Romania

It was great going back again this year, but this year felt different then other years. It's hard to explain but it almost felt too familiar. I want to do something different then just walk around and visit family. Although I love my family, next year I want to do some hiking and camping and visit more of other cities too.
Here is a link to our Camp blog for this year so you can read some stories and see some pictures.
http://romaniamission2009.blogspot.com/
Camp was great. The kids were better then expected. I loved getting to work with the girls again this year. The boys were pretty good compared to the last couple of years. We had about 40 girls and 33 boys. We had good weather, not too hot not too cold and not that rainy. Thank God, because the weeks after the camp almost flooded and later it was too hot at least in the cities.
After two weeks at camp I went to my cousin's wedding in Sibiu. I went right from camp so I had to dress all nice and ride in a van with stinky boys and was dropped off at the wedding. Before I go on to tell you about the wedding I want to tell you about my stressful-luggage-almost-no-Cluj-free-ride incident. So I left my luggage at camp thinking D. will be coming to town before the wedding is over and I can get my luggage and ride with one of my relatives back to Cluj since I was going there anyways to visit family. Well the wedding went on for a few hours and the reception another many hours and when it was about 7pm (Cluj is about 3 hours away) some of my relatives were ready to go back and I planned to go with them. I called D. to see if she got back to town, no answer. I called F. to see if he had taken the new american team to camp yet, since I new she would leave soon after they arrived, but he was not at camp yet.
My other relatives wanted to leave by 8pm so they wouldn't arrive home too late, but still no answer from D. or F. now since he was at camp and there is no reception there.
I was stressing out. The wedding was going on till about 10pm. I didn't really plan to stay over night so I wasn't sure how I would get to the Home of Hope since I knew I could stay there any time. Home of Hope is a transition home for girls part of Heart of Hope Ministries.
I was real tired, getting bored because the bride and groom were busy, my aunt and uncle were busy and didn't really know anyone else. My relatives who wanted to leave at 8pm were for some reason still around at 9pm so I called D. again and she was 20 minutes away. I got my cousin to stay a little longer and wait for my luggage and we left Sibiu around 9:30pm. We did great timing and I got to Cluj later that night.
The wedding was beautiful and long. But not as long as most romanian weddings. They sure play weird games at the weddings. They stole the bride and her shoe. It was hard to hear when they explained things on the mike and I was pretty clueless. My cousin was a beautiful bride.








After this wedding I went to Cluj where I visited family and showed my brother the city. That next weekend we were going to another wedding, my uncle. We woke up at 4am to get ready, go pick up the bride (80 km away about 1 hour and 45 minutes) with the worse driver ever, at least at that time. We got there and it was soooo cold. I was there to take pictures, and it was my uncle. My brother was bored out of his mind. He said he would never go to a wedding again, especially Romanian. After the court house marriage we were off back to Cluj (another hour and 45 mintues in a small Dacia) and to the church. The wedding was during the Sunday service.
Took some pictures after and then off to the restaurant. Soooo long and boring. Got some good pictures but since we were related we had to stay till the end.












The rest of the week I sent with my brother and cousin visiting my grandma in the country and in the city with my cousin visiting family.
Sorry, not too exciting, that's why I want to do more fun stuff next time.