delays, luggage, and new friends.

Buna Ziua friends!
I have made it to Bucharest in one piece. The trip here seemed very, very long but it was definitely worth it because I am back here!! My flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was originally supposed to leave at 9:50 p.m. well... of course there was some problem with the computer on the plane and it was a problem that took 2 hours to fix and we ended up leaving shortly after midnight. So we originally boarded the plane an hour before we were supposed to take off, then ended up being on the plane for 2 more hours before we could actually take off, making my time sitting on the plane at the gate 3 hours. This made my original 7 1/2 hours on a plane, 10 hours on a plane... Not so much fun. When my plane landed in Amsterdam (2 hours late) I had only 35 minutes from when my flight landed to when my other plane to Bucharest was leaving. In Amsterdam it takes usually about 10 minutes to taxi from the runway to the gate, and our flight was not an exception. So this gave me only 25 more minutes. I was pretty far back in the plane so it took at least 10 minutes for me to get off the plane, now I only had 15 minutes before my other plane was LEAVING... not boarding. When I looked to see where I had to go, my gate was totally on another side of the airport. So I had to run (on the moving sidewalks) to get to where I needed to be. When I got to the gate I still needed to check in and go through security again (in Amsterdam you go through security right before you board the plane at your gate). The lady at the counter told me that my luggage was not going to make my flight if and if I wanted to stay with my luggage I would have had to wait to get on another flight was was leaving 7 hours later. The last thing I wanted to do was stay in a foreign airport, by myself, for seven hours... so I told her I didn't care about my luggage and I wanted to get on the plane. So finally I made it onto that plane, with just minutes to spare. When I got to Bucharest I had to go file a missing luggage report which was interesting and made me use the little bit of Romanian that I know in order to tell the lady where to send my bag, what color it was, etc.

After that little adventure I was able to meet up with my team. There are six from a church in Clarksville, California, two from Minnesota, and then another intern Krysten (I am sure you will hear lots about her in my blog) and myself. Krysten actually didn't get in until 1:50 a.m. this morning (Wednesday) and I actually went with Jen to go get her from the airport. Krysten and I are going to be on this Tenderfoot team until they leave next Sunday. Today (Wednesday) my luggage came this morning during orientation!!!! I was so excited!! Then after lunch our team split up into two mini teams. One part of the team went to the Baby Hospital, the other went to Peris (one of the orphanages that Heart to Heart works with). I was in the group that went to Peris. I have heard and seen so much about this orphanage just from other friends who have been here, or staff, or whatever. I finally got to meet the kids that I feel like I already knew from the pictures and the stories. It was nice to finally meet them. I was so excited to use some of my Romanian again. It was interesting how fast things came back to me when I was around the kids. I still don't know very much, but the little I do know was very helpful.

It was interesting to experience a co-ed orphanage. It was a very unique experience as opposed to the all girls school that I was at in Alexandria. It is really cool though. It is so different, but not in a bad way. I am excited to go there tomorrow and at other times during the next few weeks and throughout my trip. We have a big day at Peris tomorrow. It is the kids last day of school so there is a ceremony that promotes the kids on to the next grade, a program of things prepared by some of the students (things like dance routines and stuff). Then after lunch there is a "carnival" complete with superheroes and games. But I will maybe post a blog about that tomorrow night.

Right now I am super tired, so I think that is enough for now. I will leave a list of prayer requests when I post my next blog. Until then la revedere si noapte buna (goodbye and goodnight).