Buna Ziua!

Pronounced Boona zeewa. That means good day in Romanian in case you were wondering. I thought I'd finally allow myself some closure, as I'm just now writing follow up letters from my trip to Romania almost a month ago. We worked a ton which was a great experience. Our team painted many fences and many rooms as well as gates and other paraphenalia. Also I learned how to spackle! So if anyone has cracks in their walls, just call on me to come save your world. haha! thats a good pickup line as well... okay maybe not.
I think one of the biggest lessons I learned from my trip was that I really enjoy working with the elderly and hope to volunteer at the senior home we have next to the university. We stayed in this village called Peicica (Peshka) for a week, and we were painting benches there in addition to scraping walls in a room that had asbestos and then just painting over it. haha! yay for health. And Jordan (one of my teammates) and I were prepping this bench outside that needed to be painted. An old man had been sitting on a bench just watching us all day. He always wanted me to come sit down with him but whenever he wanted me to come sit I was always transporting heavy buckets or running errands for the leaders and what not. So finally I was like, why not.

I sat down beside him and I didn't speak very good Romanian, nor him English, so we just sat there and tried to communicate through hand motions and the like. Then out of the side of his coat he pulls out this wine size bottle of beer. He motions for me to take it and I'm like, no thanks, we can't drink. Of course this translated to, "blay de gleiah sdfjsie" for him. So then Jordan is intrigued by this moment and sits down across from us and together we get the idea that he wants us to open the bottle for him to drink.. we think. Jordan opens the bottle and hands it back to the old man. haha, then he is like, "nu nu nu. (nu=no) He can't drink because of medication that he takes!! haha, so now we've opened his bottle of beer, he can't drink it and now he is slightly offended that we can't drink it becuase we are on contract and our leader is scrubbing a bench 20 feet away. Honestly at that moment I was like, screw the contract, denying a pleasant drink from a kindly old man is more culturally insensitive than breaking contract. What is even more funny is that 15 minutes later Jordan went through the same thing with the same old man and a pack of cigarettes. haha! But being the smart one that I am, I just sat at the bench and laughed at him. :) So yeah, the picture attached is of me and my old man friend. I forgot his name, I'm sorry. But that is just one story of a million from my month in Romania. The second picture is of a river that fed into a glacial lake that we spent the day at. My good friend Rick and I went hiking/rock hopping up the river, long story short, we wanted to cross the river, thought one place was shallow enough, turns out it wasn't, I fell in, he held onto me and kept me from being swept downriver in 55-60 degree water. I was soaked for most of the day, and we kept on hiking upstream, but heck, what an adventure, right?
sincerely,
Lindsay

p.s. its REAL hot here now. In the shade of my porch it was 102.7 degrees outside. Last night I slept butt naked with not covers on and the fan blowing over me. I'm definitely not a quick adjuster to the heat!! hope "ya'll" are doin well, and greetings from Or E gOn.