I have been living on my own in an apartment now for almost two months. It is different. I miss my balcony and being only a 20 minute hike from the woods. I miss mountain biking and living with a family and feeling like part of my community. On the other hand living in the city also has its perks. I'm never more than 3 minutes away from junk food, which I guess is not a good thing, and I can cook all my own meals... which is a good thing. I've taken to spending afternoons in my tiny kitchen cooking up tortillas, corn chips, pizza dough and a myriad of other things. My most successful so far has been curry rice and sweet tea.

I taught two classes over the summer. Every tuesday for two hours each. The first group was of 5 to 7 year olds, the second the more advanced 7 to 9 year olds. It was definitly a learning experience. I hope to be able to use some of the materials I gleaned from those classes to help me this coming fall.

I went on vacation for a while. Two trips to Tirgoviste to visit my old gazda and hang out with some of the new volunteers. Their group dynamic is a lot different than the one that emerged in our group. They were less cliquey and more well rambunctious. We did our share of social debriefing during PST but the new group really knew how to have fun. I made some good new friends from the group, too bad some of them live on the entirely opposite side of the country... asta este... if nothing else it will give me an excuse to use up some of those vacation days i conveniently forgot about.

We also has MST, or mid service training. Another event that really hammered home the fact that you have been here for a year. It was strange seeing people from my own group again and hearing their stories... they are so much more realistic than the new kids who were so bright eyed and excited about site. I wonder how they will all feel a year from now...

After MST my friend Brent and I continued on our vacation and travelled to Timisoara. It was a great weekend with some good new friends all culminating in a scavenger hunt to end all scavenger hunts. The west side of the country is definetly more modern than the east side. Life seems a lot more european there and less Eastern European. One of my regrets of that visit is not going to see the Timisoareana factory. It would have been fun to see where all the beer I've been drinking comes from... after timis we spent a night in Ocna Mures with our friend Asher... I never thought I would see two grown men singing dashboard confessional though there they were, brent and asher singing away...

All in all a great vacation... now I'm just biding my time until school starts up again, might have time for one more lil vacation. sa vadem

My dad and I have been talking about me coming home for Christmas this year... we will see if that happens... It would definetly be a culture shock. Christmas here is so much more low key than in the states. I don't know if I would be able to handle all the fanfair.