An Eventful January

January is almost over, and it's time for a long-overdue post to the good ol' blog!

The first week of the new year I spent traveling Romania with Mary and Jen, my two good friends from home (who I had actually met studying in Graz). I've posted pictures, and here's the blow-by-blow:

The night of January 1st we took a rather eventful night train to Timisoara. Running late, and not knowing which end of the train our sleeper car was on, we just hopped on and decided to find it once the train started moving. That turned out to not be the wisest of ideas, because several of the doors to the train never got closed, so we had to shimmy along the wall past the open doors. Once we finally found the right car, we were locked out of it, so we had to knock until someone came with the keys to let us in. After all that excitement, we slept like babies, even if we were stacked 3-high in bunk beds!

After Timisoara we went to Oradea and soaked in some thermal springs. Then on to Sighisoara and stayed in the hostel that was in the fortress on top of the hill. In Sibiu we stayed with Nicole, a Fulbrighter (and fellow PNWer!). After a day in Sibiu I came back to early to go back to work, which didn't end up lasting very long because I got the flu and had to spend the week in bed.

Now I'm back in the swing of things at work, staying busy with posters and special events. I've even been formally dubbed their "Artist in Residence" thanks to all my PowerPoint and Publisher expertise. :) I started language classes last week (finally!), and I'm really excited to get some formal learning under my belt before I leave.

Speaking of leaving, I bought my plane ticket home finally. I knew I needed to buy it before I got the crazy idea to just keep staying, as I tend to do. So April 3rd it is. Back to the land of orderly grocery store check out lines, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, solid sidewalks and Mexican food!

Christmas in the Alps

I'm back after a lovely week and a half in the Austrian Alps for Christmas with my Austrian host family from 2005. It was a pretty eventful week, but entirely laid back and relaxing at the same time, which was exactly the kind of Christmas break I needed.

After a 2-hour delay, what should have been a 10:00pm flight didn't arrive in Vienna until 1:00am, and once I finally landed we drove straight through the night and got to the cabin just as the sun was rising. So needless to say, that day was basically spent sitting in the sun, reading and eating. Well ok...that's how most of the week was spent...but at least the first day we had a valid excuse.

I did get to try my hand at skiing for the second time in my life, which ended up being a lot more fun than I remember it being. The next day muscles I didn't know exsisted in my legs were screaming at me, and I had a winning bruise on my hip, but it was totally worth it. You can see pictures of my skiing endeavors, as well as the rest of the week, here.

On my way back to Bucharest I made a pit stop in Vienna to meet Dan and his parents on their way to Prague. I spent the afternoon with them, playing tourguide and showing them around my city. The next day I hit up all six H&Ms in search of a coat and warm clothes, of course taking breaks for coffee in my favorite cafes. Dan flew back to Vienna the next day, and we somehow managed to catch our 6:00am flight (leaving the house at 3am!) back to Bucharest the morning of New Year's Eve. We decided that the incredibly cheap price we paid for the ticket just wasn't worth the pain of starting your day at 2 in the morning.

I'm proud to say that after such an early morning, we still managed to ring in the New Year that night, celebrating with old and new Romanian friends in an apartment in Bucharest. My dear friends Mary and Jen came from the States to see me, and we all watched the fireworks from the balcony and enjoyed good food and champagne.

I hope the New Year finds you all well. Here's wishing you all the best from Romania!