just that heroic.

The Money Sense gang who came to ice skating.  To find me, look for my hat.

Such a pretty hair pin!

That evening Angelina gave Josi and I our Christmas presents.  She did such a great job picking them out.  My favorite gift is the amazingly beautiful hair pin she gave me.  It is from Russia and is carved from birch.  It is just gorgeous!  She also did her own translations of a Russian zodiac for me and Josi.  Now I'm not a believer in astrology and I'm not going to make any of my decisions based on anything I hear from astrology, but it's a little uncanny how accurate it was about my personality and about Josi's personality.  It more or less described our personalities to a T.

On Sunday I had dinner with Mihaela, my landlord, and her niece, Flori, and Flori's boyfriend, Cornel.  (I've mentioned them before in my earlier posts.)  We helped Mihaela to put up her tree and to decorate it.  Flori and Cornel also gave me a snowman mug and a big bar of chocolate for Christmas, and I took some special requests for souvenirs from the US.

Flori and the Christmas tree, pom de cracuin

On Monday I had a Christmas party with some of my students from the university.  Five students came.  The attendance was disappointing, but the turnout by food was exceptional.  There were several bags of chips, several platters of amazing pastries, four bottles of soda, and I brought crepes.  We listened to a bit of Christmas music and we watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  It was fun, but it would have been nicer if more students had come.

At the Christmas party.

Tomorrow is my last full day in Constanta before I leave for two weeks, so I have a lot to do.  I have to teach class, buy some last minutes gifts, and go to the closing event for Money Sense.  Then I hope to see Angelina one last time before I go.  To make things a little less stressful tomorrow, I have to pack and to clean my mortifingly dirty apartment tonight.  But I don't want to, so I am blogging instead...

Well I've procrastinated enough, so it's time to get to work.  Perhaps I will post something from the states, otherwise, see you all next year!

Christmastime is Here!

"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat!"

Some of my Money Sense students had me pose in this Santa hat they brought.

I have never felt so multicultural.  OK, not myself, per se, but my life in general.  I am making more friends every day!  On Saturday night, Josi, Angelina, Atila (Angelina's boyfriend), and I spent the evening with Josi's neighbor, Achilleas, and his friend Giorgos.  Now in the course of the night, it was revealed that Giorgos has never eaten pasta!  He had only even tasted it once (twice after I had him try the rice noodles I ordered)!  Now Josi--who buys two or three kilos of pasta every time she goes to the store--and I decided hat this is a great travesty.  We then decided to remedy Giorgos's affliction and we have planned a pasta party so that he can sample different varieties of pasta and sauces.  If everything goes as planned, representatives of the following countries will be in attendance: the United States, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, France, and Romania--that's eight nationalities among nine guests (Achilleas and Giorgos are both Greek)!  It should be a fun night and a nice send off before Christmas, when we will part for two or three weeks.

Having dinner, desserts, and drinks at the Irish Pub

Have I mentioned how tall Romanians are?

I can't believe I forgot to mention it in my last blog post, but on December 2nd, I got my residency permit to continue to stay in Romania for more than 90 days.  I'd love to show it you, but I am sure it would be an awful idea to post a photo of my ID card online...  Having my residency permit could be extremely helpful when I return from the US to Romania after Christmas, since the airlines sometimes won't let you on to the plane if your return ticket is scheduled for a date in more than 90 days, unless you have a residency card.  I just squeaked by with 87 days from my entry to exit of Romania for this leg of my stay, so I didn't have any troubles, but other ETAs had some problems and were nearly turned away from their flights.

The city hall wishes you a Happy New Year!

Now from the title of the post, I am sure you have been expecting to hear about Christmas here and are starting to despair, thinking I have strayed away from the most heartwarming holiday season.  Fear not!  Constanta is all aglow with lights, and I paid a visit to the Christmas piata.  What is so Christmas-y about this piata?  Well...not all that much, but there were gingerbread cookies!  Now, it may not have been very strong in its Christmas theme, but it had a nice variety that is missing from the other ordinary piatas.  In fact, there were no fruit or vegetable sellers.  Vendors sold meats, cheeses, candies, cookies, apple cider, tuica, palinca, carved wooden wares, ceramics, hats, scarves, preserves, and homeopathic remedies.  I bought an amazing hat for myself.  It is super fun and warm, and I love it!  After seeing it, Achilleas and Giorgos decided they needed hats just like mine for themselves, so yesterday they each bought one, in gray.

My new hat!

The Chrismas piata, at Casa de Cultura

Now, continuing on the subject of Christmas, I was hard at work...er...spending the earnings of my work...buying Christmas presents for folks back home.  I got a gift for my parents that I am really excited about, but can't mention because it will ruin the surprise, but I'd just like to say it is great, and now I want to buy more for other people.  I did a lot of this Christmas shopping near and at one of the biggest piatas in the city, Tomis III.  While I was there, I stopped in a dairy and bought, among other things, some raw milk.  Today I turned some of it into hot chocolate, and it sure was delicious!

Raw milk

Also on the topic of Christmas, Josi and I were hunting for Christmas presents at one of the malls when we kept running into green-shirted middle schoolers with plates of cookies.  We were very confused about it all, and then we got to the mall's top floor.  It was covered with costumed children, masquerading as Santas, Christmas trees, snowmen, and other Christmas-y or wintery disguises.  We had stumbled upon a costume contest and craft fair.  There were also many tables where ladies were selling their handicrafts.  If I hadn't spent so much money already earlier that day, I might have gone hog-wild, but I thought of all the nice things I had bought and restrained myself.  As it turned out, those middle schoolers were part of some sort of eco group that promoted sustainability and something to do with raising money for housing for the elderly (although I am basing this on the broken English of a 12 year-old, and the connection between the two must have been lost in translation).

I'm not sure if she's supposed to be a sugarplum fairy or a snowflake, but this little girl sure is cute in her costume!

On a completely unrelated note: Can you tell college students live here?  (A view of a dorm window)

Pudding, Scented Toilet Paper, and Cranberries

Chocolate pudding.  In the US, the identity of chocolate pudding seemed so straightforward and clear to me, but now that I live in Romania, I am met with confusion surrounding this delicious, viscous goop.  The first problem is that chocolate pudding sometimes masquerades as other foods.  For example, if you serve chocolate pudding hot, it is "ciocolata calda," or hot chocolate.  Of course, what we call hot chocolate or hot cocoa goes by this very same name.  Therefore I was unpleasantly surprised at one restaurant when the ciocolata calda I ordered was in fact warm, thick pudding that could not be drank but was nonetheless served in a mug.  Similarly, I bought a packet of mix for chocolate "ingetata," ice cream.  Today I made it, following all the directions correctly.  When I tasted it, I was once again unpleasantly surprised, for this "ice cream" was just frozen chocolate pudding.  And again, at the store I bought some sort of prepackaged dessert that was advertised as some sort of mousse.  When I tried it....yep, it was chocolate pudding...with small chocolate lumps.

Toilet Paper.  I have observed that Romanians like scented toilet paper.  I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure this is a Europe-wide sensation, based on the multi-lingual packaging of the TP.  Since I always considered scented TP to be a novelty item, I was delighted to see so many different colors and scents of the stuff available in the stores here.  There are periwinkle-colored, lavender-scented rolls and orange-colored, peach scented rolls, and last week at the store I stumbled upon seasonal scents.  I discovered and bought a pack of "winter perfume" toilet paper.  It's an unexciting white color, but it smells of oranges and cinnamon and makes my bathroom smell pretty.

My winter toilet paper

Cranberries.  These are apparently an exotic fruit in Romania.  Not only is it ridiculously difficult to find fresh cranberries, most Romanians I ask have never eaten a cranberry before, except possibly in juice form.  This has been devastating to me.  When Thanksgiving rolled around, I was able to more or less recreate all my favorite foods, except cranberry sauce.  Ever since, I have been scouring the city for this evasive berry, but to no avail!  The closest I got was an old man at the piata (farmer's market) who told me he has some at home and would bring them the next day.  Well, I returned the next day, asked about the cranberries, and I got the same story; he had some at home and would bring them tomorrow.  Not wanting to eternally repeat the process, I ended up buying what they told me was a compote containing cranberries, but I think it must have something else mixed in too, because it has a bit of a prune-y taste to it.  I haven't given up hope of finding cranberries, but until then, I'll slather my next chicken meal with his bizarre compote and see if I can convince myself it's cranberry sauce.

What I've been up to:
Last Thursday was Romania's National Day of Unification.  December 1, 1918 marked the unification of Transylvania with the rest Romania, completing the country.  The main boulevards of Constanta were decked out in Romanian flags and the university was closed down, but that was the extent of celebration of the holiday.  Actually, that's not completely true.  I did spend my evening at a Turkish friend's apartment, eating Turkish kebab and then playing Apples to Apples with a crowd mostly consisting of Romanians.  So, I went to a party, but it had little to do with Romanian nationalism.  

Meat at the Turkish butcher.

And now it is cooked, perhaps too much.

On Friday I went out to a karaoke night with students and trainers from Money Sense.  We had lots of fun!

Choosing a song at karaoke.

 That night, the hard work of some city workers was made manifest when the snowflakes lights all lit the main boulevard in Constanta.

Bulevardul Tomis all decked out for Christmas

 I've continued to have lots of fun at Money Sense.  Sometimes we aren't always on task...

Doing the Romanian penguin dance.

Three Trips and Then Some

Wow!  It has been such a long time since my last entry and I have so much to write about.  I'm not sure I'll be able to remember all the things I've done in the meanwhile.  I'll start with the most important things, and then I may go back to more details later.

The Casino is the most iconic building in Constanta. recently it was bought by an investor who intends to renovate it.  For some reason that appears to be related to the upcoming renovations, they opened up the interior of the Casino for tours.  It is quite ramshackled now, but I could tell that is must have been quite spectacular in its glory days.

Angelina, Josi, and me by the grand staircase inside the Casino.

The first weekend of November I went to Bucuresti for the Money Sense Train the Trainers session.  I can't remember if I mentioned Money Sense yet on the blog, so I'll go ahead and tell you about the program now.  Money Sense is a program designed to teach high school students about personal finance.  In Romania it it taught through the coordination of the international student organization AIESEC, and it is funded by RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland).  I am one of two trainers for the course.  My co-trainer is Deliana, who has lived in Constanta all her life.  We have eight sessions a week: one each day, plus two on Sundays.  This means I don't sleep much, but I'm having a lot of fun working with the high-schoolers.

One of the three classrooms in which I teach the Money Sense program

Alina, me, and Deliana at the Money Sense Train the Trainers program in Bucuresti

Back to the training in Bucuresti for Money Sense... I attended the training with Deliana and Alina, who is the project coordinator for Money Sense in Constanta.  There were many other international students at the training in Bucuresti who will be doing Money Sense in other cities.  These internationals come from Canada, Cameroon, Egypt, Georgia, Moldova, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the Czech Republic.  It was a really fun time, and I'm glad I got to go.

I returned home to Constanta late Sunday and then left on Tuesday afternoon for Bucuresti again.  This time, I was only staying for the night to take a really early flight on Wednesday to Sofia, Bulgaria with the other ETAs from Romania, to the ETA conference for most of Eastern Europe.  ETAs were there from Estonia and all the countries directly south, down in a straight line to Bulgaria.  The conference ended on Friday and we returned to Romania on Saturday.  Sunday morning I returned to Constanta.  My trip to Sofia was not without its speed bumps.  Since Bulgaria is on a different currency, all the ETAs planned on getting Bulgarian  leva from the ATM at the airport.  Brilliant plan, right?  You'd think so, but our plan had some flaws.  Two out of five of us got money from the ATM, then it was my turn in line and neither my US debit card nor my Romanian debit card worked at the ATM.  The two Romanian ETAs behind me tried to withdraw cash, too.  None of them were successful.  Then, a worker comes out of the currency exchange office located adjacent to the ATM, telling us that the ATM is empty.  That's right, the ATM ran out of money.  Luckily, the two people in our groups who had successfully withdrawn money from the bank had enough money for the two taxis we needed to get to the hotel.

At the hotel, I tried another ATM.  Again, my US debit card didn't work!  I tried my Romanian debit card and was successful in making a withdrawal, but it was the end of the month, and I didn't have very much money left in the account.  I ended up running out of money by the end of the trip, but Jessica, the ETA in Timisoara, lent me some money, which I repaid to her in Romanian lei.  Of course, I was still able to buy way too many souvenirs and now have many mementos of my trip.  Also, after an hour online at the hotel, my internet cut out and simply would not come back.  I tried every troubleshooting option I could find online, and it wouldn't work!

A view of southern Sofia out my hotel window.

St. Alexander Nevsky Bulgarian Orthodox Church, built on the highest  point in Sofia.

Some traditional Bulgarian musicians.  Just after this picture, in the middle of the song, on of the musicians fired off blanks from a pistol.  It was really alarming!

Me and Jessica, the ETA in Timisoara, at a traditionally Bulgarian  themed restaurant

One of the dancers who entertained us during our meal

The Romanian ETAs

Aside from the conference workshops, we got to do a few other things.  We all went to Mt. Vitosha on the outskirts of Sofia, to a restaurant with traditional Bulgarian food, decorations, dancers, music, and costumed staff.  We also had a bus tour of Sofia, then we were dropped off to do our own thing in the city.  The last morning, three of the Romanian ETAs went into the city before out afternoon flight.  we went shopping and went to an archaeological museum.  I was quite pleasantly surprised by all the rich history of Bulgaria, which it is sometimes easy to forget was part of many early civilizations in Europe.  Among other things at the museum, I saw a 15 kg gold vessel and the oldest sign of humans in Europe, a stone with man-made scratches dated at over 1 million years old.  Despite no internet and no money, I overall had a very enjoyable time in Bulgaria.

When I returned to Romania, my US debit card worked just fine, and my internet connected without any problems at the hotel in Bucuresti.  I have no idea why either didn't work in Bulgaria (my bank says they did not block my debit card), but I sure am glad they worked just fine!

The following week was pretty standard: I taught four classes at the university, seven for Money Sense (the eighth session conflicts with my classes at the university), attended several hours of Romanian class, and spent some time with friends.

On the 21st and 25th of November I put on an activity on Thanksgiving at the American Corner in Constanta.  American Corners are libraries and study centers funded in part by the US Embassy for the purpose of educating and inspiring people about the United States.  This activity was mandatory for all the students in my class, in lieu of class while I was in Bulgaria, but was open for others to join in.  On each day there was one person who was not one of my students.  I gave information about Thanksgiving history and traditions, and we watched two Peanuts movies about the Pilgrims and about Thanksgiving.

The American Corner, decorated for my Thanksgiving activity

My students, plus a guest at the Thanksgiving Activity on the 25th

In between these activities at the American Corner, I took a two-day trip to Bucuresti for a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by the Romanian Fulbright Commission.  The dinner was in the evening on Wednesday, 11/23.  Since one of my colleagues at Ovidius University was a Fulbright grantee to the United States, she was also invited to the dinner and traveled with me by bus to Bucuresti.  At the dinner, I gave a speech on Thanksgiving traditions in the United States immediately following a speech on the history of Thanksgiving by  Nicole, the ETA in Brasov.  Since it was the middle of the week, there were quite a few of the current Fulbrighters who did not come.  Mostly they were those who lived the furthest from Bucuresti.  Since Constanta is only 3 hours away, it is much more convenient for me to make the journey than for the others.  Back to the Thanksgiving dinner: it was a tiny bit of a let-down.  Had I expected more, I might have been more disappointed, but the optimist in me likes to look at the glass as half full.  Firstly, I should mention that the appetizers were completely Romanian.  As for the main course...it was announced when the lights were dimmed, candles were lit, and dramatic music was played, and giant platters with four roasted turkeys (small ones) on each were processed out to the buffet table.  The theatrics were taken to a level beyond what I am used to and consider classy at Thanksgiving, but at least they tried!  The other food for the main course was mashed potatoes and roasted potatoes and cooked carrots, which were garnished around the turkeys.  There was no gravy, no stuffing, and--worst of all--no cranberry sauce! (Side note: I can't find cranberries anywhere.  Not frozen, nor fresh; I miss cranberry sauce sooooo much!)  For dessert we had a sort of strudel with a squash and carrot filling.  It was a bit bizarre, but not altogether bad.

On Thursday, November 24th, the real Thanksgiving, all the American Fulbrighters were taken on a trip around Bucuresti.  Our first stop was Mogosoaia Palace.  After visiting Peles Castle, I was expecting something a bit more grand, but it was still lovely to visit, with a modern museum collection.  For me, the highlight of the Palace was the original mosaic flooring, which was especially notable as it was constructed of two levels of clear glass, with gold leaf in between them.  The floor was a bit dirty, but when you looked at it in the right light, it shone, and I felt rather guilty about walking on it during the tour, especially since someone was hard at work restoring the floor where some tiles had come loose.  After lunch at Mogosoaia, not far beyond the city, we continued onward.

Our next stop was the National Museum of Art, which is located in the old royal palace in Bucuresti's Revolution Square.  Since it had been damaged in the Anti-communist revolution in 1989, the palace has very little of the original decorations or features from its days as the royal residence.  Still, the renovations were quite lavish, and I was pleasantly surprised at how refined the museum is.  The grand staircase is still intact.  It was amazingly impressive, and I felt like Cinderella as I descended three stories, as the staircase split and rejoined at  every level.  We went to exhibits for Romanian artists and for some of the classical masters.  I definitely enjoyed it, although it was too much at once, and I got very fatigued by the end.

We next grabbed drinks and snacks at a cafe, then went to an orchestral concert at the Romanian Athenaeum (Ateneul Roman) concert hall.  I wish I could have taken pictures inside, because it was breathtakingly beautiful!  Not only did it have a beautifully painted dome ceiling, the architecture was unexpected but very elegant and lovely.  If you get a chance, visit this site to see pictures of it.  Romanian Athenaeum

This is the building where Ceausescu was holed up when the Revolution began in 1989.  The obelisk impaling the cage is a memorial to the Revolution. 

My stuffed, roasted chicken

The next morning, bright and early, I took the earliest train back to Constanta so I could go to Money Sense and then be at my second session of my Thanksgiving activity at the American Corner.  That evening (Black Friday), on a whim, I decided to cook my own mostly-Thanksgiving dinner.  My friends Angelina and Camille came over, and we had a roasted chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, apple pie, and cranberry...preserves (it was the closest thing I could find).  Overall, it was a success, despite the bottom of the pie burning.  I had to bake it in a round clear casserole dish, in a gas oven.  I guess I'm just not used to gas ovens, yet, especially since I don't have a thermometer and never know the temperature of it.

Camille, Angelina, and our Thanksgiving dinner

My plate loaded up with Thanksgiving dinner.

Today I learned the Romanian superstition that whistling inside brings bad luck.  This explains why people keep incredulously asking me why I'm whistling.  I asked some Bulgarian classmates from my Romanian language course, ad they told me that in neighboring Bulgaria, whistling indoors means you will lose money.  So, I guess from now on I'll only whistle outdoors...or in my apartment, where no one else can hear me!