Craciun Fericit

Merry Christmas Eve!!

I'm currently in Petrosani visiting Andy and Joel for the Christmas holidays, we are off tonight to celebrate Romanian style which I'm told involves and all night meal and then caroling for treats late into the night. I'm quite excited about it.

I know I skipped over a bunch but I'll go back to it later.

dinner with the ambassador from the united states to romania

For Thanksgiving as I hae mentioned before we volunteers were invited to attend dinner at the new Ambassador and his wife's home in Bucuresti. Over thirty of us made the trek to the capital city, booked ourselves into hostels and took a chunk out of our monthly allowance to attend. The meal itself was less than impressive to me but then again I'm a picky vegetarian and formal meals like that include alot of meaty heavy entrees and side dishes, though I must say the grilled pumpkin went famously with the white wine they kept bringing out.

Now originally I had a place at a full table of cool people who I hadn't seen in months and was excited to get to chat and catch up with, but sometime between putting my wallet down and standing in the buffet line my chair got taken and so the other refugees and I started our own party of three at another table. To our benefit the AMbassador decided to go for a smaller group than the larger one with an open table and so we got the chance to talk casually and learn all about him and his history. He is a very close friend to Joe Biden, a first time overseas diplomat and is embarrassed that he can't speak more Romanian seeing as he wants to talk to his non-English speaking house staff. He's quite funny too and very interested in building up a more co-operative relationship between the Embassy and Peace Corps. His wife is just the perfect little hostess too, even allowing me up into their private quarters to search out band-aids for the poor ladies to put over the blisters their heels gave them.

In true fashion when more than five volunteers get together, we all headed out on the town and ended up at a pub-style establishment(something rare here) where the special of the night was a wagon wheel which held 11 half-liter halbas for only 30 lei ( or the equivalent of two cases of beer for only 10 dollars.) We played new card games, took pictures and started our dance party of course. All in all a good night.

I would love to share a picture of the wagon wheel, but sadly mine didn't come out, but I'll do my best to get a better copy since its a sight to see.

to save time

so my computer has been fixed but unfortunately in the old UD style of wiping the harddrive and starting over so sadly i have lost all my pictures but thank goodness for facebook being so nice and storing them all for me. anywho my computer is now waiting in bucuresti for me to pick it up when i swing by there again in two weeks. ive finally stopped moving after being on the go since thanksgiving and in the interest of saving time ill just randomly fill you in on what all happened as i have to borrow a collegues computer and wrinting long and hilarious blog posts is for me a wonderful thing, she would rather i wait until they leave to do it...so

soon we'll be all caught up.

im still highly amused by the ear diagram in the dentists office by the way. i had almost forgotten about it til i looked through my camera today

the dentist

ok so obviously when you go into the dentist office you expect to find the normal out of date national geographics and maybe a scenic landscape on the wall right. well for beccas appointment a few weeks ago we found this little guy on the wall.

clearly ear diagrams belong

on the other side of the waiting room in the spirit of the upcoming holidays was a christmas wreath complete with a baffling amount of apples and pears... becca found this most fascinating. especially when she tried to pick one and it was glued down. that'll teach you potential apple theives

quickie.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of lots of cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and creamed corn. I have much to share and tell you all about but unfortunately my computer is still nonfunctional... so I will be back soon with enough stories to occupy many a boring office meetings.

viruses

virus number one. so my happy yellow laptop has gotten itself sick with a virus that occassionally lets me sign into it, sometimes plays sound and never lets me get at my files, basically rendering itself useless. i am only able to jump on the internet now because i discovered that if i trick my computer and rapidly close all the warnings it flashes at me and click on the mozilla icon about 1000 times i can access the interwebz. take that virus!!!

virus number two. i am happy to report that my ear is no longer scaring away children and while not completely healed over is 10 times better than it was. best part. NO more smelly creams.

virus number three. as you all are probably aware the swine flu has been making headlines these past few months. we would occassionally get updates from our medical office saying dont hang out in crowded areas where people are sneezing and coughing all over the place. anywho, apparently i am in a high risk group being under 25 so in addition to the flu shot they made me get which consequently gave me the flu, i get to again hold out the fleshy part of my arm and let them inject me. so far the score has been vaccines 1 me 0. i really hope i dont get swine flu.


ill be off to bucuresti tomorrow morning/night to have thanksgiving dinner at the ambassadors. i love saying that. followed by a weekend with the girls which im about 99.9% sure ill have stories from.

if i don't get a chance to chat with you before thursday.... HAPPY THANKSGIVING. watch charlie brown for me

Plimb prin Padure

As many of you all know the organization that I have been placed with is a national park. One of the bonuses of being placed with a national park is that on rare indian summer days in November you can tag along with the rangers who are going to hang some trail markers.

First of all though is the mandatory coffee hour, where there is much discussion over the difference in size between a Romanian mouse sized cup of coffee and my longing for a real mug that Andre the Giant would be proud of. Also a talking point was how could I possibly drink it without cream or sugar? "E mai tare Alizabet, nu poti" ( its too hard, you can't do it).

Next we all piled into the park Jeep to head off to the trail, carrying shovels signs and hammers and learned the different words for each tool. For reasons unbeknownst to me one of the rangers insisted that we don't have shovels in America because he couldn't remember the word for it so therefore it doesn't exist. Yea I don't know....

So we finally reach the intersection we aiming for and everyone sits down on a log to have a rest. I spot a large rock and make myself comfortable. For which I am immediately informed that I cannot sit there on that cold ground because my ovaries will freeze!!!!! My Ovaries Will Freeze and I will be barren. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a straight face when told that? Near impossible, thank goodness I was saved by a text and could pretend I was laughing about that.

We are supposed to have a few more days of sunshine and warmth this week. Bike riding will occur. And I'll be sure to avoid sitting on rocks from now on.

top 5 reasons why today was pretty sweet

1.) THE SUN IS BACK!! The Sunshine is back.
2.) The woman at the pharmacy didn't laugh at me this time as I asked for compresses and more (yes more ma'am) antibiotics.
3.) An hour long bike ride to both ends of town.
4.) Robin Williams Live at the Met finally finished downloading.
5.) 80's Themed Power Hour over Skype with three other volunteers

mississippi in my backyard

so its been raining here in herculane for about two weeks now with no immediate end in site though it did take a small 10 minute break today in which i ran home from the office because i didnt have an umbrella. i didnt have an umbrella because i got a ride from one of the rangers who was cleaning off some leaves from his windshield conveniently outside my bloc this morning. :) so on our way i get a chance to spot the river (a normally quiet little trickle) and when i noticed it had swelled to the size of the mississippi shouted holy s*** and scared the poor man half to death.



of course i then made him stop so i could snap these. im glad everyday that i refuse to learn the swear words so i have no idea what exactly people are saying when they shout at me while i hold up traffic on the only road in town.

red and sticky

so naive me didn't think the earlobe situation could get any worse than black and sticky but it can! in the form of the final ointment required to cleanse the area before RE-applying the previous mixtures. that'll teach me to wait to open all the tubes until im supposed to use them.

i miss simple american drugs.

black death ointment

while todays title comes again from gregory, i must also add that a primary inspiration for the creation of this fair page is due to merediths request for updates. so mere here's to you.


there it is the source. ^^^

why do you ask am i even talking about a smelly black cream? because my ear decided to go an get itself infected and be all swollen to three times its normal size and itch and pretty much make me want to cut it off. i get to mix this bottle of tar with an antibiotic cream and apply twice a day. and then document it with pictures to send to my doctor in bucuresti.

though to make light of my situation, i played "vogue" while snapping pictures of my ear from all angles.

Skipping on Over to Serbia

Yesterday I get a text from my site mate David asking me if would be at all interested in going to a club in Serbia that night. Of course I accepted, tore apart my apartment looking for my passport, and threw a few euros into my wallet.


The border patrol obviously take their jobs very seriously.




Two places at once. Check.


Upon arrival to the club we were destined for we are befriended by the English speaking bartender who is going to move to Chicago next month. He kept David and I full of free shots of...the Serbian version of moonshine. They were trying to out do Romanian hospitality.

Absinthe. The real deal.



This morning I got to explain to the 10 year old girl I tutor why I needed her to stop speaking so loudly and that Domnisoara (Miss) Alizabet needed to go back to bed as soon as possible. Her solution was to drink a glass of wine. I know you're so proud of me mom.

Today's PSA: Serbian moonshine is stronger than Romanian moonshine.

Tonight I will watch "V for Vendetta"

tis a cold and rainy day. tis also nov 5 so we all know what that means. or at least we should.

"remember, remember the 5th of november the gunpowder treason and plot. i know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot"

New and Shiny

Hello Friends and Family,
So I decided after much consideration that the format of a blog is much more convenient than lengthy monthly updates both for me and for you (or so I'm told after surveying no less than two people). Therefore I will attempt to include weekly stories or daily quips here for when you have time and want a small distraction.

I wish to thank those involved in helping me construct a very clever and relevant title to my shiny new blog space.

me-bronzehercules.blogspot.com
greg-perfect, absolutely perfect. i couldn't have given better advice.
- sorry i'm in an ego boosting day
me-those are important
greg-you're first blog can be about how great i am
or
you can not waste your first blog
me-ill give you a special mention in the second paragraph, hows that
greg- ill take it.


oh yea - the title translates to "what did you do yesterday? and why?"