It's been a while...(May 26-June 6)

This past week and half or so since I last wrote about what has been going on has been one of highs and lows. Language classes have continued and begun to move faster as we learn more and more every day. My fellow trainees have truly become my support system these weeks and I know I will be relying on them as I move forward in the Peace Corps. Every day after class we go to what we have dubbed "The Old Man Bar" for a beer or two after class as a way to unwind and just enjoy each other's company. For me this is really important since I live so much further away from all of them. Besides, when a half liter beer costs you 2 lei, which is only about 67 cents in America, it's an extremely inexpensive way to unwind.

Last weekend we spent it in the park just hanging out. Some played ultimate frisbee while others, such as myself, just relaxed in the shade. Oh yeah, did I mention it was also in the shade of 15th century ruins? That night, Brad, Juli, and myself went to a pizza place called "Pizza Mexican Hot". Yes there was pizza, no there was nothing Mexican about it, and it was luke-warm pizza, but it had to be some of the best pizza I've ever had. It started to cloud up and look pretty ominous so we decided to leave. Luckily I brought my rain jacket, because it rained like crazy. I was stuck under an awning for about 30 minutes waiting for the hail to stop and I eventually made my way to the bus stop soaking wet. Needless to say the rest of the night was a night of relaxing and drying off. The next day I went out to eat with some friends and had a much more low key day.

The next week was another one of language classes loaded with vocabulary and verb conjugation. It's becoming easier to pick up on things as I gain much more comfort in the language. Overall the week was great until Friday night. A good chunk of the group was going out to celebrate Kyle's birthday at the restaurant which we had gone out to a couple weekends ago where we partied it up with the owner and police chief.

Me on the other hand I felt trapped where I was since I am pretty much restricted to the bus schedule since I live so much further away that everyone else. It's not really the going into the city part that is difficult, it's the getting back part. I don't really know my gazda's address all the way yet so taking a taxi would be next to impossible and there's no way I would be able to take the hour and half walk at 1 a.m. back home.

For the first time in my Peace Corps experience I was wondering what the hell I was doing here. I felt isolated in a country I have only really known for about 2 weeks and being away from my support system made that night fairly hard. So I did what seemed like the best idea to deal with the stress, I went to sleep. It was good choice since I woke up the next morning ready to head into the city (thanks to actually being able to work with the bus schedule) since we were going to be having a picnic in the park for Kyle and Martha who's birthdays were Saturday and Friday respectively.

I got there about an hour early so I sat on the foundation of some ruins that date back to who knows when and looked back through my journal at things which I had written in the past. It was exactly what I had needed to hear at that point in time so sitting on the mortared stones I began to reflect again on how I had to gotten to this point in my life and I had one of those "ah-ha!" moments when you realize you are right where you were supposed to be at a given moment. The night before completely washed away from my mind and i felt renewed. It was pretty much right at that time that people started to show up and I had one of the most fun days in recent memory. Everyone had brought food so there was quite the smorgasbord of whatever you could have wanted. We even had a ceremonious drink of țwika and needless to say, I’m sticking with the palinka from this point on.

So after a good few hours of hanging out, playing ultimate frisbee, playing the guitar (which I still need to find one to buy), and getting sunburnt, I came back home and did some much needed laundry. I had a great dinner of mici and mashed potatoes and passed out because I was exhausted from that day. I woke up, finished up my laundry after breakfast. Watched a movie, did some homework, and then remembered I had forgotten to write in my blog for some time. So here you go, my life in a nutshell this past week or so. I’ll try and keep them coming a little more frequently as time goes on.

"Only when we are at our lowest points can we truly build ourselves up. Reflection in times of pain gives us the chance to re-evaluate our lives and improve them into our most pure forms."