graduation, two sweet days, and a castle visit.

So Sunday was graduation. We went to church in the morning, then came back to the team house to finish preparing for graduation. It was fun to see some of the previous transition grads. Some of the girls who I met before and have talked to on Skype a few times, as well as some of the boys who were in the boys house when I was there. Graduation was awesome. It was so cool to see the girls (especially Silvia and Catalina) graduate. I was so proud of Silvia. I cried when she got her diploma. After the actual ceremony it was craziness... there were many, many young adults here on a super hot day with a pool in the backyard. So we went swimming. It was fun, but the pool ended up soooooo dirty by the end of the day. It is still trying to get back to normal after almost 5 days. But that doesnt matter. It was fun and it was cool to see the family and community that has formed between these graduates. I was hanging out with 5 girls at one point and at the time I didn't know, but they were all girls from Alexandria, only two of them I knew were from there. They had all come from there and through the program. The other three had been at Alexandria before me. I enjoyed getting to know them a little bit. So here are some pictures from that day.




My last three days have been really, really cool. On Tuesday the team was going to visit the boys transition house, which was where I stayed the last time I was here, for the most part. It is also very close to Alexandria. There was also an errand that needed to be run for some of the girls who graduated from the transition program. They needed to head down to the southern part of Romania to pick up their bulletins. Their bulletins are their id, how they get a job, and basically just saying that they exist. So while the team went to the boys house, I got to go with Jenny, Silvia and Catalina to a place called Zimnicea to get the girls bulletins. This was very exciting and Catalina kept saying, I exist now. They liked their pictures and were very happy.


On our way back from Zimnicea, we were going to the boys house but we had to go through Alexandria. We needed to stop at the school/apartments to hand out the invitations to seven of the girls for the girly camp we are doing in a few weeks. So seven of the girls were invited from Alexandria. We pulled into the parking lot and as I was getting out of the van one of the girls was across the street and she recognized me immediately. After Elena, I think she was the girl I connected with the most there. Her name is Lavinia. She ran across the street shouting "AMANDAAAA, you came back!!!" She ran up to me and hugged me and held my hand just like she used to. After her, a bunch of the other girls came out and remembered me as well. I was so excited for that. I cant wait to go be with them this summer. I wish I had taken pictures there.

Then yesterday (Wednesday) was a super packed awesome day again. We were able to go to an orphanage with the really little kids. Not babies, but the kids who are like ages 3-7 with some of their older siblings there as well. There were not too many kids there, but they were so fun and SOOOOO cute!!! We had bubbles and balls and balloons and chalk and coloring books... and the best thing of all-- a parachute!! A very colorful parachute. These kids were not only cute, but they were polite also. They answer in proper sentence form when asked a question, and they call women and men by the proper title (Doamne/Domnul which basically just means Ms/Mrs/Mr). I have never been called Doamne so many times in my life. I got to hang out with two precious little girls. One was 3 years old and one was 5 years old. They stole my heart for sure. I hope I will get to go back to that orphanage before I leave.



That afternoon we got to spend some time at Peris where I played probably at least 20 games of "Go Fish" where I only won one game. It was a fun but hot day.

Today was a little more relaxed. First we went to a glass factory where they make their own hand blown glass. That was really cool to watch, I didn't buy anything though. After that we stopped for lunch at McDonalds where I got my favorite thing. The Royal Deluxe Burger. IT WAS SO YUMMY!!! Then we drove up to Sinaia today to see the summer castle of the first Romanian king. It was really cool, we took a tour and everything. It was a little cloudy and rainy, but the temperature was nice... not too hot, not too cold. After the castle we went to the orthodox monastery in Sinaia and just looked around for a few mins. On the way back I fell asleep for almost the whole way.

Now it is definitely bedtime. We are going back to Peris tomorrow to hang out with the kids there again. As well as doing some shopping in the morning tomorrow. I will try and keep this updated as often as I can.

I also started a photobucket account to post my pictures on since my facebook is being ridiculous. The link for that is:
here

It is taking a while for all of my pictures tonight, but I will post more as I have time to. Enjoy them and I will post again soon.