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.

One of the things I really wasn’t prepared for are all the dogs. I’d been told. Everyone told me. And yet I’m still surprised.

Fiona lives next door to the house we were working on today. True to form I was in my usual role of ‘go-fer’ and was fetching gallon buckets of water for the cement mixer all morning and Fiona came over to us at lunch. I’m assuming she was looking for dropped crumbs. My roommate started to play fetch with her and it was all downhill from there there. I was wearing gloves and Fiona and I played just like I used to play with my Katie-dog. Gloves and jeans are all super awesome toys. So the rest of the day Fiona and I played while I fetched water. It was fun for me and it kept Fiona from tripping everyone else.

Time for dinner.

In the rain. Ok that’s a bit melodramatic, it was drizzle. It’s been raining pretty steadily here for several days, turning the dirt roads into treacherous areas where Habitat liaisons fear to tread.

I had a hard time understanding that. The dirt here is clay, which can be like grease. BUT it’s full of all kinds of rock. All sizes from tiny gravel to the ankle turning kind. One of my teammates was videoing the drive up the hill to the worksite and caught me telling the driver that the road “wasn’t anything close to as bad as he lead me to believe.”  Apparently I’m in the minority in that opinion though.

Today at the build site we stuck styrofoam insulation to the outside walls and started the stuccoing.  I was struck by the similarities between building a house here and being around various building projects when I was a kid. It made the day kind of surreal.  We met the family today. All very nice and friendly. Very helpful as well. At one point someone was doing something with the mortar and the mom came and shooed him away. Very clearly she was going to do that herself.  A great build day was had by all of us.

Tonight we were treated to a visit to a local orphanage where about 10 girls live. All about 13 and all reminding me of Holly.  We followed the visit to a local hangout where we had either pizza or pasta. The girl next to me got corn on her pizza. I’ve never seen that before. She offered to let me try it, but she had also gotten mushrooms and I really don’t like those, especially on pizza. I’ll have to try it when I come home.

Tomorrow we’re going to a different site and will be building out some of the walls. Different family, and the house just got the foundation poured a week or so ago.  After that we’re heading to the Bear Cave. Full days all around, the week will be over before I know it.

If you’d like to see some pictures, some should be showing up on Facebook soon. Look for Habitat for Humanity Beius.

Gnocchi tonight instead of brain. The zombies can rest assured that their favorite food is safe from me.

.The adventurous part of me ordered fried brain for dinner. With a side of fries ‘just in case.’   When it arrived it looked like this:

Kind of egg roll looking. Definitely battered and fried.

The inside was slightly gray and sort of mushy. So far so good. Several of my teammates were very interested in how it was, so I waited until most of them were paying attention somewhere else before I took the first bite. The last thing I wanted was to have people see me be sick if I didn’t like it!

The bite went in. You might think it would be slimy feeling but it wasn’t at all. I want to say kind of like tuna salad, but not exactly. It tasted very much like I remember liver tasting.

Apparently my face got very red while I was trying to determine whether or not I liked it.

In case you’re still wondering, I did not like it at all.  Taking a page out of my old ‘I really cannot eat this book,’ I grabbed my glass of water. And then I had to convince myself that I really could swallow without vomiting.  Once that was accomplished, down it went with a fast chaser of water.

My roommate was sitting across from me and said there was no way to really tell I didn’t like it. Whew!  So I munched on my fries and the team leader ordered a bowl of vegetable soup.

The soup was phenomenal.

I’m not sure at this point exactly where yesterday ended and today began. In my head, I fell asleep yesterday and woke up today. That’s not precisely how it went, but I haven’t really experienced jet lag yet, so it’s what I’m going with. I am going to take a melatonin shortly though – just in case. 

The Paris airport was pretty much just like every other airport I’ve been in. It had shops with overpriced things, a lot of which I can acquire at home. That helped with the spending thing. I’m not going to spend €75 for something I can get at home and not lug it across the planet. 

I’ve been in Budapest for about 5 hours now. The people are friendly and very helpful. We had dinner at a place named Guliver’s and it was wonderful. I shared a bottle of cab with two of my teammates and we took a picture of the label so we can hopefully pick some up on our way back through next Saturday. 

I watched a little of Avengers in Hungarian this afternoon. I had no idea what they were saying, but I recognized the characters!

Time for sleeping now. We’ll be in Romania tomorrow!

We arrived at 8:20 am local time. This is 1:20 am for those of you in MN. We wandered around for a few hours, had a morning snack, and have been hanging at the gate for the last hour. The absurdly strong coffee on the plane has kept me going strong all morning, but I think I’m about to hit the wall. Not too bad if I do say so myself.

Our flight to Budapest has been slightly delayed, but not enough to make a difference.

Yes, there will likely be napping on the flight. Hopefully a snack too.

When I said I was going to crash until morning I was really thinking later in the morning than midnight!  They woke us up a little while ago with the strongest coffee I’ve had in quite a while.  Fortunately it also came with cream and sugar and I have been able to get it down. They also gave us a cute breakfast ‘snack’ that was more than I normally eat. Croissant, yogurt, cheese and a cookie. Also orange juice and a mini mentos mint. Those suckers are small when normal sized, this one is really just a baby. 

Karin has suggested cafe au lait and chocolate croissants during our 4 hour layover in Paris followed by a little shopping.  I’m being told the airport is fabulous, so I’m looking forward to experiencing it.  The nerves are calmer than before – I’m remembering how to fly. It’s been long enough that I had trouble ordering wine in Minneapolis. They’ve replaced servers with iPads!  The bartender came around and very nicely showed me how to do everything.  Wave of the future I guess. 

I’ve now had 2 glasses of wine, 2 glasses of water and something that they said was chicken.  I’m watching Terminator Genesis and playing with my phone.  I tried to take a picture of the moon, but there was too much reflection for it to work. Most of the team flying with me are actually on the same row, but not right next me. Fortunately for the guy sitting next to me we don’t know what each other well so there’s no talking.  I’m not sure what time it is exactly, my watch says 7:30, but with changing time zones its really hard to say.  When my movie is finished I’ll make a final bathroom run and then locate my sleep mask, take my melatonin and crash until morning.

Goodnight. 

Were arriving in Budapest today around 3 PM.  I’m not sure what we’re doing once we get there though. We’re all arriving at different times. 

Tomorrow we trek across the border to Romania.  I learned that we may actually get to work on two different homes. Our first one is ready for painting. The second one just had the foundation poured so we may get to do some block work there. 

We build on Tuesday and Wednesday all day and then half of Thursday and half of Friday. Back to Budapest and hopefully a Turkish bath on Saturday. I fly out at 6:35 AM on Sunday.