days 8-10

BUNA FROM BRASOV ROLLING STONE YOUTH HOSTEL!!

home of a million bunk beds, backpacking vagabonds, sick nasty bathrooms and for the past two night, nine byu girls.

so we took a nine hour train ride to get here and it was by far the one of my favorite experiences ever. it was absolutely beautiful! green, green hills with wild dandelions and poppies everywhere.. the bluest skies, puffiest clouds and the sweetest villages with little farmers and precious bunics (grandpas) walking everywhere. it was a well needed time of reflection and relaxation.. we made a friend with an old man name papa nicholie! he was great and so cute and way funny... he visited us about every five minutes telling us to look outside. beautiful, beautiful, framos, framos! i'll tell more about him when i have my pictures that go with him.

anyways, brasov has been wonderful but very cold... i didn't bring warm clothes and thought that bringing a small amount of lei would be a good idea because this is a touristy town and i didn't want to shop for things i didn't need... anyways, that is the reason i have been wearing these stinky jeans day and night... but i broke and spent my last monies today on a new sweater... the other one was so so dirty..

okay so we went to dracula's castle, but really it wasn't his castle but it was still cool.. and dracula's real name is vlad and the romanians really loved him.. he protected them from the turks and everyone wished there was a man like him around during communism to take control... they still love him and are so proud of him.. he did have sharp canines, supposedly so that's a bit vampire-ish.

o time out

I AM GOING TO AUSCHWITZ! true story. in poland. dream come true. no joke. i can not wait.

anyways we went to a few other castles and i took a lot of pictures and will edit and post them soon...

okay best part of the trip: we got back from the castles and went to eat at a yummy place called belle musica and after we went to this festival that was across the street... i sort of got separated from the girls when i saw an old man and was trying to take a picture of him... i panicked for a second then saw a bunch of couples in suits and skirts.. it was the romanian mission couples conference in brasov and they were at the same concert we were!!! oo it was so nice.. they were full of hugs and smiles that were well needed, on both sides... president ashby was there and i actually talked with him for quite a while. he is great, i am sad he is leaving so soon.. (ps dad, i had a dream you were replacing him??) anyways, they stayed and talked with us and we all took pictures and hugged and talked and hugged.. i think they missed their grandkids.. but that was okay with me. i love hugs.

today we walked around and went to a few churches.. there was this adorable man we met at one of the churches who was only a little drunk, but the priest swept him out with his broom and kept hitting him over the head because he was trying to talk to us... when we were leaving, he beckoned for us to follow him to a grave where he proceeded to ramble on and start crying... it was his family's grave site and he told us about his brother dying in the army - he told us by acting it out - there were big hand motions and loud gun sounds and a dramatic ending- then.... he started crying :( it was really sad.. all the girls ate him up.. we asked him if he knew that his brother was with jesus now and he said yes, but he missed him... it was a somber moment, but also a little bit funny because most of the girls didn't realize how drunk he was... but i got some great shots of him and can't wait to show them to you guys...

so yeah, that's brasov... it's been great, but just because it is beautiful.. it looks like it is straight out of beauty and the beast... there is a lot of german influence here..

so i am freezing and want to go walk around... but one more thing: i get to go to the orphanage tomorrow and meet the kids!!! and i can't wait to call home!! mom, we still need to figure out a time... you tell me when and i will make it happen... even though i am not sure if my phone card will work...

bine,


miss and love you all!!

cu mult drag!

p.s. i apologize for my grumpy post this morning... one stop at the covrigi stand fixed that low blood sugar meanness, but sadly, my jeans are still dirty

p.p.s auschwitz? seriously? ah, i am so lucky

umm

i have been wearing the same nasty jeans and sweater for the past three days, day and night and have about 24 more hours to go in them....

i um really hungry and grumpy

week one personal totals

TOTAL:
quantum leap episodes watched: 5
red horizons chapters read: 1
bom chapters read: 23
time in transit (planes and trains): 23 hours
number of people in my bed: average 2.333333
loads of laundry: 4
bugs killed: 1 spider
bug bites: 1
cute old men seen: 9874325230985734985
pictures taken: 200 +
babies kissed: 0 :(

we are all so excited to get into the orphanage and meet our kids

p.s we are in brasov at a hostel with weird dudes from ireland

more to come later!

cu mult drag!

day 7

not much happened today... just got some work done and went to the big mall and out to lunch at magic pizza... and getting ready to go visit dracula tomorrow... we will be in brasov for the rest of the week so i dunno if i'll have internet at the hostel or not, but stay tuned for more fun!

love and miss you all

cu mult drag


p.s. we might be able to start working as soon as we get back!! let's pray it works out... we are tired of being unproductive...

also i added some great links to the right about my internship and stuff you might want to know, check it out

o and i finally bought a pillow today! yay

also FYI

this site has some fun video footage of our adventures;

http://meeinromania.blogspot.com

and here is the address to mail stuff

Bd. Al. Cel Bun, Nr. 62,
Bl. D-3, Sc. E, Et. 10, Ap. 37
IASI Cod 700603
ROMANIA

mom, remember to address it to Marionela Vartolomei and then me!

Day 6

sunday... my favorite day! the elders called us last night, interrupting our table topics bonding session (yes mom they are being well used... thank you!). anyways they asked us to be at church at 9:30 instead of 10, so we set our alarm clock to 8, and snoozed till about 8:50, and got out of here in no time... life is good when you embrace the fact that even if you tried to doll up, it would all melt off your face in the humidity.. so it's okay if you look like a fool every now and again huh?

okay so the iasi branch is great! we brought three investigators of our own today. well, they were these three stray dogs that followed us all the way there from the scala girl's apartment.. needless to say, the visitors welcomed sign did not apply to them.

we walk up the the villa, it is a three story building where the church rents the second floor - there is a factory underneath and an apartment above it - and there were three elders waiting on the balcony for us... i guess transfers were this past week so of the four elders, two were new to iasi - one this is his first area period - and one new sister. the other sister will die here and leave the day after we do...

the church building is actually really nice. the branch president's name is president popovic.. he's been the branch president for over ten years and you can tell he loves the church.. so cute.. he comes all alone, his wife - if they are still married, no one really knows - we think is in italy, and his one daughter used to be active, but now she is "lost and crazy"? anyways, he has such a wonderful vision of the church in iasi and mentioned more than once his dream of having a full room of saints... a room! just one... we are so so lucky, you guys... anyways his testimony was motivating... we had an elder sit by us and translate...

there were enough priesthood that none of the elders had to help with anything, which was good, but it was weird... they wouldn't let any of us girls touch the sacrament trays.. i am pretty sure it has to do with their orthodox background and the attitudes they have about women? i am curious.. but it was really apparent, maybe i'll tell you later if you want to know more..

sunday school was great.. they had 2 classes, gospel principles and gospel doctrine.. we went to the later, but it wasn't about the book of mormon... sora stoica was teaching from a marriage and family relations manual. she gave us english participant's books to follow along, and they look like they are only used outside of the us? i am totally guessing because they had pictures of every other ethnicity possible... anyways, she gave them to us to take home and read if we promised to bring them back... that wasn't the best ides though - you'll find out why in a second...

so today's lesson was about family prayer, scripture study, and home evening... it was wonderful and it made me miss my family a lot... but then i looked around the room and realized that all of the romanians came alone... other than sora stoica bringing her
two kids with her, every other member came in alone... no spouse cuddle up to, no kids to carry out in the hall.. it made me sad and really grateful for my family, when they would throw in comments about how hard it was to even talk to their family about religion, let alone pray together with them - another small, simple thing that doesn't mean a whole lot till you see others with out it...

there were 4 members, 2 investigators, 2 sister missionaries, and 9 byu girls in relief society... as you can see we are a big part of the branch... mary has already been dubbed the piano player, and we are all now apart of the ward choir!! yay! and we are meeting with popovic on thursday for other callings... not everyone will get one because they are trying to ween the branch off of the byu girls, so we will see

again the lesson was about families... i think that they focus an extra amount on the family here because of romanian history... for decades they were under communist rule that emphasized that the sole purpose of marriage is to produce children and send them off to the state - ceausescu was trying to raise a large army, and through propaganda and other things, promoted the every man for them selves idea where people were more numbers than persons and family members were people you shared a house with... anyways since the revolution was just in the early nineties, a lot of the ideologies are still believed and even practiced.. this puts a real strain on the churches attitude of family and adds to the already high amounts of orphans...

okay, so that is why they talked so much about families and that is why i have been very nostalgic today thinking about the lovely family i left behind..

hmm, o so we left church and immediately it started to pour.. we thought it would pass quickly, but it got worse the closer we got to home... so what did we have to use? nope not umbrellas, but our church manuals sora stoica let us borrow... well i had mine in my purse and was using my hood to protect my head, but it still got drenched... so sorry sister stoica! anyways that explains the picture... fun stuff! i loved it... i think the other girls are starting to embrace the rain as well... woop woop

okay, it is almost midnight and i have written a novel.... so shout out to mom! hey mommy, i bet you are the only one that actually read this entire thing... thank you. i love your profile picture in the japanese bath robe looking thing... it's NICE! love you to the moon and back!

i am off to read some books..

cu mult drag,

p.s. so yesterday after i used the internet at the cafe, i went to pay and the hip, wanna-be western man showing off his english skills told me mine was free.. after questioning him, he repeated that it was free... it was a bit weird, but i was fine with that, until i started to walk away and he gave me a really nasty look and elisa was like, aren't you going to pay him. i told her he said mine was free and she started laughing way hard... he was trying to say three... three lei... whoops, sorry mr. suave man, maybe i'll make it up to him by bringing him some more hair gel the next time i go :)

o and also, note to self: today i learned that trying to make ice cream from a packet does not work, especially if the instructions are in romanian and you just try and follow the little
picture things... ugh, we need to get out of the apartment asap, good things we are taking a sleeper train to brasov tomorrow night to visit dracula! more to come tomorrow

ok bye for real this time

love you all! thanks for everything!

Days 4 & 5

sooo yesterday the time warp got the best of me and the rest of our apartment... we slept in till one, well everyone but melissa did... whoops... maybe we shouldn't have watched all those episodes of quatum leap the night before... but i think it might be my new favorite show and wish i was born a few years earlier so i could have enjoyed it along with doogie houser... is that how you spell it

needless to say, yesterday, friday was not the most productive day ever... we did go out exploring again and i bought some a really cute scarf like all the old bunics wear... i think i am going to try and collect enough to sew something great in rememberance.. is that how you spell that? there is no spell check on these computers.. odd much?

we are at the sweetest internet cafe... full of gypsies and lots of techno music :)

anyways we decided to cook something great last night and we went and bought fresh veggies and potatos and made a pot roast minus the meat, because non of us are fans of the carne here... anyways we discovered the longest wooden spoon imaginable... (reason for the not to great picture... that doesn't give the spoon any justice)... the food was actually really yummy and it was fun learning how to work a gas oven... weird huh?

so today i woke up not feeling too well.. my tummy was complaining much but the wonderful elisa made me some soup and i am actually feeling much better... dodged that one.

we have been working all morning on our course work... we have to do all sorts of e-mails and write up for our professors and they aren't my favorite thing ever but do-able... and now we are at the neon internet cafe.. woop woop for europeans! hey dad, are these places safe? haha like can i look up my bank and stuff or is that not the best idea?

o and this is great: it has been raining so much and i love it! i puddle jumped all the way to the cafe

hmm, so as you can tell not much is going on over here... sounds like life is flowing back home.. i still haven't seen proof of a baby in the hunter family.. pictures would be nice... i am excited to go to the branch tomorrow that will definitely give me something to write about.

cu mult drag,

love love love

p.s note to self, don't give a banana to a lady and her baby in front of a group of gypsies or they will all surround you asking for one and you literally have to run away

day 3

is it only day three? for some reason it feels like it has been a long time since i last wrote... that's because we have already done so much...

so after elisa came back from the other apartment and we started talking about the sleeping situation and we had the greatest idea thus far to all sleep in one room! so we now have a room for sleeping, a room for clothes (when inside there is one wardrobe with one 24 x 40 inch
shelf is acting as my closet) and our big room will become our exercise room, but right now it it just our hang out spot.

so we cleaned and organized our place, went and exchanged monies, and went to the hala to get groceries. i wasn't very hungry, nor in the mood to do anything but sleep so i wasn't as efficient as i should have been. but i did discover the best thing ever: BANANA JUICE! they have every kind of juice imaginable and they are so so yummy.

we went to the mall last night for dinner, it reminded me A LOT of the mall in russia where we ate on the top floor... we ordered 9 kebaburis and they said it would take 20 minutes so we sat down on these couches.. after a few minutes, no joke, about 2, mary fell asleep and we just let her until a man came over and woke her up and started yelling at her in romanian... we told him nu inteleg- we don't understand - and i think that made him even more mad... it was great

um, i made it past ten dad, but forgot to take any sleeping pills so i was awake again at four this morning, my bed felt a little empty so i walked into the main room to find melissa awake and showered, and elisa reading... i took a quarter of a sleeping pill and went back to bed, which may be why i am still awake right now while the others are sleeping...

so today we had a meeting with mario, just to talk about a lot of logistics... she's a romanian woman that BYU has hired to take care of us... she has an adopted little girl who is more than precious.. today is some sort of communist holiday so the city is closed till monday... we can't turn in our fake medical reports (mario paid off the doctors so we won't have to get blood tests here, whew) till then and then it will take a few days for them to process before we can get working in either the hospital or the orphanage... so what will we do? travel to brasov!! more about that to come

we went on a wonderful walk today... the weather is perfect. probably about 78 and it was mostly sunny today with an intense thunderstorm that came and went and made everything smell so good. anyways, we walked and got logosi which are amazing little bread things with chocolate inside, and then we walked past the orphanage and the branch building, and past a ton of neat castles and churches and we played at a park and just explored... it was great.

we also went to the paita! the outdoor fresh market where there are a ton of old ladies and gypsies trying to sell you fresh fruits and veggies... i bought some bananas from a gypsie and i didn't even try to bargain because we were both already very confused from my lack of romanian and her lack of english...

well this is quite the novel and my tummy is growling so i am going to go eat a banana and drink some banana juice!

cu mult drag!

p.s i look like a rag-a-muffin with my short unblowdried/straightened hair, but i love it

o and that picture is the view out our window... its pretty i promise

days 1 & 2

BUNA!!!!
so we just got to our apartment... i didn't think it through when i packed two fifty pound bags, a twenty five pound backpack, a purse, and a stuffed animal monkey... and our apartment is on the top floor of the apartment complex. yeah it was rough, but luckily dan the man, our taxi driver helped me alot..

it's about five in the morning utah time and three in the afternoon the next day here... dad i just tried to call you guys with that calling card thing, but it said i didn't have enough funds... thats okay with me, i am here safe and sound so no worries!

the flights... mom did you call austrian air and move my seat to a window? i got to the terminal and bumped into a few people i knew that were on their way to the jerusalem center and they said that they had been calling my name on the intercom for over an hour... i went to the desk and she gave me a new ticket for a window seat! that was the best.. i sat next to an old albanian man who tried really hard to talk to me but it was worse than dad's friends ramish... but he was cute. i helped him turn on his tv thing and we watched enchanted together.. i am sure he enjoyed it. i ate dinner, took some drugs and woke up six hours later to mr albania tapping me telling me to wake up for breakfast, what a nice guy.

i felt spoiled in these airports and with these taxis.. compared to africa, which i shouldn't have expected this to be the same, this place is really nice.

our apartment is cozy, we are e-mailing our families now (see the above picture). elisa, our facilitator went with mario (our romanian friend) to the scala apartment to gt those girls moved in. when she gets back we will decide who gets to sleep with who... we are so lucky! there are three bedrooms over here, elisa gets her own room, then there will be two to each bed, they are both about the size of ali's... woop woop de woop

well i can't think of much more to say... at the bottom of these there should be a place to leave comments.. and write back to me... or you can just e-mail me at whitneyscott77@gmail.com

cu mult drag! (that means with much love)

p.s. we have pets! two birds that are stuck on our balcony porch thing... i tried to free them, but it was a failed attempt

p.p.s. this is going to be amazing! i am so excited, thanks for the support everyone!

blog coming soon

cu mult drag