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!