Bunvenit În Iași!

Well, after 36 hours of traveling and 16 lost suitcases, we finally made it to Iași! I am so incredibly excited to be here! The city is amazing! I had no idea what to expect, but I love it more than I ever thought I could!

Where do I even begin....I guess I can start with my group! They are absolutely amazing! There are 14 of us, including our fearless head teacher Cammy who has helped us through so much! There is also a married couple, Brandon and Anya, and we are so happy to have them here! They both served their missions in Romania and so they help translate for us, as well as teach us about the language, food, and culture. Everyone is so nice and we are all so excited to make a difference here.

Our little two bedroom apartment is so cute! There are 4 girls in each apartment, and the 3 apartments are right by each other. It will take a little while to get used to, but we are turning it into our little home! 

Our cute blue door

Bathroom

Living Room/ Kara's Room

Kitchen

Cammy's Room

My Room(shared with Emma)

It has been lots of fun trying new food here! Some of it is great! And some of it is...very different. Our lunch and dinner is made for us and we pick it up every day, so it is very authentic Romanian meals that none of us are used to, but I am glad we get to try it. We are in charge of our own breakfast, and we get 6 lei each day to buy food. Yesterday we had something called "corn" for breakfast, and it was pretty much just a  chocolate filled pastry, but it was delicious. We also got to go to the store and buy more breakfast foods, which was a fun adventure. Today for lunch we ate mămăligă, which is a cornmeal type thing, and sarmale, which is a stuffed cabbage roll. We also eat a lot of potatoes, meat, and bread. The desserts are fantastic! Today on our adventure around the city we got little pastries and gelato, which is pretty much the best thing ever!

"corn"

Us at the market

 Mămăligă and Sarmale

A quick pastry stop

Gelato is our favorite

These past two days were filled with preparation, training, and a couple attempts to learn Romanian! We got to meet Mario, our in country coordinator who basically helps us with everything. We are all so excited to start working with the kids. There is still more paperwork and things like that, so we can't start right away. It looks like we will get to start teaching on Monday, we should be able to start at the hospital on Wednesday, and hopefully we can start in the orphanage by Friday or Saturday! Today we got to go see the school and I already know I am going to love teaching there. The kids are adorable! And I now know what my schedule will be like. Every morning we will all be at the orphanage. Then, on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon I will teach. Tuesday and Friday afternoons will be spent at the hospital. I can't wait to get started!!

Here is my cute group outside of the school

We have done so much exploring and I absolutely love this city! There is the beautiful Palas, lost of churches, a giant mall, and so many beautiful buildings! We even found our own church today, which we will be attending on Sunday.

The Book of Mormon

Palas

This is right next to our apartment 

It has been such an incredible journey so far, and we have only been here for two days! I love Iași and I can't wait to see what else will happen! More updates coming soon! Noapte bună!

Love,

Madeline