It’s noon on Monday.  I caught a cold the last day in Romania itself and between that and traipsing across eastern Europe, I just didn’t get any updates made.

Friday we built on the second house – the one where Fiona lives.  Turns out Fiona really is male, but the name stuck.  I spent the day hauling water the same as before and playing with Fiona until I just had to go sleep in the van.   We had dinner with Elisabeta and her family from the first house Friday night at Time Out – the pizza place we had dinner with the girls from the orphanage earlier in the week.   I was very sad to say goodbye to Eli and her boys.  So pleased that she and I are now friends on Facebook and can continue to keep in touch.

Saturday we ate breakfast and had a picture with the family from the second house.  They have a 6 month old baby girl who was very sweet.  Unfortunately, I didn’t dare get as close as I wanted because I didn’t want to share my cold with the baby.   After that we hit the road for Budapest.

That was a long drive.  We did manage to stop outside of Oradea to do some shopping – I finally found some traditional Romanian textiles (made in Romania, not India, China or Germany).  I had about given up since everything in country seemed to be Nike, Adidas, Disney…  We stopped in Oradea as well and went to McDonald’s there.  That was about like every other McDonalds I’ve ever been in except that they still have the FRIED PIES that are now baked here in the states.  Well, that and the menu is in Romanian.  I got a happy meal because the toy was a book.  I also ordered the extra book so I got the “boy toy” and the “girl toy.”  The books are in Romanian – I need to see if the McDonalds here in the states has the books as well.  If so, I’ll grab them and see if I can teach myself some Romanian words.

Saturday evening we went to Buda Castle and did some shopping and site-seeing.  I found the red crystal that I’ve been searching for for nearly 20 years!  That got heavy as we wandered around the old castle, but I’m still thrilled to have found it!    We went on the ferris wheel in the city center and that was very cool.  Took pictures of St Stephens while on it.  All of this was at night so everything was lit beautifully.

Yesterday I flew home.  Got up at 3:30 AM Budapest time to catch my plane to Paris.  The Paris airport was absolutely dreadful.  I think something was broken in the system somewhere because it took an hour and a half to get from one plane to another and it felt like we were going to miss our flight.  Fortunately (?) the plane had other delays with fuel and paperwork, so it was late leaving.

Arrived home, ate a little bit, chatted a little bit and then went to bed about 5 PM.  Slept until about an hour ago.  I’m tired again now though, so I either need to drink some coffee or go back to bed.  Knowing me, I’ll end up doing both.

I definitely want to return to Romania.  Life isn’t as fast there.  Now I just have to start saving my pennies so I can bring Ryan and Holly with me.

Unfortunately, I don’t think customs would let me through with the super cute pig I saw today at the animal market.    I’d like to upload a picture of said pig, but my internet here is uncooperative.

Before the animal market we went to the regular Thursday morning market which is very much like a farmers market and an outdoor flea market combined.  Our coordinator only gave us 45 minutes for the first market which was woefully inadequate.  My roommate bought a watch and the man selling it used a cell phone to show her the price. Absolute genius!

After both markets had been visited, we went back to our original build site from Tuesday. My ears kept me away from most of the work as we were doing stucco. That sounds just like nails on a chalkboard and hurts terribly. So I entertained myself by making friends with the woman who will be moving into the house.  She took me up the hill into their orchard and we picked walnuts (nuka) off the ground and off a tree. Remarkably I was able to eat them without my tongue hurting or swelling up. They also don’t taste the same as the ones I’ve had at home. We picked apples up off the ground after Eli shook the tree. She doesn’t climb trees because she’ll fall. My kind of person!  There was a pear or two in there for good measure.  We gathered them up in our shirts and took them back “for the mens.”  Wasn’t exactly what I meant when I suggested we take some back, but it worked.

Tonight was the traditional dance and dinner. There’s a lot to say about that, but I drank polinka at dinner and now must sleep.

Google a violin trumpet for something truly interesting. It’s a violin and a trumpet combined and is unique to Romania.