The great thing about this internship is how much traveling I get to do for it. Even if they are "business trips," at least they're trips. And thankfully they have a tendancy of coming up right when I think I can't handle another day in Bucharest.

Craiova is a town about 3 hours west of Bucharest, and I went there to present study opportunities at US universities to students at the American Corner there. After the presentation (which was packed with very interested students), Carmen, the woman running the American Corner, arranged for me to visit the big museum in Craiova.

Vergil, the driver for the Fulbright Commission, drove me to and from Craiova. Since he doesn't speak a word of English and my Romanian is not much better than that, I brought every phrase book and dictionary I own to practice on him. Amazingly I understood most of what he said to me, and at lunch I learned the words for fork, spoon and knife (furculita, lingura and cutit) along with everything else on the table. I also learned that we were eating in a "pizzeria," and over there was the "bar." My Romanian was at least good enough to already know that, but it was the thought that counts.

In the middle of a conversation about the wonders of Romanian conveniences, a friend asked me "what's colder than the cold water in Romania?" I didn't know, so he told me: "the hot water."

I suppose this is how Romanians deal with the inconsistency of the running water here; make jokes and keep it light hearted.

The same could be done for the sketchy internet connections, the elevators that only sometimes work if you stomp hard enough on the left side of them, the stray dogs that turn mean if you are walking too quickly or too loudly, the muddy swamps that cover entire roads days after it stopped raining, and the mad rush for the front that they like to call "standing in line."

I made it almost two months before these things really ever bothered me, but the inevitable culture shock has hit. The newness has worn off, and now I must adjust to thinking of this lifestyle as "normal" before I can carry on with life in a foreign country, because now that's really all it is, just life.

I find myself missing the little things: friendly waitresses with the "customer's always right" attitude, or at least a "the customer is here so I can make money and is not actually imposing on my socializing time" attitude, takeout Chinese and movie rentals, real salsa, having an oven and a washing machine, heck I even miss Kraft macaroni and cheese sometimes!

I know this is a phase, and that in a week or so I will once again be reveling in the fact that I am living in the middle of Bucharest, Romania. Until then, I thought I should be honest with how things are going over here. I don't want any of you to be too jealous of my crazy European adventures!

This past week Mihaela and I were conducting an EducationUSA workshop in Baia Mare, a town in the northernmost region of Romania, Maramures. The workshop was three 8-hour days of seminars for high schoolers and university students interested in studying in the US. While fairly tiring and stressful at times, it was a very rewarding week.


The university students were pretty quiet and reserved, but the sessions I had with the high school students were wonderful. They were a great group of kids; very engaged and thoughtful, and I never felt like I was talking to the wall for four hours at a time. We had some great discussions, and it was great to watch them work through the process and really "get" what I was trying to teach them. A few of the girls were particularly enthusiastic, and I had some great conversations with them outside of the workshop. They took me to their favorite coffee shop after the final day of the workshop, and made me promise a place for them to stay when they come to see me in Seattle. :)


It snowed on Wednesday. It was absolutely delightful sitting in my warm hotel room watching the huge flakes falling, but actually being out in it wasn't so nice, because it pretty quickly turned to brown slush. Thursday morning, however, when we crossed the Gutai mountains on the way to Sighet to do another presentation, the snow was white and flakey and at least a foot deep. Out of the mountains and in the countryside outside Sighet (where the driver pointed across the fields and said "There's Ukraine"...!!!) the snow was replaced by rain and fog, which certainly had its own charms.


Once again, it was wonderful to see another region of Romania. Somehow, though, this time it was strangely comforting to come back to Bucharest. This place has a way of charming the unsuspecting, I suppose!