Romania 2009: Day 4

I have made the mistake of going by Day 1, Day 2 etc. So now I have no clue as to what day it is. Luckily there are other adults who seem to have kept better track of what day it is and they tell me what we are doing and where to go. Last night we decided to have a talent show. The Parkin sisters started with a couple of songs and a superb home-made rap about Chick Fil-A. Essentially that was the end of the talent show as no-one else really wanted to step up to claim they were talented after the Parkin sisters sang. Next time we need to start with some other people before the really talented people get up.

The days seem to fall into the same pattern. The Romanian youth want to stay up all night and the Americans at least go to bed at some reasonable time. In the morning the US contingent is up early followed by the Romanians.
After a quick clean up at the house in Sinaia we loaded up onto the coach back down to Pucioasa but even that wasn’t without incident. Before the coach arrived Niku asked everyone to get all of the bags outside the house. Literally as the last bags were coming out it started to rain: “All the bags back in the house”. We finished getting them back in and then the coach turned up: “Load the coach up”. Before we had really begun the day we had shifted about 50 suitcases three times. Unfortunately because of my pulled muscle I had to step up and take the role of foreman.
Nate has taken on the mission of trying to catch everyone on camera as they sleep which makes everyone sleep with one eye open. However, even on this trip people are willing to take the risk of the camera just to catch up on sleep.
The new hotel in Pucioasa is actually quite acceptable. There is no AC which could be problematic but we shall see how the temperature goes. The room is kind of small but the really weird thing is the size of the eating table which is about 2 foot off the floor and the stools are about a foot off the floor (see the photo). If I sat down on that stool it would be demolished. We had lunch at the church which also suffers from small-itus. The youth went up onto the balcony and most had to bend over to get up there.
Pucioasa is a fairly small town. A visit to the local market took all of 2 minutes and they are obviously looking forward to my fire eating here and have posters up all over but I am not sure why they have a picture of a clown!

I have to go back to the dogs. In my earlier blog when I said they are everywhere I was under-exaggerating. They are absolutely every single place possible. If you actually pet them or even worse give them food they seem to have a secret calling system and others just turn up to get a piece of the action. You have to check out the dog searching the trash can. All of the travel sites say to stay clear of the dogs but that is impossible. At camp we had our own dog called Lily who was the smallest dog of the strays but kept them all under control. There was the dog who though he was King of the

Hill and just watched over everything. There has already been talk of bringing one home but I think my wife would kill me.
As we spend more time together as a team we get to bond closer and closer and learn more about each other and our backgrounds. Most people want to know where I got my athletic prowess from and I tell them about my days in high-level sports. My middle school football team was pretty good. Also there is a comfort level between the youth and the adults as well. Today DJ, Don and Chrissie’s eight-year-old son, ran down stairs and the hotel and just ran into Nate and Sarah’s room to say hi, obviously just feeling at home with the Krupke’s. Unfortunately, Sarah was in the bathroom at the time and DJ just blasted his way in. When Nate told him he needed to close the door DJ closed the door but stayed in the room. It wasn’t until Nate told him to leave the room completely that DJ left, somewhat confused about what the issue was.
On another front I did want to make one apology. In one of my earlier blogs I had said that the men were all over 40 and it was pointed out that Nate was only 36. So my apologies to Nate – when a body has aged as badly as that it really is hard to judge a person’s age accurately.

Colossians 2:13-14 – “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”