Limba Romanâ

Bună prietenii mele!
Hello my friends!

I have been working on gathering a few phrases that I have been learning and using during my first three weeks in Romania. I really appreciate the comments, feedback and requests to my blog posts. Thanks to those of you who requested that a write a few phrases for you.

The above toy appeared on the side of bathtub the other day. I am a little terrified of it as the first couple weeks with my gazda and then it just appeared one day and continues to watch me. This brings me to my first phrase.

(Eu) fac duș. - I take a shower.
A ține pasul. - Keep up the pace. (A Romanian expression.)
De ce nu? - Why not.
Tu ești varză. You are cabbage. (An expression meaning you are slow.)
sare de mare - sea salt
sare mare - big salt
el sare - he jumps
sare și piper - salt and pepper
El/ei este fără sare și piper. - He/she is without salt and pepper. (An expression meaning some is dull/boring.)

More soon!

Buna Seara!

The sunset last night was quite beautiful. After having rain all day long we finally had a few moments without rain at sunset. This is the view from my bedroom window. The row of buildings in the foreground are garages for the a large apartment blok that is just outside of the frame on the right.

My Romanian classes are going a little better this week. My pronunciation still needs quite a bits of work, but I feel that I am understanding sentence structure a little more. I try to make sentences with my gazda at dinner each night; she ends up laughing a lot, but I like getting corrected.

Sticky Adventures

On Sunday afternoon I went outside the city to the country property of my gazda's daughter and son-in-law, Gabi and Nico. Nico's parents live on the property next door and have a pretty sizable garden. I think they are subsistence farmers with chickens, ducks and turkeys in their yard. They have a fairly good size piece of property with a large garden and tiny vineyard where they make wine for the family. They have a tiny house that I imagine must be very hard to heat in the winter.
A lot of the plants that are grown here are similar to those that grow in the Northwest. I saw tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, garlic, onions, butter lettuce, parsley and dill. They also have apple, peach, and plum trees.

We made a fire in the backyard and cooked sausage and chicken on the fire. It was delicious! However, the best part of the afternoon is that Nico is a bee-keeper and has a lot of hives on the property. He had been harvesting some honey so we had a desert of fresh strawberries and honey still warm from the hive. It was amazing!

This fire eventually became our barbecue; our "charcoal" was dried corn husks.