This weekend marked the first, since arriving in country, that we were allowed to venture outside of county lines (with the exception of our field visit a few weeks ago). As natural born travelers, most of the 44 people in my training group made the most of this opportunity to explore, venturing to some of the best known tourist cities, on hikes, camping, or to Bucharest. I was one of the few who stuck around town on Saturday. Don’t get me wrong, I experience the travel bug like street dogs experience fleas (ferociously and all the time), but it was my Gazda mother’s birthday and I wanted to be part of the festivities.

We celebrated with Whisky, a cigar, and some tiramisu, a winning combination that together made it feel like a special occasion. Later in the afternoon I went just outside the city with my host brother, Octav, and his girlfriend, Andrea, to see his grandmother in the country and to go swimming in the river. As you have probably heard if you are European, and probably haven’t heard if you are American, the Moldavian part of Romania is currently experiencing devastating floods. We are fine, but being that we are down steam from this area the river, unlike the shallow Russian river that I am accustomed to, was actually rushing and probably dirtier than usual. We went in anyways. It was a bit as I imagine those swimming machines to be, where you can swim forever in the same spot, so it wasn’t long before I got tired and retired to shore.

On the walk back to his grandmother’s house Octav stopped to shake nearly every hand that we passed. The small communities here are so friendly that it makes me look forward to going to my future home in Maramures and experiencing some of this sense of community for myself.

When we got back to the city in the evening I made American hamburgers. I am glad that I have found such an easy way to share American culture, although I don’t think I have thrown anybody off of the fact that I am not much of a cook.

Sunday, it was time venture to Bucharest. My friends, Brad and Becca, were nice enough to supervise me in the big city. I being highly map and public transportation illiterate happily handed them the reigns and enjoyed the sights as I followed them through the city. The day consisted of aimless wandering although we did throw in some lunch at the much suggested Caru Cu Berem After lunch we met up with our friend Marta and continued the adventure with a trip to the National Art Museum where we saw some really great Romanian art. This was followed by a bit more wandering, and a lot more getting lost, as we attempted to find the Peace Corps office; a mission that we accomplished only after a phone call to the higher powers. Finally we met up with one of my friends, a Bucharest Native, who helped straighten our meandering path and took us to a bar on the top of the national theatre to get a beer. It is a good thing he came and showed us the way because not only was it awesome, but more importantly, the entrance looked so shady we would have surely turned around before making it to the top. Once at the top we found a concrete setting with lean-tos filled with beanbags and a wall covered in art. It was the type of space that is truly unique to a hipster crowd only cool enough to live in Eastern Europe. After this it was time to go. We walked so far to my friends car, that I am pretty sure we could have made it to the bus station in about half the time, but regardless of the fact that I gave him a rather difficult time about this, it was nice to see some more of the city, including the Romanian Parliament, which is, from what my friend tells me, the second largest building in the world, following the Pentagon. In conclusion, Bucharest is cool. I still have much to see, and when I go back I hope my tour guide doesn’t have to spend all day with his family at his brothers wedding, like he did this time.

Today we had an hour and a half session about one of the most complex issues in Romania, the Rroma (more politically correct term), more widely known as gypsy (Tiganii) population. The session reaffirmed the complexity of the issue. We had three speakers who each painted completely different pictures about Rroma in Romania. The first lady who spoke was a Romanian woman who works with the Rroma population, the second an former Peace Corps Romania volunteer and also Ethan Hawks mother (not related to the topic at all, but interesting) who has co-founded an NGO that works to help Rroma children with education, and a current PC volunteer who has dedicated much of his service to working with the Rroma population at this site. Although their topic was similar their experiences and opinions were rather different from one to the next. I left this meeting, still thoroughly confused on this issue. I think it just goes to show that learning culture, like language, takes time, and while you can spend as long as you like in a classroom it is most efficiently accomplished through experience.