Driving with Dan

Dan and I set off in his car this morning for Bucharest at the very civilized hour of 8:30 a.m. I suggested we stop at the clinic and pick up Gaby but he didn't seem to think it was a good idea.

Thank goodness Dan is a good driver because the way people pass can get kind of scary. We saw lots of people selling fruits and vegetables on the side of the road especially tomatoes, potatoes, and red onions. We also saw people selling plastic bottles of must (fermented grape juice.) In fact, I saw a sign in a restaurant window today that said, "Avem Must" which I assume means "We have must." (Kind of like when Nouveau Beaujolais appears the end of November!)

When I arrived at my hotel (the Rembrandt in old town Bucharest), I saw lots of stalls with blue awnings. There were about 2 blocks of stalls with different crafts - jewelry, clothes, etc. It was fun to look and since my suit case is so much lighter on the way home I bought a few small things. I also went to the Piata Unirii shopping center to the Diverta store and bought a 3 CD set of music for children in Romanian that I can mail when I get home.

So I just finished typing the team journal (ok, I cheated as I cut and pasted from my blog for the last week.) I also updated the list of the childrens' birthdays. Here they are:

Alexandra                8/16/02

Paula                      9/17/06

Cristi                       12/23/06

Alina                       11/11/07

Ionut                      12/12/07

Ioan                       1/3/08

Lea Celine                2/4/08

Marius                     3/12/08

Gabriela                  3/15/08

Mihaela                   3/15/08

Maria Cleopatra        7/26/08

Andreea                  12/13/08

Daniela                    2/17/09

Petre                       4/18/09

Roxana B.                6/3/09

Andreea B.              6/3/09

Daria Roxana           9/30/09

Raul                        10/19/09

Nicoleta                  11/29/09

Ana Maria               2/10/10

Costel                     4/16/10

And here are some pictures from the road and from the area around the hotel. Wish me luck with my travels home tomorrow. I've charged my computer for movies, my iphone for music, and my Kindle for books. So I should be all set for the long journey.

The window of a wedding store near the hotel (took this for my nephew's Ian's fiancee, Lauren)

Here you can see how the lanes are and how people pass

Avem must

For sale

From a van belonging to some kind of NGO in Bucharest

View from my hotel window - the room is tiny but fine

View from another window in the hotel (I'm on the 6th floor)

Stalls with the BCR bank in the background

There is a glass laid over some ruins and I took this picture where you can see the ruins and the building reflected in the glass

My favorite church in this neighborhood

Shopping arcade - many of the cafes have narghiles (water pipes)