Coming back to Romania from winter vacation was a little rough for me. While I don't want to dwell on rough times, I do try to really document my life here and I thought I should share a little bit of what the past couple weeks has held for me. I came home to discover that my landlord's son who was home from college used my apartment as a crash pad without my knowledge or permission while I was gone. While his mother had come in to clean up after him, it was a little creepy to come home and discover that things were not quite as I had left them. Luckily, Elizabeth had come back to visit my site for a few days and was a great support for me.
The next bump in the road was that my dear site mate told me that she decided that her time in Romania would be coming to an end. I understood her decision, but was selfishly sad knowing that this would mean the end of having an American neighbor living just down the hall.
I did get to spend three lovely days with Elizabeth; showing her my town (and sculpture park), introducing her to some fine Romanian cuisine and taking her to school to help teach some classes. It was fun to show her a little of what PCV life is like and show her some of the places that I written about. My students loved meeting another American. It was very hard to say goodbye at the end of Elizabeth's visit. We had a great time exploring Istanbul and Athens together. I said goodbye to her look forward to future globe trekking adventures.
Over the weekend some volunteers in the area came into town for a goodbye dinner for my site mate. We had a nice goodbye dinner complete with Romanian style pizza (read ketchup for sauce). Our little group had become a family since we arrived at site in August. We celebrated holidays together, shared teaching ideas and laughed about our experiences together. It was hard to be losing a piece of the family, but we toasted to her success in the states and discussed future visits. She left in the middle of the following week and it was difficult for me. I had been spoiled having someone to check in with after a rough day at school.
After a few teary days things got better, the weather warmed up and the snow and ice melted so it was finally safe to run again. I got to go for 3 glorious runs before the snow started again. I also had a number of handball practices and boys' game to go watch and while I am still terrible at the sport I have found it is a great way to take my mind off things. We have one more week of first semester left and then we will have a week break before the second semester starts. I am looking forward to having a break again.
I did get to spend three lovely days with Elizabeth; showing her my town (and sculpture park), introducing her to some fine Romanian cuisine and taking her to school to help teach some classes. It was fun to show her a little of what PCV life is like and show her some of the places that I written about. My students loved meeting another American. It was very hard to say goodbye at the end of Elizabeth's visit. We had a great time exploring Istanbul and Athens together. I said goodbye to her look forward to future globe trekking adventures.Over the weekend some volunteers in the area came into town for a goodbye dinner for my site mate. We had a nice goodbye dinner complete with Romanian style pizza (read ketchup for sauce). Our little group had become a family since we arrived at site in August. We celebrated holidays together, shared teaching ideas and laughed about our experiences together. It was hard to be losing a piece of the family, but we toasted to her success in the states and discussed future visits. She left in the middle of the following week and it was difficult for me. I had been spoiled having someone to check in with after a rough day at school.
After a few teary days things got better, the weather warmed up and the snow and ice melted so it was finally safe to run again. I got to go for 3 glorious runs before the snow started again. I also had a number of handball practices and boys' game to go watch and while I am still terrible at the sport I have found it is a great way to take my mind off things. We have one more week of first semester left and then we will have a week break before the second semester starts. I am looking forward to having a break again.
No comments:
Post a Comment