Adventures Adventures and More Adventures!

Last weekend we got Friday of and we went to Transylvania to explore more parts of Romania!  To get there we left Thursday night and took a sleeper train!  It was so much fun and I loved it because it was easy to sleep through the eight hour train ride!  On the train there was a narrow hallway and then there were small rooms with six beds in it; top, middle, and bottom.  It was super squishy but you did not need a ton of room cause you were sleeping the whole time.  In our room there was only four of us so on the two middle beds where a older couple.  One of them snored really loud but other than that they were super nice! hahaha.

The sleeper train brought us to Bucharest and then we got on another train for 3 more hours that brought us to Brasov, a city in the Transylvania region. We arrived in Brasov around 9:30am Friday morning. The Hostel that we booked for our stay in Brasov ended up being called The Evil Clown and at the front desk there were tons of clowns and dolls it was so creepy!  Luckily there were non in the rooms and it ended up being a really friendly place but the name and the paintings were just a little scary haha.  After we got settled in we took a bus out to Bran where Draculas Castle is and several souvenir shops! We spent the rest of the day out here but it was super cold!  By the time we got back to our hostel we were frozen and the heater in our room didn't work so that night I slept with my coat on!
Saturday was a nice and relaxing day.  We got breakfast, toured an old church, took a Gondala to the top of a hill that overlooked the city and looked at the cute shops around the center square.  It was really nice to just have a nice relaxing day!  And it was super cute because it snowed the night before so the city was covered with a thin blanket of snow.  To end the day I went and got dinner at a Dominos pizza place that was close to our Hostel and it was sooooo yummy!! Nice to have some food a little more like home!
Sunday we spend the whole day from 8am to 7pm on the train back to Iasi, I wish we would have thought to take a sleeper train back Saturday night! This last week I enjoyed every minuet with my kiddos!  They continue to grow and also teach me every day what true love really feels and looks like!  My love for them and all their silly little habits and personalities grows every day!
This week I decided I wanted to make Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving so Tuesday I went to the store to get all the ingredients.  I could not find shortening or cloves so instead I got butter and this wired drink mix that looked like it had cloves in it.  Wednesday after working at the orphanage I came straight home and started on the pie.  I made the pie from a real pumpkin so I had to start by cooking the pumpkin in the oven.  The oven is a gas oven and does not have a thermometer in it so I had no way of knowing what the temperature actually was so I just had to eyeball it.  Once the pumpkin was all cooked I separated it from the skin and tried to blend it up but I did not have a blender so it was still pretty stringy!  Luckily I had the thought to ask my neighbor and sure enough, she had a blender she was willing to share!  As I continued to make the filling for the pie I realized that I had bought sweet and condensed milk instead of  evaporated milk so we had to run back to the store to try and find some!  Luckily they had it!  For the crust of the pie I did not have a pastry cutter or a rolling pin so I used a metal wisk to cut in the butter and then a saran rap roll for my rolling pin.  Luckily it all worked out and the crust turned out amazing!
Thursday we went to KFC for dinner and then everyone came back to our apartment for pie!  I was so happy because everybody liked the pie and were all still able to celebrate thanksgiving together even in another country!
Sunday our neighbor grandma offered to teach us how to make Sarmale, which is a traditional Romanian food that is kinda like cabbage rolls,  and Mamaliga, which is just cornmeal and water boiled for a while.  It took almost 4 hours to make but it was so worth it!  It was so yummy!  We have had Sarmale before but it never tasted this good!  I'm loving all the fun adventures we have been able to have here in Romania!

Loving Romania!

I am loving every minute of every day here in Romania!  I am not working in the apartments anymore because of maintenance so my kids and I will be in the main orphanage building for the remainder of my time here.   It is a little sad because my kids are in two different rooms so I only get to work with half of them now, but I have been able to get to know more of the kids in the center and that has been lots of fun! There are 6 new kids in the room I work in now so we have a room of 9 kids which is a little crazy but so much fun and I love each and every one of them!  I also have made more progress with my three kids I have been working with all semester and it makes me so happy to see them grow!  One of the little girls could not name her colors at the beginning of the semester and now she can say, point out, and name rosu (red), albastru (blue), verde (green), and portocaliu (orange)!! With a little help she can also identify alb (white), gri (gray), mov (purple), and maro (brown).  She is also getting a lot better at her numbers too!  If she is in the right mood she can count up to five all by her slef! And with the little boy that we nicknamed ‘Jake’ last time.
 Working with him we found out that by sprinkling bread on top of his food he will, most of the time, eat it all by himself without fighing or throwing any fits! I love my kids so much! And there are so many other small things they do throughout the day that make me so proud of them!

One set of sister missionaries that have been here since we got her left last week and it was sad to say goodbye to them! We have became really good friends!  It also made me a little nervous because if it was hard to say goodbye to them I have no idea how I am going to say goodbye to all the girls I have been working with this semester and also how I am going to say goodbye to my sweet kiddos!!  I try not to think about it too much!

On Saturday I read a book for half of the day (I seriously have not had the time to relax and read a book of my choice since I started college and I got a little carried away! Haha) and then some of the girls and I went on a little sunset hike!  We had to do a little bush whacking to get to the top because we didn’t know where the actual trail was but it was all worth it when we got to the top!  And the hike up wasn’t all that bad!  It was so nice to get out of the city and into a little fresher air!  

I am loving it here and cant wait to update you all on my next adventure this weekend! We are going to Transylvania to see Dracula’s castle and to explore more of Romania :) Until next time! :)

 Picture of the hospital that we go and visit orphan children at:

Paris!!

Our last Vacation out side the country of Iasi before we head home!!   Crazy to think the next time I am on a airplane it will hours before I get to see my family again!
Paris was a dream! We packed our days full of fun adventures and it went by way to fast!  When we first got there we got settled down into our Hostel, ate some food and then made our way towards The Louvre!  On our way there we are able to stop by the Arc de Triomphe! All the different types of architecture and structures in Paris are so cool and breath taking!  I wish we would have had more time at the louvre but it is just so big!!  We were able to see the the Mona Lisa though so I can cross that off the list! haha :) . I wish I knew more about art because the Louvre was just amazing!



On Saturday we took a train out to Versailles to see the new Paris Temple and to also go to the Palace of Versailles!  Just the City of Versailles is beautiful!! The buildings are so pretty and there are lots of pretty plants and greenery around the buildings and the City as well.  The trees on the streets are all perfectly spaced and shaped! It looks so pretty!
The temple was so amazing!  Everywhere I have been in the past 2.5 months has been noisy and dirty (besides Switzerland), so as we walked on to the quiet and clean temple grounds it felt so nice! Kallye and I where able to do baptisms and Rachel and Nicole did a session so after Kallye and I were done we just sat in the waiting room till the other girls came out.  The waiting room was so pretty and was also super quiet!  It was about an hour or so that we were waiting there but it didn't feel that long at all, it felt so nice to be able to just relax, hear my self think, read some conference talks, and write in my journal!!
After the temple we made our way over to the Palace of Versailles! We had to wait in line for about an hour to get in but once we got in we were able to get free audio guides! It was so cool to see all the different rooms in the palace.  My favorite was probably the hall of mirrors,  A room that has mirrors on one side and windows overlooking the gardens on the other! Down the middle of this room where several chandeliers!  After our time in the palace we went outside to look around the gardens, by the time we got outside the sun was setting and it was so beautiful!  I wish we could have had more time at the palace and in the gardens, especially because the gardens are huge!!
After our time at Versailles we went to go see the Eiffel Tower!  By the time we got there it was dark and the tower was all lit up and pretty!! It is crazy how big the Eiffel Tower is!  We were able to get into the grounds for free and walk underneath the tower. Right as we were about to leave the grounds it started to sparkle and we were at a perfect spot to watch it too!  When the sun went down it would get pretty cold and before we went back to our Hostel  we were all pretty hungry so we found this cute little crepe shop and had some of the best crepes of our lives!!

 

Sunday was full of fun adventures!  When we got to church, the senior missionary couple there actually knew one of the girls in our group!  Rachel had gone to school with there son! haha small world.  They had just opened up a Family History Center there by the church building and we got a personal tour of it so that was really cool!  It was super pretty inside and they have already been able to have a lot of success with helping individuals with their family history work!  After church we went and toured Notre Dame Cathedral! That was so fun because I grew up watching the hunchback of Notre Dame!  On our walk towards the Cathedral we stopped by some pastry shops can got some really yummy food!  We decided for meals today that instead of eating at restaurants we would just get small pastries and foods as we walked around!  On our way I got a tomato and melted mozzarella pita pocket type of sandwich and a pistachio and chocolate cinnamon roll looking pastry (with out the cinnamon... haha).  Let me just say that over the past few months, pistachio flavored foods have become one of my all time favorites!!
We also took the metro to the outer parts of Paris to visit Sacré Cœur!  Sacré Cœur is another Cathedral that is on a butte so it looks over the city! It is a very pretty view and clean air! After we were done there we went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it in the daylight!  Then Monday we had to leave early so we were not able to do anything that day.  I wish we would have had more time (or that I could tell the future and tell our flight would be delayed 3 hours) because they had several Christmas shops along different roads!! I love Christmas and would have liked to see all the different decorations they had!
Paris was like a dream!! We had so many crepes and yummy pastries and I cannot believe it is already over!

End of October and into November

So much has happened in the past week it and a half! Its crazy! So on Tuesday was Sierra's birthday so we all went to Vivo to eat dinner and it was fun because the Sister Missionaries were able to join us! Wednesday night, Halloween, we all made different kinds of 'Spooky Snacks' to share and had our own little Halloween party!  We had chocolate covered Oreo's, white chocolate covered popcorn, cheesecake, sugar cookies, sweet mac and cheese, a carved watermelon, and chocolate candies! All the food was really good and we played some fun games too like pretzel on a string(instead of donut on a string) and we even bobbed for apples (in a bowl instead of a bucket but it worked!) haha.  My roommates and I even dressed up as robbers so that was fun!

Thursday, November 1st, was the first day of having all of our kids at the main orphanage building!  Sad to think that I may never go back to the apartment again! It was crazy at the orphanage because there were a lot of kids there but it was good to see my kiddos and it was also good to see a lot of the other kids and get to know them a little more! Today, which is November 6, was a crazy day! The children were all on one today and there was a lot of crying, temper tantrums, and kids not wanting to eat their food!  When I was done for the day I was surprised with how I felt!  I was pretty tired but still have such a deep love for all of those kids (even the ones I don't know that well because they are in different rooms). If I was asked to go back up and stay with the kids for longer I would be back there in a heartbeat!  If I love these kids this much I cant wait to be able to feel that special kind of love with my own future children! :)