A Visit to the Past

Although our hotel was gorgeous & comfortable, I wanted to take advantage of the fact that I was in Turkey & see a little bit more of the country. On Friday I joined a small group for a visit to a waterfall (pictured yesterday) and some ancient ruins from the Byzantine and Roman times. We visited the city of Side (pronounced "see-day") - where the modern city is built on the ruins of the ancient city. Pictured above are the ruins of the temple to Apollo on the shores of the Mediterranean (which is just right of the picture).

Also from the temple to Apollo

Back to the Real World

After a travel day, I arrived home this morning from a fantastic trip to Antalya, Turkey for our biannual regional conference with all of my colleagues from Central & Eastern Europe. It was fantastic to see old friends & meet new ones. Dr. Tony Beckett - one of my favorites - was our keynote speaker and a challenge to my heart...more to come in the next few days. For today, just a few pictures, extending the "high" of sunshine, swimming in the Mediterranean, eating meals while overlooking beautiful pools & palms...refreshing & recharging as we head into the long, dreary Romanian winter!

The view from my breakfast table

The "inside" breakfast view...food/art on the buffet line

(the seahorse is actually formed/carved out of lard)

...and the requisite waterfall!

My Worst Fear Confirmed

I've had a hunch for a long time. Some days I'm almost positive, but then on other days I'm just as sure I must be wrong. But today I found out for sure.

In Romania, to be without a husband is strange. "Fara sot" = odd.

Let me back up and explain...

For the moment, I have the responsibility of planning games for Friday night youth meetings at church (I know, I know...the least likely person for this job, but I digress). For one of tonight's games, we needed two teams. Since the teens were already assigned numbers for another purpose, I decided to just use their numbers to form teams. Team 1 - those with even numbers. Team 2 - those with odd numbers. To make sure I was prepared, I asked Pastor Nicu beforehand how to say "even numbers" and "odd numbers" (funny how I've never needed to use these terms in the last two years).

Turns out that the term for an even number is "number with a husband" and an odd number is a "number without a husband." So there you have it...in Romania, to be odd is to be without a husband. ;-)

Seriously, I know a lot of single Romanians, many of them significantly older than I am. Our church seems to have an inordinate number of single women & no single adult guys (they are all working in Italy, Ireland, Spain, the US...anywhere but here). A visitor from the US jokingly offered to either return next year with all of his single guy friends or set up a website entitled "The Single Girls of Libertatii".

But none of them are quite as "odd" as I since they all live at home with their parents. Apparently mom & dad's house here is something like the singles' group at my church in the US - the only way out is either through marriage or death!

Random Thoughts

1. Laughter is good. I need to do it more. Last night I stayed up late just to laugh... I reprogrammed my TV yesterday and found the channel that plays the Tonight Show; Jay Leno is on at 12:30 (a.m.) here. I love the headlines segment (which plays on Tuesdays here)...and I laughed really hard.

2. My hair is really hard, too. I finally had the mop cut off today, and my hairstylist prefers to use an entire industrial-sized can of hairspray on my head. I honestly don't know how she can pay for all of the gunk she puts in my hair with the $8-9 I pay to have my hair washed and cut!

3. I like having someone else wash my hair. I think I need to find a head masseusse. Might be good for the headaches, too.

4. I can survive without Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. I ran out almost 2 months ago, and I am still alive. And I'm learning to make a somewhat sad substitute. Not that Kraft Mac & Cheese is the healthiest food, I realize. It is, however, relatively easy and fast (contrary to the opinion of one of my teammates, who won't make it because it takes too long; needless to say, he eats out a lot since EVERYTHING here takes at least that long to make!).

5. I need to learn to go to bed earlier. On that note, I'm going to bed. It's already past midnight. Good night.

Yom Kippur

Today is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement. That's why this caught my attention on the walk home from church this evening - the synagogue gates, still secured closed with chains & an ancient padlock. I've glimpsed lights on inside occasionally for the last 8 days - for the first time in the almost two years. But still no real life. I wonder what it would have been like on Yom Kippur 100 years ago, when the synagogue was still "new" (it was built in 1899) or even 70 years ago, when Jewish life was at its height around here.

In the '30s, there were hundreds of thousands of Jews in Romania. Before WWII, only Russia and Poland boasted larger populations of Jews. In the Romania of today, there are somewhere between 7000 and 12000 Jews (depending on which census you believe), 80% over the age of 60. At least a quarter of a million Romanian Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and another quarter of a million left after the war in mass migrations to the west and to the newly formed Israel.

I would assume there probably aren't enough Jewish men in this community to sustain the synagogue (I think rabbinical law still requires 10 men in order to have a functional synagogue). Just made me sad tonight, thinking of the part of the Romanian heritage that is almost completely lost, that after another generation will likely be completely erased.

A Friday Afternoon in Brasov

After staring at my computer for far too many hours over the last few weeks, I took the day off on Friday & went to Brasov, about a 3 hour drive from here. I can't say that driving is ever relaxing here, but I do enjoy it once I get out of town.

Teammates & I all had lunch at McDonald's (it's the halfway point between here and Bucharest, so we frequent it often...clean bathrooms & a convenient place to stop!). Attempting to enjoy the last vestiges of summer, we ate outside and were joined by all of these little buggers. I think the birds were all well fed over the summer...but today we were the only ones there. They were quite daring, some even hopping up on the table in hopes of scoring a loose french fry. All we had to do was lift up a french fry & they would start creeping closer. If one of us threw one, a flurry of little wings would ensue until one of the birds grabbed the french fry (usually while it was still in the air) and flew off to enjoy it somewhere in privacy. I think they particularly enjoyed the fact that I never eat more than half of my french fries...as we left, I threw a handful up in the air just for the enjoyment of watching all the cheeky little things attack.


After lunch, my teammates all continued on their journeys elsewhere, and I went into downtown Brasov to try to score some decent pictures. Once again, nothing spectacular today, although I did get some decent "people pictures". I also got a few okay shots of the famous Black Church, but still not what I was looking for. Of course, I'm probably expecting a lot out of my little Canon Powershot A75 - but it's come through for me in the past. It's making some funny noises these days (one of the motivations for making the picture-taking trip...just in case it dies, I want to have a good stock of photos; replacement just isn't in the budget), but still taking decent shots. Someday, I dream of upgrading to a digital SLR camera & really learning how to take pictures. Until then, my little point-and-shoot is serving me pretty well.

Dark clouds had been hanging on the edge of town since lunch, but held off for several hours. I got my KFC for dinner (yes, I know - McDonald's & KFC in one day is just plain ridiculous...but KFC was one of the other motivations for making the trip...I was in dire need of an "American fix" of some sort, and KFC in Brasov is the closest available!). Just as my headache began to get out of control & I packed up the camera to head for my car, the sprinkles started. Good timing, God...thanks for letting me take pictures & eat yummy KFC first!

Drove three hours home & arrived just in time to watch "Ed." Gotta' love our TV schedule...you never know what might show up on the schedule. Tonight (Sunday), CSI was on one station and Law & Order: Criminal Intent on another. I used to be a big "Ed" fan, but seldom got to watch it, so I'm enjoying the Hallmark Channel's screening of it these days.

Also saw "Cars" ("Masini" in Romanian) this week; it is only the 3rd full-length animated feature to be dubbed into Romanian (after Babe in the '90s and something in the '70s, I think). I didn't understand everything (nor did my teammates who have been here much longer...cartoon cars just talk too fast!), but it was great fun! I understood most of the movie (the best part about it!) and especially loved all of the outtakes at the end with all of the "old" Disney/Pixar movies. The second best thing about it is that everyone else in the theater actually laughed when something funny was said...not ten seconds later when they read the subtitles in Romanian. I usually feel like we are laughing in slow-motion stereo; the Americans laugh, there is an awkward pause, and then the Romanians laugh.

I think I shall have to see it in English sometime soon...to pick up all of the humor that I just couldn't quite catch. The DVD comes out the first week in November (hint hint...DVDs are light and relatively cheap to mail!).

What I've Been Up To

Nothing really exciting to update about lately...been working a lot of hours. Finishing these...

This is book number 4 in the series of 12. Translators are working on 5 & 6 right now, which means they'll be coming back to me in the next couple of weeks for page layout and all that good stuff. In the meantime, I've been working on 7 & 8 so that they are ready when translators finish 5 & 6. Don't want good translators to get bored & start looking for more work elsewhere! I've started the first steps of preparing book 9, too. So I guess that means there are 5 teacher's manuals currently in progress. And two student manuals (1 at the printer & 1 being translated). And student notebooks for three different courses next month are in progress. So...10 different projects in various states of completion. That could explain why I can't always even remember my own name. And why I have nothing "fun" to write about here!

Fun Times

My living room right now (clean & quiet)...


...and my living room an hour ago.

Note the piles of dishes and such on the table. All gone now. (No, not cleaned yet...but scraped, stacked neatly and in the kitchen waiting to be washed tomorrow. I may be obsessive/compulsive, but I'm also dead tired and don't really care if the dishes are clean before I go to bed tonight.)

I finally took the plunge and invited all of the young adults over this evening. I cooked mici (pronounced "meech"; it's something like spicy grilled sausage and traditionally eaten with mustard) and my favorite rosemary-garlic roasted potatoes. I also made Lemon Chiffon Dessert Squares - another favorite that I rarely make (a Pampered Chef recipe). Yum, yum!

I love having people in my home...need to do it more often! Beyond dinner, I really had no plan. I intended to rent a movie, but just didn't have time to get to the store. But it all worked out fine...the basket of kid stuff in the living room kept everyone entertained. What more could you want than fairy tale books & a puzzle? I have crayons in the basket, too, but no coloring book right now; what's wrong with me?

Dina had collected all of our pictures from the retreat a couple of weeks ago & put them on a CD, so we stuck that in my DVD player and watched all of the pictures S...L...O...W...L...Y flash up on the screen.

Fun times!

Life on a speeding-out-of-control train

That's how my life feels often, but last weekend I jumped off the train for a couple of days in the mountains with the young adults from my church. I didn't take a lot of pictures because my batteries were dead most of the weekend (and did I think to bring along a charger...of course not; I was trying to pack light!). But, here are a few of the pictures I did manage to get.


Because every "youth group" trip must include at least one waterfall (I learned that from our youth pastor when I was in high school...thanks, Pastor Steve!). The "youth group" in a Romanian church is the equivalent of the college & career/singles' class in most American churches.

Ce mare esti Tu! How great Thou art! One of the things I love most about the mountains is being reminded of the greatness of God through His creation. The mountains that we were in this weekend are in the "earthquake zone" of Romania, and that was very obvious from many of the rock formations that we saw. And I'm always a sucker for a beautiful colored sky!

Just because it caught my eye & I like the picture. Maybe I'll print it and frame it someday.

Old news...

...but still worth writing about, I suppose.

I arrived home from my quick trip to Brasov last Thursday to find mail in my mailbox. Real mail...honest! Whew, it really needed dusting out (seriously). Then I opened it...my first Christmas card of the year! The last day of August, and I'm getting Christmas cards already :-)



The backstory...My home church has done "missionary Christmas" for as long as I can remember (probably as long as I've been alive). In July, they put up a poster with every missionary's name, including the kids. Then, people from the church sign up to send a Christmas card & a gift of $20. The cards are all "turned in" by the end of July, checks are sent to the mission agencies (much easier for them to send it to our bank accounts in random countries around the world), and the cards are forwarded to the missionaries. When they first started doing it, I think it took several months for overseas mail to reach its destination - thus the July collection date. I contemplated letting them know that there are now VERY few places in the world where mail takes longer than 2 weeks on average...but then I decided, nah, it's more fun to get Christmas cards in August.

Last year I got a birthday card & a Christmas card on the same day (again, at the end of August; my birthday's at the beginning of August). That was even more fun! The perks of being a missionary...