Church

I have been pretty busy lately getting ready for the holidays. I usually have some ideas of things that I would like to blog about, but lately I've been a little lacking in inspiration. It might have something to do with Christmas coming up, and my upcoming trip to France! If you ever have any thing that you would like to know about in regards to my life in Romania, please let me know. I will gladly take on quests or (small) research projects.
However, today I decided to write a little bit about the church that I am attending. I had the opportunity to play piano for the services today, and I am really thankful that I have found a place where I can do that.
It took me a little while to find a church where I felt I could have a place. I initially tried a number of different Romanian churches, but didn't feel like any of them were for me. Finally I joined my roommate and visited the international church that she was attending, and I really enjoyed it. They were even in need of another pianist, so I was really glad to find a place where I could be a part of the ministry. The international church is truly international and has a good group of people from all over the world. Last week we had our Christmas celebration and it included presentations of Christmas from Indonesia, Nigeria, and of course Romania. I included a little video of  our church's Christmas choir that I got to be a part of. Most of the choir did not know the songs prior to our practices, but I think everyone enjoyed it. Here is the link to the video:
Two more days and then I will be leaving for France to spend Christmas with the same family that I spent Christmas with two years ago. I'm really excited that I get to travel a bit and spend Christmas with a family, since I can't be with my own family.

Who let the dogs out?

Bucharest has a problem...and it looks like this.

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Stray dogs. There are over 50,000 of them in Bucharest according to this article, which also explains how there came to be so many in the city. This number is not at all hard to believe as I have come to recognize the stray dogs that live on my street, the ones in the park by my place, the ones by the metro station, and the ones at the park by the school. That's about 12 dogs that I see everyday on my relatively short, above-ground commute. The parliment voted to legalize euthanizing these dogs, which of course doesn't sound great to most of the western world, but if you have to live around all these dogs...you might feel differently. According to the advertisement on the metro, there are at least 30 people treated for dog bites everyday. There is a free rabies clinic in the city that sees plenty of patients. 

Although I have talked to people who were chased or even bitten by stray dogs, I thankfully haven't had any problems with them except for being barked at and sometimes followed around for a bit. However, what bothers me more than knowing that there are so many homeless dogs in Bucharest, is that fact that there might be the same number of homeless people in Bucharest. It's not uncommon at all to see a group of dogs taking a nap in a sunny area of grass, but neither is it uncommon to see homeless people doing the exact same thing. I may not always be comfortable in my apartment here in Romania. I don't have family nearby or even a lot of my things to make this place feel like home, but at least I have heat and a place to live.