Travel and DAY ONE

Right now I am sitting at the computer in the Heart to Heart home in Bucharest, Romania! And I can definitely tell I am in Romania... just to sign in to my blog I had to choose from a Romanian menu... good thing I blog often enough to know which button to choose! Har har. Anyway, that's right, I made it safe and sound! We got here around 1am this morning Romanian time... so I have slept and enjoyed my first full day here! All our travel went great and according to plan... we didn't even lose any luggage which apparently is strange for coming to Romania! The house here is BEAUTIFUL! It's basically a mansion with lots of marble and classiness.. very fun and nice. The 8 hour flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam was alright... watched Inception then wrestled with finding a comfy position to sleep in for the rest of the trip. Needless to say, I am not a huge fan of the seats they put on those big planes! During our 9 hour layover in Amsterdam we basically just slept and ate the whole time... college students, ya know? :) The 2 1/2 hour flight from Amsterdam to Romania was kinda interesting... I was sitting in a window seat next to a little girl and her mother when I realized the dad kept coming over and seemed like he wanted to switch. So I switched so that the family could be together and ended up in between two guys who didnt speak english- one listened to his ipod the whole time and hogged the arm rest, the other smelled like cigarrettes. Yum! But it was fine because I just read and slept (the chairs on this smaller aircraft were much more conducive to sleeping- either that or I was more tired!).

This morning we woke up and had breakfast at 9. The main level of the house has a huge area that on one little level has a couple big tables and enough chairs to seat 30 people and then on a lower level a bunch of couches for a living room area. So there are probably about 20 people in the house now, and only one guy! Brave soul. The rest are either H2H staff, interns, or team members- our six and three others from California. After breakfast we had some training with stuff about the culture, the orphanages, etc. 

After lunch, around 2:30 we headed out for the day. I got to go to the baby hospital with two other team members and two staff... the rest of the group went to the orphanage. I was so excited to get to go the first day! The babies there were sooo adorable! There were 12 babies split up in two rooms, a room of 8 toddlers, and then a room of infants that we weren't allowed into. I spent most of my time (about 3 1/2 hours) in the baby rooms holding, playing with, feeding, and changing the babies. Near the end I went to the toddler room and they were precious! It was much more sad for me to see them because they were in these really tall cribs with metal bars and they would stand in the crib holding the bars like a little prisoner. But they were so much fun and very smiley and giggly. All the babies were just so beautiful and it really was an amazing time to just play and take care of them. One of the staff told us that many of the babies aren't really abandoned, it's just that their parents may not have enough money to raise them, or to pay for the heat, or to have a house, so they drop off their babies at the baby hospital kind of to take care of them until they do have enough money. So sometimes parents will come visit their children or come and take them back. It was very interesting.

Jet lag was pretty rough this morning during training and before the hospital, but since mid afternoon I have been pretty awake, especially now when it's 10:30pm our time. I really wish I would have taken time to learn more Romanian- words such as yes, no, hello, goodbye, etc and phrases such as thank you, you're welcome, how are you, etc. would have been helpful to learn BEFORE the day I arrive! :) But I am slowly catching on to some of the words. Especially gata- "enough." Apparently it's a word you have to use with the orphans frequently when they want to keep doing something! 

Tomorrow I will be going to the orphanage to distribute Christmas gifts! We will probably go to the younger orphanage (most under age 12) to do that in the morning, and then on to the main orphanage (ages 5-20) for the afternoon.

Prayer: Team unity, servant attitude, and that I can be well rested throughout the week!

I'll blog more later! Thanks for reading! :)