Traveling to Barlad

We hung out in the hotel on Saturday morning then had a nice lunch at the hotel. After that we took a cab to the airport with the first driver we couldn't communicate with in English or French. It was a little bit difficult because we had to explain that we needed to go to arrivals, not departures, to meet our group (they're seperate buildings). When we got to the right place we went up to the meeting spot and found a couple of our group members who were already there.

A little while later our leader Chiprian arrived and took us out to the bus to put our luggage away. Then we waited for about two hours for a couple people who were running late. The group seems nice so far, and there are people from all over: from Hawaii to Prague! Then we settled onto the bus for a five hour drive to Barlad.

The first part of the ride was nice because it was still light out so we could see the scenery. We stopped at a gas station for snacks then went for about two more hours before stopping at McDonald's (apparantly a Global Volunteers tradition). The McDonald's was very interesting, it seemed to be the place to be on a Saturday. There was a boat building outside where a group of children was having a birthday party with some very unhappy looking employees in charge.

The bathrooms were a whole other story. We went inside to try to use them and you needed a code off of your receipt, but we we didn't have a receipt, so we had to catch the door as other people were leaving. Then once you got in, when you tried to leave, the door wouldn't open. A couple times male employees came in to the outer part to tell us that you had to push the button on the wall that said 'emergency' in capital letters to be let out. We were a little confused because we had assumed that if we pushed that button an alarm or something would go off, but no.

After McDonald's we drove straight through to Barlad, driving through Tutova where the clinic is. Some people slept on the bus, but others had funny conversations. We learned from our leader that dogs in Romania don't say 'roof roof' they say 'hump hump' and that we might hear some extra noises because it was mating season. He also told us that when we got to the hotel there would be a baptism party in progress, it was already 11 and we were surprised that it would be going so late. Little did we know that most baptism parties last through the night, usually until seven in the morning.

We got to the hotel and checked in before heading to our room for the night; which we found after going to the wrong room only once. We read until one thirty hoping the party would end, but no. We were priviliged enough to enjoy party noises until 3:30, then had a break until 5:40, when we got a wrong number wake up call. After that they began moving the tables downstairs to set up for breakfast which took two hours, then the bells for church started. It was a long night, but at least the beds were comfortable. We didn't need too much energy for today since it was just orientation day which meant mostly sitting around a table talking. Speaking of which, we have another meeting starting in five minutes, we'll write about today later.