Buna Ziua

Pronounced Boona Zewa. Which as I learned in my first language class yesterday means good afternoon. And by the time y'all are reading this, it will be afternoon where I am. So much to say and we only just got here two nights ago. This particular post is likely to be long and all over the place, so bear with me. The plane trip-while way more time than I have ever wanted to be on a plane-wasn't bad. Considering I got a call at 4:30 that my 9:15 plane was delayed and they were worried about me not making my connecting flight but that there was a flight at 6 I could be on if I could make it there in time. Thankfully, we made it there in time. I had a fun time observing the people around me on the flight-I know, I have too much of my mother in me. Apparently, there are magazines on airplanes that are actually catalogues that you can order things from and they bring it right to your seat. I saw a woman order a piece of jewelry-from an AIRPLANE!! I got to London at 5 am their time, which is about 12 am at home. I found out quickly that I would not enjoy the London airport. First of all I had to take a shuttle from the terminal my plane had landed at and the terminal from which my connecting flight would be departing. On a good day, I can maybe figure out how to get somewhere that I've been 20 times, when it comes to new places, however, I am on of the most directionally challenged people you will ever meet. So functioning on no sleep, I watched movies on the plane, I was supposed to figure out where I'm supposed to go? I figured out which shuttle I wanted and rode the seemingly long trip to the next terminal. When I got there I was trying to read the signs for connecting flights, but they were all contradicting themselves, so finally I became a lemming and followed the crowd. It was then that I found out that in the London airport you have to go through security again, which was odd to me. Then I went to the British Airways booth to ask where the heck it was that I was going, and the guy simply said downstairs. I went down the stairs and found myself walking down the longest hallway known to man. I noticed one of those moving sidewalks, and nearly cried for joy, until I realized it was going in the opposite direction I was, fan-flippin-tastic. My connecting flight wasn't until 9:55 am, so I had to sit around for several hours doing absolutely nothing. About 40 minutes before my flight I saw 4 girls looking slightly lost, I realized they were four of the girls going to the Romanian Studies Program, so I joined them. We got to Romania at 3:10, and had a surprisingly easy time getting out. We then had a 5 hour drive to our town. We stopped about halfway through to go to dinner-at McDonald's. But after almost 24 hours of nothing but plane food, I was ready to eat almost anything. The first night was a bit of an adventure. Myself and two other girls were put into an apartment a street away from the head of the Romanian Studies Program-we won't be meeting our host families until later this afternoon. We thought we would be staying with someone, but no, it turns out it was just us and apparently they had entrusted us with keys to the entire building-which they suggested we lock up completely. So we did just that. After having devotions together we were all getting ready to go to bed when we heard this loud banging. We looked at each other and concluded that the knocking couldn't possibly be for us. The banging continued and we realized it was coming from the door at the end of the hallway from the apartment we were staying in. Thinking it was someone from the Romanian Studies Program, we opened the door to the apartment. At the end of the hallway, there was a man and as soon as he saw one of the girl's head pop out he started speaking loudly and very fast-in Romanian, which none of us can understand. Then we heard pebbles being thrown at our window, we went over to investigate and there was a woman outside. What we think happened is that the man lives upstairs and we locked his wife out. However, we didn't feel comfortable going and unlocking the door at the end of the hall and giving him the keys-especially when he started to get a little agitated and started to rattle the door. After trying to communicate with him, using an English to Romanian dictionary, we slowly closed the door. There were two beds in a room with one window and one bed in the other room with two windows-we moved the one bed into the room with the other two beds-it made us feel slightly better. That and the fact that they couldn't possibly get to us-the windows were pretty high up. The next morning, someone came to wake us up and found the doors unlocked. So thankfully, the angry man found someone to solve his problems. Yesterday wasn't nearly as eventful, but it was busy. We had orientation all morning, then language class, then a reading assignment, then dinner followed by devotions together. By the time we were done, we were all ready to fall into bed. Which is pretty much what we did when we got back to the apartment and thankfully nothing exciting happened.

Pa-Pa (pronounced the way it looks)- bye-bye