The Opera

I love where I live. In a city of concrete apartment buildings, I am pretty lucky to be able to live in the top floor of a villa on a quiet dead end street in the center of the city. Some pretty important things are close to my house including the Romanian president's mansion, a very nice mall, and the opera house. Last year I walked by the opera house almost every day, but never looked into actually going. This past fall while it was still warm outside, I heard an outdoor concert playing and decided to check it out.
I dragged my room mate out with me and we joined a crowd of about 2000 people for a beautiful outdoor concert complete with fireworks!

I decided I needed to take advantage of being so close and look into going to the opera more often,  especially when I found out that balcony seats could be purchased for as little as the equivalent of $3!

I also worked with the drama teacher to organize a field trip to the opera with my music students. I made reservations to take my students on a Friday night, however when I called with the final number to book the tickets, they had changed the event and were no longer selling student tickets. It was frustrating,  but a very common occurrence in Romania. Thankfully, we were able to get tickets to another show, and I had a great time taking my students to see The Barber of Seville at the end of November.

This week I plan to go see The Nutcracker!

Brasov

I think I have mentioned this before, but when you live in a city like Bucharest, getting out of the city every once in awhile is very important. Bucharest is a pretty big, busy city. The most wildlife I see during the day are some stray dogs and maybe a rat. There are some trees in the city, but it's mostly concrete. There are people everywhere, and they are all on a mission to get somewhere. So, it's just nice to get out every once in awhile and experience a little different environment.
The easiest place to get away to from Bucharest is Brasov. I've been there a couple times already, and it's really very nice. It is still a city, but it is in the mountains, and has a whole different atmosphere. Our church Bible study group planned a weekend trip there at the beginning of the month, and it was great to get away together. We left on Friday, and since I had to work, I had to catch the later train. The train was booked full, so we were not given seats. It was pretty tight, but there were a few nice people who gave up their seats for us, and we even met another American on the train. That doesn't happen very often here.

We spent the night in a cheap hotel, and then next day half of the group went to explore the city, and the other half went off to do something a bit more adventurous.  Since I had already been to the city, I chose the more adventurous option, which happened to be a high ropes course. The name of the place is adventure park, but somehow, while our group was discussing the options, the name got changed to the danger park. It's not really dangerous, but if you are scared of heights, it can definitely feel dangerous. 

Brasov is beautiful in the fall. I loved being able to breathe some fresh air and spend time with my friends. 

A day with Chen Lin

I have been tutoring Chen Lin since last year, when he came in as a fourth grader with no knowledge of English. It was a rough start, but he is extremely smart and determined to learn. He picked up English in no time and is doing really well in school. I still tutor him three times a week in English, and he is a very interesting character. At some point I will share with you all of my favorite Chen Lin quotes that I have collected, but for now, let me just share a day with Chen Lin. 

This particular day happened to be the last day of school in our old rented school building. I don't know if this made it an extra emotional day for Chen Lin or what, but he was pretty dramatic. 

We started off with him wanting to help me pack the classroom. I allowed him to pack one box of books for me before we started talking about homework. He decided he wanted a little bit more homework, so I took him down the copy machine with me to copy some more homework. He had never used the copy machine before, and was pretty intrigued with it. I let him push the buttons, and he asked me "Can I copy my hand?" 

"Sure, you could, but we are not going too," I replied. 

"COOL!!! Then I would have three hands!!" exclaimed Chen Lin. 

"No, Chen Lin, it would just be a piece of paper with a picture of your hand on it."

"Oh" (slightly sad face)

Next he pulls the paper out of the printing tray and starts pressing it against his face.

"This is hot!! Why is this hot!!!"

"That's just the way it is after coming out of the copier."

"But why is it hot??"

We go back upstairs, and the entire time he is following me singing some song about flying.

Back in the classroom I proceed to go over the homework with him.

"Ms. Fessel, will you stay here forever?"

"Probably not forever"

"When will you leave?"

"I don't know. When God tells me too."

"Will you stay here forever until you get married?"

"I really don't know, Chen Lin."

After this little interlude we continued class until it was time for him to go. As he exited the classroom, the door handle fell out. This has been happening all week, but we haven't fixed it since we are moving to the new school. I instruct him to pick up the handle and push it back on the door so I can get out of the room.

"Ms. Fessel, I would be so sad if I made you to be locked in your classroom so you couldn't get out. The would fire me from the school and I would have to go to prison and they would kill me!"

"No, Chen Lin, none of that would happen." I call out after him, but he is already on his way down the stairs. 

And that is a pretty typical day with Chen Lin.

Service day

One day each semester, the high school students at BCA get a break from their regular classes and get to spend the day volunteering at some sort of ministry in Bucharest. A couple weeks ago we had our first service day of the year. The students were broken into small groups and sent off to several different places for the day. Some of the students went to a church, or a clinic, and helped do cleaning and maintenance. Some students went to a home for mothers and helped do babysitting and food preparation. I got to chaperon a group of students who went to a ministry that does child evangelism through puppet shows throughout the whole country of Romania.

We spent the morning learning the puppet skits, and then we drove over to a christian bookstore. The bookstore has an after school outreach to neighborhood kids, and they had asked for a puppet team to come and do something special for them. It was a small space, but we were able to set up all the puppet equipment and put on an evangelistic show for twelve kids. My students did an excellent job with the puppets and really enjoyed themselves. It was a great opportunity to be a part of another ministry in Romania, and I was really proud of my students for using their talents so well!

, 

Nigerian Independence day

I have meant to blog about a couple different topics this past month, but somehow time has gotten away from me. It's been a very full month with lots of exciting things. So, I am going to start working backwards, and hopefully try to get caught up.

On October 1, Nigera celebrates its independence day, which never really meant anything to me before. However, this year, I received something that looked like this.

I know it's kind of hard to read, but it is an official invitation to the Nigerian Independence Day celebration from the ambassador (well, actually from my friend Sope). I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would be invited to something like this, so of course, I had to go. I convinced my room mate of the same, and off we went.

As we approached the hotel, I noticed the parking lot was full of black Mercedes with flags from different countries on them. These were the ambassadors' cars. We entered the hotel, and I kind of felt like I was at some kind of UN meeting. There were people from all over the world in their traditional costumes, and I almost got run over by what looked like a middle eastern general. It was really interesting to be in a completely different atmosphere then I am used to being in, but it was also a lot of fun!

We spent the evening visiting with people from my church and trying a few Nigerian dishes.

A long weekend in Paris

One of the nice things about living in Europe is the relatively short and cheap flights from city to city. Since we had fall break in mid October, I decided to use my long weekend wisely and meet up with a good friend of mine from high school in Paris. She was doing a tour of England, Germany, and France with a couple other girls, so I joined them for the end of their vacation. It took a taxi, a plane, a bus and eight hours for me to go from my apartment to the middle of Paris.

Together again after two years!














The first day was beautiful and we enjoyed getting our first view of the Eiffel Tower, and enjoying crepes.

The next day was rainy, so we spent the morning at the Louvre. My favorite part was being able to see some artifacts from ancient history that I had taught the first and second graders last year.

In the evening we found some good spots to take pictures of the city of lights.

On Sunday my friends had to catch their plane early, so I went to a church where I knew the missionaries. It was fun to surprise them! I also met up with some short-term missionaries that I had trained with two summers ago, before I first came to Romania. It was a surprise to see them as well, and I really enjoyed it! I stayed for lunch after the service, and got to know a few of the girls from the church in English, French, and German. Then it was time for me to leave and go back home. This time it was the metro, a bus, a plane, and a taxi that took me from the church to my apartment just in time for bed!

Transylvania and Dracula's castle

About two weeks ago, the whole high school traveled up to an area near the town of Bran for their annual retreat. This area is close to a part of Romania known as Transylvania. Yes, Transylvania is a real place, although fact and fiction have been mixed up quite a bit in this area. So, today I decided to give a quick overview and separate fact from fiction, as well as give you a little peek of what you might see if you go to this part of Romania.

The first thing we saw as we entered the village was this:

A funeral procession with an open casket. These are by no means limited to Transylvania. I have seen them in the middle of Bucharest, but I thought it was kind of interesting that this was the first thing we saw upon entering Bran, the home of Dracula's castle. A Romanian funeral procession is lead by a person carrying a cross, everyone wears black, and the casket is always open.

There is a lot of superstition related to death in this part of the world, and some of the vampire legends evolved from these superstitions. 

As I stated before, the village of Bran is home to Dracula's castle. I had the chance to tour the castle, and being a pretty big fan of both the history behind the real Dracula, and the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, I was very excited to be able to see the castle for myself. 

 The facts about the castle are that it was a stronghold built by Teutonic knights in the year 1212. It was used against invading Turks by the mid 1400s, when Vlad Dracul was in charge of the country. Vlad Dracul was a Romanian ruler who did a very good job keeping the Turks out, but he also used some very brutal tactics. He would impale his victims and leave them impaled lining the streets. However, he didn't just impale Turks, he was also very ruthless towards any of his countrymen and had a bloody reputation towards anyone who crossed him the wrong way.

Although there are some old secret stairways and all kinds of interesting corners, the castle at Bran isn't really linked to Dracula through history. It would have been part of his domain during his reign, but I don't believe that there is any proof that he actually lived there. The castle is actually furnished for the time period that Queen Marie lived there  around the late 1800s to early 1900s.

The novelist, Bram Stoker, wrote Dracula as a vampire based on the old Romanian ruler Vlad Dracul. He choose this castle as the inspiration of the castle that Dracula lived in, in his book. It's a very interesting castle, and it was pretty popular among tourists. I counted eight different languages being spoken by people touring the castle, which is quite a bit considering I rarely hear a language other than Romanian being spoken in Bucharest.

There are some Vlad Dracul ruins in Bucharest as well, and he is considered a hero in Romania.

Food for the winter

Late summer, early fall is the perfect time to be Romania, because tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, etc. are in season and dirt cheap. In the height of tomato season you can buy them for about 30 cents a pound! There are fruit and vegetable stands and markets all over the city selling produce for ridiculously low prices. If I had the time or knowledge I would definitely go crazy making jams, jellies, salsa, sauces, pickles, and whatever else I could keep in a jar. Since I don't really have the time to do that, I decided to just buy a little extra of all the vegetables that are in season and freeze some for later.

I like to go to the biggest market place in the city at Obor. It is massive and has many different parts. There is an indoor part where you can buy clothes, shoes, washing machines, household goods, sewing items, and so on. Then there is another indoor area that has mostly dry goods and pet food.

There's another area with clothes, another area with car parts, another area with.....well just about anything. It's a maze that keeps on going. The main section that I go to in Obor is an open building that has fruits and vegetables on the first floor. (I don't venture up to the second floor that has meats and cheese, but I did check out the fish section in the back once.)You can buy whatever is in season for very reasonable prices. Here's what I came home with a few weeks ago.

I chopped up the vegetables and ended up with a few bags worth to freeze for later on. Last year I made some tomato sauce and froze it as well. Now that the weather has cooled off a bit I might do that again. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of room in my freezer. 

School

I have just started the third week of school, and it's already been a whirlwind of crazy. The good news is I have my own room this year, complete with a computer and printer. It's pretty exciting to have my own area to decorate and organize my things. The students are back and definitely ready to learn. Today, however,  was  really a Monday and a few of my students did not seem to be able to stay awake. I have enjoyed getting back to teaching, however there are so many little issues to iron out to make sure the rest of the school year runs smoothly. So far I have had several scheduling conflicts including having a class and no room and having two classes at the same time in the same room. That was kind of a hassle. Needless to say I am really looking forward to moving to our big new school! Hopefully that will be in the very near future!

I've also had to contend with several interesting environmental issues. The first few weeks have been pretty hot at school, and my room is on the third floor with no air conditioner, so the windows are always open. For some reason, whenever I have something really important to say to my students one or more of the following occurs:

• a dog fight 
•  a rooster crowing incessantly
• a garbage truck idles on our street
• an old man yelling out for scrap metal walks by
• a horse and cart drives by

I'm not a very loud person, and talking over all these different distractions isn't my favorite thing to do. Hopefully the new school will also be quieter. 

This weekend I am going as a chaperon with the high school students for their annual retreat in the mountains. Last year everyone got food poisoning and was very sick. We are all praying that does not happen again.

Camping

I have discovered the perfect way to get over jet lag....spend a week at camp! I was having a lot of trouble getting back to a regular sleeping schedule the first few days back in Romania. I didn't even sleep at all two nights in a row. This seemed strange to me considering I don't even remember having jet lag when I came to Romania last year. I guess I just didn't have time to be jet lagged last year, or I am getting old.

Last Monday I got on a train for a six hour trip to into the mountains. 

           

The Romanian countryside is truly beautiful.

I went to help out at a camp for teens from one of the big Baptist churches in Bucharest. Some of my American friends were running it, and I was there as support staff. My main job was to put up tables and benches after meals, and transform the dining hall into a chapel.

I also got to help supervise some of the activities. The camp has a few challenge courses, and I just watched to make sure no one died while doing things like high ropes, giant ladders, and zip lines.

The rest of the time I enjoyed good Romanian food, being out in nature, and a full night of sleep every night.

 

On Saturday I joined the group of teens for the 45 minute bus ride and then six hour train ride back to Bucharest. 

 














This week I have teacher in-services and am getting my classroom ready for school. There is a lot of work to do, but I am really looking forward to seeing my students again! 

Just like that

And just like that I am back in Bucharest. I've said goodbye to friends and family, had the fastest possible trip to Bucharest with almost nonexistent layovers (although I did manage to watch about ten minutes worth of Olympics in London....on TV), and moved back into my apartment. I've traded my car for the subway, greeted my friends who were waiting for me, and now I guess I am ready for another year in Romania!

Tomorrow I will be leaving to help out at a teen camp up in the mountains. I don't really know exactly what I will be doing. I've just been told that they could use my help. I am looking forward to spending some time in the fresh mountain air before school begins, and also the exercise will be useful to help get rid of the excess weight that America tends to puts on a person ;)

This summer I got to see a lot of friends and family members, and all of them encouraged me and refreshed me in a great way. One of those friends came all the way from Colorado to spend time with me. We've known each other since the beginning of college, traveled together, lived together, and have had quite the adventures together. Since we were both back in Des Moines we decided to hit up our favorite places. So without further ado, here are:

 Liz and Johanna's Favorite Things To Do in Des Moines

(in no particular order)

1. Attend a cultural festival involving food

The Italian festival happened to be going on when Liz was in town, but other favorites of ours are the Greek festival, and the World food festival. Really, we just like food.

 2. Gong Fu Tea house
This place has a tea smelling wall where you can take a sniff at a number of teas before you make your decision. It's a very relaxing atmosphere, and all the teas are delicious

3. Although I don't have a picture, you can't really go to Gong fu without rounding the corner and going to the Asian Market. Their poster proudly announces that milk is coming soon, and our favorite items within the store are calling cards to Africa and Minnesota, and whole frozen bull frogs. While we haven't ever purchased those items, we always find something else interesting to try.

4. Visit the Farmer's Market

Free samples, lots of delicious food to eat, you really can't go wrong. 

 5. Eat Breakfast
This is just something I really like; you can do it anywhere. I prefer Village Inn or maybe IHOP. I just like a big American breakfast. I already miss you big American breakfast.....

However, if you are in Des Moines we really stopping by by La Mie for french pastries or quiche.

6. Fong's Pizza
Chinese food on pizza is really delicious. Try the crab rangoon pizza. Trust me. 

7. Spend an afternoon floating on Saylorville lake
Swimming is a little to much for us, but floating around on an inter-tube is the perfect mix of sun and relaxation.

Now you know why I could use some extra exercise this month, since almost all of our favorite things have to do with food! Next time I will have to do a Bucharest favorite things list.

I'll be back in a week to let you know how camp went!

I'm still here

I realize it's been months since my last post, and it's not because I had nothing to write about. I have had lots of things happen and I hope to catch up on some of them over the next few weeks. School finished at the end of May, and we had a wonderful end to the school year with a great graduation ceremony for the seven seniors. As soon as school was finished, my roommate left me to return to England for the summer, and I moved in with some of my american friends. I spent the next two weeks enjoying being in Bucharest and exploring a little bit more than I had before. I also spent some extra time with friends from church. (There are some exciting opportunities coming up with some friends from church which I will write about later.) I even squeezed in another trip to the Black Sea the day before I flew back to the USA. I am now in Iowa for the summer, and have been enjoying catching up with friends and family.

I have had the opportunity to share what I am doing in Romania in five different churches so far, and will be presenting in four more churches before I return to Romania. This week I am the missionary speaker at vacation Bible school at my parent's church, and next week I will be doing the same thing in another church. Hopefully money will come in to cover my expenses for another year in Romania.

The time has gone by extremely fast, and pretty soon I will be getting on a plane back to Romania. Over the course of these past few weeks I have really been impressed with the fact that I have a lot of pretty amazing friends. I have been able to meet up with a number of people and have some great conversations about Romania, life, and even cheese. Also, I have a number of great friends waiting for me in Romania, and I can talk about anything with them as well. I feel that I am richly blessed in this area, and am so thankful for all my wonderful friends!

Spring Break!

Spring break kind of snuck up on me this year. It was the last week of March, and I had dreams of spending my week off of school on a beach somewhere away from the cold...but that wasn't very realistic. I ended up making some last minute plans to head back to Krakow, Poland and visit my old friends.

Getting there was kind of tricky. I seem to be very good at being really lucky in making my bus and train connections. I nearly missed my train out of Bucharest and had to flag down a taxi at 5:30am. There aren't many taxis out at that time. I made it to my train, but then had five minutes to switch trains in another city. Thankfully I made that connection too and ended up in Budapest 15 hours after leaving Bucharest. I spent the night in a hostel and then tried to get the bus station in time to catch my bus for the seven hour trip to Krakow, that was supposed to leave at 7:00am. I have taken this particular bus route several times before, but somehow I always manage to have problems. This time I had trouble buying a subway ticket to get to the bus station. I only had paper money, and the machine refused to take it. Another person came by and offered to buy me a ticket, but they only had paper money too. No stores were open so I couldn't buy anything to get change. I was stuck. In Budapest they have guards watching the entrances to the subway, so I wasn't going to get past them very easily. I finally gave up and walked up to the guard and shrugged saying, "I really tried to buy a ticket, but I can't." I don't know if the guard understood me or not, but he waved me through. Unfortunately, by this time I was already 20 minutes late, and sure that I had missed my bus. I walked up to the station and miraculously my bus was still there! There was some kind of a delay with another connecting bus, so I didn't get stuck in Budapest. Thank you Jesus!
I had a good time catching up with a few people in Poland and sharing with them what I am doing in Romania. It was funny being back in the city that I used to live and see how things have changed. There are so many more foreigners in Krakow than in Bucharest. I heard English and German almost more than Polish. The weather was beautiful while I was there, and I really enjoyed my break. Apart from all the travel, my time in Poland was a much needed restful vacation.

My trip back was just as long, but thankfully I did much better in making all my connections and made it back to Bucharest alive.

Happy Easter!

 I realize I am a little late. Sorry! I have been busy with school and breaks from school and life in general. I will try to get you caught up this week on the things that have been going on this past month. I had spring break during the last week of March and traveled to Poland. I also attended a wedding and celebrated Easter...sort of.

 Easter in Romania was actually this week and not last week, as you probably celebrated. That  is because Romania is primarily orthodox and they celebrate Easter a week later than everyone else. Easter is a very important holiday in Romania and it's even considered more important than Christmas. See, there were even Easter lights up in the city

I didn't learn everything about Romanian Easter, but I did learn a few special traditions that orthodox Romanians observe. On good Friday people usually attend mass and walk around the church and under a table three times to signify Christ's suffering and death. On Saturday all orthodox Romanians attend midnight mass. (I am much more a fan of this then early sunrise services, for the record). I attended midnight mass with a few friends just to see what it was like. Literally everyone goes and police are out in force to direct traffic. The subway also runs at special times so everyone can get to mass.

 

The mass is held outside and unfortunately it was raining, but we made it through. The main goal of the mass is for people to receive light from the priest. So everyone brings candles. The priest sings some kind of liturgy and everyone sings an Easter hymn. The light is passed around the whole crowd, and at this point most people leave and the rest of the mass is finished inside the church.
One really special thing about Easter in Romania is the greeting that everyone uses during this time. You can say this to anyone and everyone you meet: Hristos a inviat  and they will respond with: Adeverat a inviat, which means Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Although sadly most people in Romanian do not understand what Christ's resurrection really means, it is exciting and makes it so much more real to be able to say that to everyone you meet.
The rest of my Easter wasn't that exciting. I had Chinese with some friends and attended midnight mass, out it. One thing I really missed, and will make sure to get once I am back in the US, is a giant brunch with french toast, eggs, bacon, etc. Now I'm hungry.