Traveling and the like

Well this past week since my last post has been incredibly busy. I was out with friends, played pool and went to the roatry conference for inbounds in the city of alba iulia, a 5.5 hour trip north through the mountains. It is an old city, with roman ruins that date back to the 1st century ad. It has seen everything, from war to peace, from germans to romans to romanians. It has such a history. It also happens to be (if i have my history corect) the birth place of romania. It is where all the provicnes were united under one flag, that of romania. There is a fortress, palaces, statues and there is also a historical changing of the guard, which i am slowly trying to upload. The videos take so long to upload it is ridiculous. But it is in HD, so when you can see it, it will be good! To see my pictures, i have them in an album called Alba Iulia of FB, otherwise i will try to post some here. I do not if this will let me make an album or not.
The conference was fantastic. I met many cool people. There are currently ten students in romania from other countries. 8 of them are form america one form mexico and one from brazil. The brazilian came of friday, the day we left and therefore he was not at the conference, but i met him upon my return and he is a cool cat. I am in SLatina with both him and the mexican, carlos. It is a dense concentration here, but otherwise, the students are scattered across the country, north east south and west. In fact, one student, gavin from buffalo ny, life in a city that borders Ukraine. Ukraine is actually his backyard apparantly. His city is also the meeting point for our next conference in december, so i should be able to look forward to a 10 hour ride or somethign like that. fun. At the conference we talked about travel rules and the like. Basically i am trapped in romania. There is little chance of me going out of the country except on the Eurotrip, in april or around there. That trip sounds super cool. We take two weeks off of school and travel to all the major cities in europe, such as amsterdam, paris, vienna, venice, rome and more. We would be sleeping and average of five hours a day and having the time of our lives. Right now i am trying to devise ways to go on said trip. It costs approx 900 euros, so it is nothing to sneeze at as far as cost goes, but like i said, i am sure i will find a way! Travel is apparantley only possible if you are with your family or a rotarian, so my intended visit to meet with tobi and my austrian brothers is probably not going to happen. Which makes me sad. There are other students who went on exchanges where they could almost travel at will. But whatever.
Also, (excited pause), i traveled back from the conference with my second host dad, and i heard a rumor that i may or may not be going on a ski trip to austria, switzerland or italy this winter. it is not confirmed, but i almost pooped myself when i heard that. It brightened my spirits about not being able to travel. It is like a dream come true. I am trying not to get my hopes up in case it doesnt go through, but i cant help it. :D :D :D
Before i forget, happy early birthday cass! I will be sending you a romanian gift in the mail. Dont worry tor, you will get one for your b day too. :D
The language and school are starting to go along better. I am becoming more confident in trying to speak. Listening is so much easier than it was even last week. It is cool, being able to finally start to have a clue as to what is going on. I am almost used to being constantly in the dark! After a while, as hard as i try to listen and learn, you tune conversations out. I try so hard to listen, to join in if possible, but i start to zone after ten minutes! I am memorizing easier now too. My brain finally is saying, ok, i guess i will open up for you. i will let you learn something. Next week in history class i will be giving a presentation on american history. I am contemplating asking bowman for help. :D I am excited to teach them though! I will finally be able to teach the romanians something! Ps, they call indians redskins. Thought that was an interesting piece of trivia. :P
This week i believe i will be travelling to bucharest with me mum to see it. It will be the first time i have been there since i arrived in romania, and i am excited. I have heard mixed reviews form the romanians themselves as to how good of a city it actually is, but i will see for myself. And of course i will take pictures.
fyi for all of you. It takes about twn days or so for mail to reach me, as demonstrated by ninas letter. :D
Goals this week, learn more vocab and also see what i can do about the euro trip.

doua saptamana

Wow. Two weeks went by so quickly. This past week is somewhat of a blur. School was not what it seemed to be on the first day. After the initial shock and awe experienced monday. Things quieted down significantly. Classes were held, though quite frankly not much was accomplished, at least not in my eyes. Apparently it is custom to not do too much your first week. We mostly sat and talked among ourselves. But that was ok. I got to meet and know some fantastic people, some of whom i now consider blossoming friends. There is an interesting attitude among romanian teens. They want so bad to go to america, to have oppurtunity. They feel as though they are stuck here kind of, not able to live to their full potential. They say that romania is not that good of a country, that they are 50 years behind. In some ways, they are fifty years behind, but not in the bad ways. They do not have a developed highway system. It has been a project that has been on going for twenty or so years, according to one of my friends. Their are also the the communist blocks, or apartment buildings, that have yet to be renovated or beautified. But they fail to see the prgress they have made since the fall of communism, in my opinion. They have internet, great mobile communication capabilities, wonderful cars, television, and so much more. I am curious as to what it is they see in america. Upon asking this question, the answered that they can find better jobs in america, they can earn more money and live their life more fully, as i stated before. Having only lived here for two weeks, i do not fully understand, and perhaps never will, the economic situation of many romanians. I do not know why their lives can stand to be so much better. Maybe in a few years, when i heard they will be switching to the euro, they will be singing a different song. But for now, there is a great curiousity and respect for america. I think it is also worth mentioning, that romanians are very proud of their global contributions, of which there are a surprising number. And they should be. My friend made sure to tell me that romania is part of NATO, and they were a member of the forces that were in iraq. SOmething like 13 romanians died in combat there. They also buy US military supplies, such as secondhand f-16's. He told me these things with such a pride that it really got me to thinking. I had never before appreciated what i had, what so many people wanted, and i felt a little guilty. At the end of the ocnversation, i found myself a little different, more appreciative. So my exchange is already starting to have an impact.
In other news, the language is going well. I am recieving a lot of help from my friends at school, and during conversation between two romanians, i can kind of understand the jist of the story. It is extremely hard to speak it though, the words cannot come to mind in most cases, and the accent is so foreign to me, literally haha, that i cannot successfully say many words and have them understand. Such as "I Want" or eu vreau. Vreau, and Rau, or bad, are the two hardest for me. no matter how hard i try, they simply will not form in my mouth. but i have more faith now, after two weeks, i have made progress. Little by little i learn, i use less and less english and after a month, i hope to be able to hold a conversation, however basic, entirely in romanian, with now pauses to speak english. Oh and before i forget, i have bigger feet than many people here apparently. i went to purchase a pair of shoes i could runin. In need a 46 or 47, and the biggest i could find was a 45. When i told people how big my feet were they were amazed. So i guess some internet shopping is in order. So as school gets into the swing of things, and the weather (finally) gets colder, i look forawrd to leanring and growing ore and more as the year progresses. I can only guess at what i will learn next.

Some pics, i will type some captions later

Confusion and unfamiliarity

Haha, yeah, the title says it all. Today was my first day of school. My school is very different from the conval way of education. I got up today at 7, which was strange to start with because i am used to having to get up at 6 for school, and started the day with a pbandj with some fruity tea of some sort. Not bad if i say so myself. But inside, there was that pit. I have heard stories of people who have to move to a new school. The are an outsider, someone alien invading the homeland of the established way of life. Well that was me, only i was going to a class where they had been together for years, not changing class mates or even rooms for that matter. And, they spoke a strange language that i can only grasp at for the moment. In my mind, sorry mom and dad, but i have to be frank, I was thinking EFF MY LIFE! haha, i know, not very positive thinking, but i really couldnot help it. I was in quite a formidable position, one which i had no real way of preparing for. So my mother, laura drove me to school, we waited for some of my friends who would show me around and things were grand. I met the principal, a kind lady who also happens to be an english teacher (plus!) and i was introduced to my class... about 20 girls and 4 boys. Yeah. Ugh. These are exactly the kind of girls i do not enjoy. Cliquey, chatting away at light speed and dressed to kill. I was intimidated for the first 10 minutes in the class by this wave of estrogen. I quietly took my seat next to the two other boys i saw at the time and tried to take it all in without wanting to curl into a ball. The class was so LOUD! they would not shut up! it is a bilingual class, which means they all spoke english, but i still couldnt muster up the courage in the first ten minutes to really talk to them. Finally, when the teacher came in (this was really cool, they have a great amount of respect for their teachers, unlike in america. Upon the entrance of the teacher, every student stands, same when the teacher leaves) silence fell and i felt more normal, less like an ant in a hurricane. She started to speak in lightning fast romanian. I tried to keep up for ten minutes, then gave up and started to zone. She wrote the schedule on the board, i copied it, yadda yadda yadda. Then there was a break. I met with my firends, they showed me around and all was good. They intorduced me to new people, one of whom was in my class, alexandra. She was a good help. She wants to study english in college to become a translator. Cool! so we walked and talked. She showed me the cafe where they all go to smoke and drink coffee during break. She introduced me to another group of rowdy adolescents and all was well. We went back to class, but it being the first day, there was really not much of a class. We kind of sat around for almost an hour. A boy came in, a friend of alexandra's, and he had a guitar. "Hey! i want you do listen to this song!" talking to me. He proceeded to belt out a song in which he put my name. SOmething about me being greg christ, and the chorus going a little something like, "CAUSE I'M F****** GREG! I'M F****** GREG! GREG CHRIST!" a wonderful tune. It was really actually quite enjoyable, everyone had a good laugh, myself included and people finally stopped giving me a cold shoulder. Everyone came up and introduced themselves to me, we talked about which season of lost was the best (seriously... :D) and things like that. I finally felt like i could do this! I still do in fact. it is just going to be a headache language wise for a while. There is this one girl though. She is the most ungodly annoying person i know. I will call her amy pohler for now. I dont remember her name and she has that same strange look as amy pohler. It fits. She was so obnoxious. She seemed fake and I could kind of sense that she was, judging by the attitudes of the others. haha, but whatever. It is only one bad egg. It will truly be interestign to see what will come out of it. I am still confused, i will be following everyone like a lost puppy until i really get how things work, but it is ok. The first day is done. That is all that matters. It was the last big hurdle i have for a little while at least. We will see how it all works out in the end.

Language learning, or lack thereof

Ugh, romanian is so hard. Haha I have been here for I think 6 days now and so far, I have not accomplished what I wanted, learning how to conjugate verbs. There are four different ways to, depending on the last letter of the verb itself. But there are a couple deviants in the grammar section of my dictionary (which is my teacher right now, haha) that do not make sense to me! It seems like there is a unique rule for each and everything you want to say. I am sure I will get the hang of it soon, but I really want to speak in romanian. I feel bad everytime I speak english! I am not accomplishing my goal when I speak in English. Sure it is easier, and my friends can talk to me and learn more about me and america, but that is not what this exchange is all about. I know i am expecting too much right now. Like i said, i have only been here a few days and have learned a relatively good amount of things, but I still have these frustrations. OTher than the language, romania is fantastic. The people here are kind, generous, friendly to everyone and willing to help me. They say they have nothing to do here, but if you look, there are plenty of things to do. I am used to living in a town about a tenth or less the size of Slatina, so finding stuff to do is my strength! The town itself looks like it came straight out of a book on soviet russia. In many ways, it is modern, with clubs, shops and fashionable cafes and restaurants. But the first thing one sees when entering the city are the big cement apartment buildings. They are evverywhere. Cement was the main base for everything during construction as far as i can tell. And everything is also in a state of disrepair. There are potholes in the streets, sidewalks are crumbling, etc. But if you get past these downsides, the city has a unique beauty. It is situated on the olt river, which is giant, and is surrounded by flatness. Fields and farm cover the southern half of the country, through which i traveled in my way to slatina from the airport in bucharest. Another thing that would be shocking to many people is the amount of stray dogs running freely throughout the city. There are thousands of them. All sorts, living in the harsh city landscape, one which really does not provide for this many animals. Haha Mel, you would be so sad if you came, knowing you love animals so much. I feel sad too, but it is something that they live with everyday, and to the people who live here, the dogs are now all but invisible. So here i am, a new resident of Slatina, romania. It will be interesting. The language is my foremost goal right now. after tackling that, this city will truly be opened to me.