I started this blog as a way for my friends back in Michigan to keep updated with my wild and crazy life as a PCV in Romania. Suddenly I find that there are a lot of people I don't know reading this, and that it's being refered to people I don't know by other people I don't know. And I guess I'm on a list, somewhere, of PCV blogs around the world ( Read more... )

My first month in Zalău I lived with a host family, a gazda, until I could find my own apartment and get settled. During the month I stayed with Nelu and Feli, they adopted me as their American daughter and I adopted them as my Romanian parents. And because Feli’s biological children both live in other countries (a son in Hungary and a daughter ( Read more... )

Well, my sitemate wanted to go to the pet store today and get some fish because, well, because she likes fish. While we were there I bought a bird on a whim. He's a pure white finch, and I think I'ved decided to name him Carl. There's a good beer called Carslberg and the slogan is "Probalby the best beer in the world." So my bird is Carlsberg, ( Read more... )

So this was my sister's away message for two days: "I hate the peace corps.....it took my best friend"

I want to go home...but I want to stay and make a difference even more.

( Read more... )

It’s getting harder and harder to find things to talk about with my family. Every Sunday we chat online, at 9 AM, 11 AM or 6 PM-depending on what time zone you’re in. The first time we met, I talked to my parents for almost three hours. Yesterday we talked for about 45 minutes, and Dad did most of the talking. I mainly listened ( Read more... )

In the past few days, these are just a few of the things that have made me very happy. They are, in no particular order:

Gum in sticks, not blocks
Hair ties
e-mail from a friend
Vacation
My asthma meds
Taco Bell sause
Dr. Pepper (only sold in the capital)
Snow
Used books
Chicken wings
Allan's chocolate dip stuff
American toothpaste

Well, the warm spell has finally left. Now it’s bitterly cold and windy, with smatterings of snow and rain. Great fun ( Read more... )

Check out this article:

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=33257&in_page_id=2

I was teaching a class today, and I had brought in post cards of Boyne City (my hometown) to use as examples of a promotional advertisement. Next week the kids are going to make one of their own for either Romania or Zalău. Anyway, one of my students, Paula, looked at one a picture of Water Street and asked if we had any trash on it like the main ( Read more... )