I am never going to fall in love...

Because there is no more room in my heart.

  
We were able to go to the orphanage for the first time today, and it was a beautiful experience. I have been wanting to get in there for the past 6 days but paperwork had to be processed, fees paid, and I guess our bodies needed time to adjust to all this craziness too...

Unfortunately we are not allowed to post pictures of the children in the orphanage on our blogs or facebook. Actually, we aren't even allowed to take pictures in the orphanage. One of the workers will take pictures for us, but because of strict legal obligations and agreements with BYU, they are kept under lock and key. The hospital though is another story. We aren't supposed to take pictures, but we aren't not allowed to take them either, so we were told that as long as we're sneaky it's kosher. As an extra precaution I am not going to be putting them on my blog, but if you would like to receive an e-mail once a month with the photos I am able to take of the children leave a comment with your e-mail address :)

Back to the babies. I have only spent a few hours with them, but their tiny little souls now occupy every available spot in my heart. I'm getting teared up just picturing them...suck. As we toured the orphanage to get a feel for the different rooms we will be working in I tried to contain my emotions. And I did...until I stood next to the first crib. Aaaaand I lost it. I can't even begin to explain the range of emotions I was feeling, but it was mostly love. A whole lot of love and reassurance that this is where I am supposed to be right now. I cried and cried. And held babies, and then cried as they began to wail when we put them down to move on to another room. I don't want to sleep, I want to go back right now. I'm never getting married, just taking care of babies my whole life.

...how my life is a tv show

Amy and I are convinced we are on a TV show. We aren’t really in Romania, and we aren’t really going to save the world. They pulled a fast one on us and instead of flying us half way around the world, they flew us in circles for 16+ hours and finally decided to set us down in Montana. While we were “time traveling” they were creating a set full of foreign looking people, weird smells, and really hot temperatures. It’s like the Truman Show! Or The Even Stevens Movie...or that show on MTV where they send bratty girls to third world countries to put them in their place. There’s no way we are on BYUTV. There isn’t a large enough audience. Something like this is on TLC or Lifetime. Maybe even MTV. We aren’t as tanned as Snookie and our vocabularies aren’t limited to 4 letter expletives so maybe our debut on MTV isn’t a reality, but hey, we have to explore all of our options! We know that you guys are voting us off so pick favorites (ME) and play your cards right! We decided that Kelsey F. is gonna go first (sorry Kels...) because of all the issues she has been having getting money. We also know that everything that has happened to us so far is a set up...The producers decide what things you as viewers will find entertaining, and then they throw them at us. I guess it has a Hunger Games factor too! I mean, who wouldn’t be entertained by 14 girls kissing a dead woman’s hand because they think they are worshiping an Orthodox saint who happens to be somewhat of an urban legend to begin with. Or being stalked by gypsies and nearly choked out by a strange man in the park...? Yea. Sounds like a set up to me.

Just know that we are on to you and plan on fighting it out till the end.

I live in a mouse house...

...just kidding! No mouses here! Just 4 girls, happy to be alive :)
I’m going to show your our apartment.
Between you and me, out of the 3 apartments BYU girls live in, ours is hands down the best option available.

This is our apartment before it got all moved in to...

Living room complete with luggage. It leads out to a little balcony.

Kitchen

Our washer that can fit about 1 pair of jeans+socks

Balcony

Bathroom. It's the scariest room EVER

African Safari room

Me and Chelsea's "Green Room"

Someone punched the glass out of our bedroom window at some point

Now for the after pictures. So homey feeling. 

Our apartment has the RANDOMEST decorations-pre furnished. Giant dream catcher...

...harpoon and African people picture. We added a temple, Jesus and rearranged the furniture.

They had a shoe rack that we promptly filled up!! :)

Stove and oven that have to be lit with a match

1. Aimee and I share a bed. Happy to report she's a dime. No blanket stealing, sleep talking, snoring or violent thrashing.

2. We have a naked lady clock...

3. There is a mop in our bathroom full of disgusting smelly water. We need to dump it out buuuut, it has yet to happen. I dropped my comb in it and a cry of distress escaped my mouth. It's that bad. As Kelsey put it, "It's going to become infested with microbes and you're never going to be able to use it again!!

4. The view from our kitchen window looks like it's from Taken. Ya know the part where she is watching her friend get kidnapped from across the little courtyard thing? It's exactly like that, but it another person's apartment we can see into instead of our own. Needless to say our blinds stay shut.

5. Our shower is...special...it has no curtain, it is dingy/stained/cracked/has semi exposed pipeage, aaaaand we had to squat under the spout in order to bathe our bodies. I say had, because that problem has been resolved. It randomly stopped working one day so we had to improvise. Turn the water on, squat, and just take that loofah to town. I was scared to actually sit in the shower and make myself comfy so I spent the duration squatting and rotating my body to wash the soap off. I really wish there was a way to record what we had to do without turning it into a complete porno. I kept giggling while I "showered" because it's hard to believe I'm actually in Romania...unable to bathe like a normal human being.

6. Along with our risque clock, our apartment came outfitted with 3 Shrek cups. I get the gingerbread man, Aimee has donkey and Kelsey has Shrek :)

7. Kelsey has a BOMB. That might be a slight exaggeration, but she has an alarm that sounds like a bomb. Yesterday morning I woke up terrified because I thought there was a bomb alarm going off or we were experiencing our first Romanian fire drill. I sat up in bed confused and still asleep, and Amiee stood up and looked out the window to see if people were evacuating. It sounded like sirens from WWII movies were blaring through our apartment. All the sudden it stopped so we just went back to bed and pretended it didn't happen haha Later we found out that it was only Kelsey’s alarm clock. She told us that she doesn’t wake up for anything so she has to have an alarm clock that wakes other people up so they will force her to wake up and turn it off.

8. Making dinner for the first time was quite the experience. Like I said before you have to light the burners and oven with a match. We managed to get the stove going so we cooked our pasta and vegetables and warmed up our sauce. The oven was giving us major issues (we still don't know how to work it after having our facilitator look at it...) so once again we worked with what we had. We lit all the burners, put our bread on a pan, and stuck it on top! We wanted to get it a little toasted and melt some cheese on top, and it wasn't a complete disaster! Despite a little bit of smoke and ash, I'd give the meal a pass card! We'll learn.

April 24-26

Wow. What a week! It’s kind of gross, but I haven’t showered in 5 days...in my defense I lost an entire day time traveling, and since it was night the last time I was fortunate enough to bathe, I’d say it’s only really been 3.5 days. Lucky me!

Tuesday: Wake up. Strawberry mini wheats. Make up. Pack. Go.

*Brother Stokes gives my family passes to accompany me to the gate so we don’t have to say our goodbyes in the security line.

*Realize that the departure time on my ticket had been misread and my flight is at 11. Not 8. This explains all the strange looks and “comforting” reassurances during check in. They thought I was arriving 4 hours early because I was scared. How sweet...

*Take some classic “Need help?” pictures and talk with the fam  

 

*Go to the bathroom. See someone I think I know, but the lighting is weird and only half his face is visible. Instead of approaching a stranger and embarrassing myself more than necessary I shoot him a text asking if he just happens to be at SLC International. He is. I approach the guy that really isn’t a stranger and I don’t embarrass myself. We talk. We discover that we land in Amsterdam at the same time. He says he will pick me up at my gate once we land. We take a picture. See you in 12 hours...Bye...

*Horrox, not Horcrux. The 2nd counselor from my BYU singles ward is Brother Horrox but his name brings flashes of Harry Potter and soul splitting to my mind. Him and his wife sit across from me while I wait to board. New York, England and Spain. This is the first time that he will have been out of the country and all he is bringing is a backpack. Un freakin believable.

*SO hot, SO tall, SO volleyball. The BYU Mens Volleyball team was right next to the door as I was getting on the plane to Seattle so naturally I had to take a picture with them. I had a fight with my mind for about 3 seconds about weather or not I should, but I knew I would kick myself if I didn’t sooo I did. Really redundant. Sorry.

*MISSIONARIES!!! :D Why are missionaries so cool?! Really though, I love them with all my heart. Something about them is so adorable it makes me want to shrink them down to pocket size and carry them around. Literally half of the seats from SLC to Seattle were occupied by missionaries. The boy and the girl kind. There was a sister missionary sitting next to me so we started talking :) Her name is Sister Linford and she is from Salt Lake going to Berlin, Germany. I talked about how I have a secret vendetta against her high school because they beat us in the semi finals for state lacrosse my senior year. She talked about about she knows my friend Tehya. Then we talked about our missions. Hers to Germany and mine to Romania. Not to save souls, but to save lil babies. She asked how I became interested in the program, told her about my Human Development major...blah blah blah. She told me how her mom LOVES that kind of stuff and that she is the head of adoption for LDS Family Services in Utah. WHAT?! I began “gushing” about how that is soooo neat, and exactly what I want to do when I grow up. Well, Sister Linford informed me that her mom is always looking for interns, and for people to come and speak. Apparently they started this new thing where they invite birth moms, or the children to go around to different groups and give a presentation/talk/speech things. I gave her my information, and she gave me her mom’s so we’ll see if anything happens there!

*On the 10 hour flight to Amsterdam I watched 5 movies, 2 of which were a complete waste of time, ate a TON of food, and didn’t sleep a wink. I was in a state of shock when it came to the food. They just kept throwing it at us! I ate so so so much. And drank a lot too. Luckily the cute old lady I was sitting next to became my best friend and she didn’t mind moving in order to let me use the restroom.

Despite the look of everything, it was all DELICIOUS.

*Got to Amsterdam, met up with Jake, bought some Fanta, and bought a T-shirt. You have to go through security again before you board the plane so I went through security, sat down, and was promptly kicked out. In a nice way. Apparently you can’t just go through security anytime. You have to wait until your plane is boarding. Unfortunately for me there wasn’t any seating outside of the "after security" area, so I had to sit on the ground for a couple hours. In Romania you aren’t supposed to sit on the ground because it causes you to become infertile, so all the oldies waiting to go to Bucharest with me probably thought I was some savage prostitute out to kill my eggs...

*Chelsea finally came, we took some classy pictures via photobooth and flew some more...ate some more, and met up with the other girls right as we had to get our passports checked.

*We got our luggage, waited for 2+ hours to check in, sat around for another 3 hours because our plane was delayed, ate more free airport pity food, oogled over Liam Hemsworth’s ridiculous good looks and the fact that Kelsey’s boyfriend could be his twin, and sat there really bored. Romanians are a very quiet people. 14 American girls on “quiet” mode are about 50 decibels louder than anyone else. We could have been cited for disrupting the peace, but luckily no one cares too much at 1 in the morning. Chelsea slept like a rock the whole time. What a trooper.

SOOO much luggage!

*Kelsey #2 almost had brown sugar and Reeses confiscated. Security bros don’t know what’s up.

*Got to Iasi. E-mailed the fam, hopped in a taxi, rode in a terrifying elevator and went to sleep.

Waiting for our flight to Iasi

34 hours of travel, 2 hours of sleep. BUT I MADE IT ALIVE AND THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS. Right now I am in a tired funk...sorry
I have more pictures from the last couple days! Watch for up. Romania is beautiful.

Things to note:

Drivers here have received personal invites to run down every person within a 10 yard radius of their car. They are INSANE. Sometimes I say “100 points if you hit them!” Referring to someone taking their sweet time walking across the parking lot, but drivers here have more motive than that. They drive where they want, when they want. Sure there are rules, but not a soul obeys the rules, so it works. Kinda. It’s like Bountiful High’s parking lot, you have to go with the flow at all times or else you will die. That’s why parents in that parking lot are the number one crash victims. They just don’t understand the logic! At first I thought seeing cars parked on the side walks was pretty funny, now I’ve realized if they parked anywhere else their car would be demolished, without question, within 5 minutes. I haven’t figured out how the natives know which cars flying in your direction will stop, or at least slow down, and which ones won’t, so for now I’m just crossing the street when other people do.

There are stray dogs EVERYWHERE in Iasi. Not the gross mangy kind with matted hair and goopy eyes. The adorable ones that look so soft and melt your heart when they walk over to you. I want so badly to pet one, but I’m scared of getting fleas! If they keep starin’ me down with those puppy dog eyes of theirs I am going to have to cave. I can’t resist some puppy lovin. When we got off the plane in Iasi two little kittens greeted us. I'm glad there aren't kitties everywhere though...cats are kinda gross.

The men here...oh dear...let’s just say the theme of this trip is the 2 B’s. Babies and Boys. The men are SOOO attractive. They don’t come like this in the United States!! Stylish, but not gay. Tall, dark and handsome, yet not rugged enough to be a cave man. Last but not least, foreign. I think that is the main reason I’m attracted to every person on the street with a dominant Y chromosome. There are simply not men like this available in Utah. I feel like Provo in particular, has a very cookie cutter assortment of guys. Not a lot of variety. I’m sure the Romanian natives might say the same thing about themselves, but hey, this girl doesn’t mind.

Since we are discussing appearances, let me just say how blonde I am. Not in the way I act since, ya know, I’m trying NOT to draw attention to myself, but just me-my natural self. I am blonde. And lemme tell ya, blonde hair and blue eyes sure stick out like a sore thumb in Romania! I think it’s fair to say that even if I spoke fluent Romanian and didn’t walk around with a herd of other girls, people would still stare. I went from the cliche blonde haired, blue eyed, tanned and semi fit girl that lives in EVERY apartment complex in Happy Valley, to the minority. No one wants to be a clone, but no one wants to be a freak show either. Where’s the happy medium on this?! What happened to the golden mean?

Grocery shopping is a blast. If I was betting on myself I would bet that grocery shopping and shopping at the piatza would become one of my favorite things to do while living here. Normally I hate going to a new grocery store because basic items are on different isles, and even after a year I continue to search for said items on the old store’s isles. Problematic item number 2- they don’t stock the same brands. Well, when you are living in a new country you don’t know jack squat about the grocery stores! You don’t know what foods are good, what foods are even considered normal, and you don’t know where to find a single thing. Lucky for you though, prices are in the exact same spot so you can still spot a bargain. There are so many new foods I cannot wait to try! I don’t even mean things as exotic as cabbage rolls or stuffed peppers. I want to eat all the traditional foods too, but I’m talking about grocery store purchases like juice, cereal, yogurt, bread, and cheese! So. Much. To. Try. Another quirk that will make grocery shopping fun, you have to buy your grocery sacks! It’s not like good ole’ Smiths Market where they bag your grapefruit in a different bag than your bananas and yams. When you begin to check out you tell the cashier how many bags you want, she scans them, and then scans your food while you bag it all up! We can also only buy as much food as we want to carry home so that’ll prevent me from gorging myself and coming home looking like a beached whale that they have to roll out of the airplane...yea food...yea fitness...

I swear you'll hear about the planes, the plane food, the plane people, the lack of plane sleep, and plane delays, but there's a lot to say so it might be a while. 

Peach scented TP

I'm in the middle of an actual post about all my adventures from traveling around the world, but all I want to say for now we have PEACH SCENTED TOILET PAPER. And it is the color of peaches. Unbelievable. No need for air freshener when you have something like that in the water closet. Over and out. Look for something nice and long within the next 24 hours!

getting creative

Sometimes when you take a final you don't know an answer or two.
...or anything at all....
I had to get REAL creative on my Romanian final yesterday.
One question required me to use the word purple.
Did I know that word?
NOOOOOO.
So, in a moment of sheer brilliance I combined my art skills with my limited Romanian intellect and wrote:
"albastru + roşu=? (purple)" 
I knew the words for blue and red, and if you combine the 2 you get purple. Duh. They just have to solve a simple math equation!!

Sometimes your brain gets so packed with useless facts that when it comes time to recall the important stuff it just won't come out.
I needed the word for boots (a lot of this test was vocabulary to do with colors, shopping, kids, etc.)
I KNEW the word, but it was just lost in the filing cabinets of my brain somewhere. 
All I could think about were body parts, food, names of toys, and everything else that was useless. 
I literally sat there for a good 5 minutes trying to figure out what it was.
That's what I get for not making up a mnemonic device!  
I decided to throw the towel and wrote:
"....pantof mare...." (big shoe) and out to the side I put "A boot is just a big shoe right...?"

Hopefully my last ditch efforts were as amusing to the TA as I thought they were. 
A for creAtivity? 


***the appearance of my blog is slowly coming back to life. thoughts? it's a work in progress.***

19 Days of Nonsense: I SUCK AT BLOGGING

By now I think all of us have come to the realization that I suck at blogging. 19 Days of Nonsense didn't last long. (I also accidentally deleted my picture/title thing and don't know how to make it reappear. Still working on that.) In a final attempt to redeem myself I just wanted to announce that my alma mater was victim to a bomb scare today. It was more than a scare, but luckily the so called bombs were made out of 2 liter soda bottles, dish soap and foil...? Don't ask me how it all worked. Don't quote me on that either. KSL  has the cold hard facts. The little scoundrels decided it would be fun to blow up the spiral stair case. I'd guess they weren't "True Braves" and were filled with teenage angst. For those of you who aren't familiar with the traditions of Bountiful High, in order to become a True Brave you have to kiss someone on the spiral stair case. Been there, done that. Everyone does it. You can tell we are all die hard romantics right...? Whoever did it also placed their makeshift explosives somewhere else in the school and parking lot. LOCKDOWN. BOMB SQUAD. It sounds pretty legit to me. Even though I wasn't there to reap the rewards of shortened class, I'm loving the tweets and facebook statuses. (Bountiful High is trending for all you Twitter users. Awww yea) Here are some favorites:

 "Bomb update: it wasn't a bomb at all, it was really just a portable meth lab explosion. Just waiting for the official statement to be released confirming this." Brooke Parrish-FB

  

"I got kicked out of Bountiful High for letting pigs in the assembly... i dont even want to know what these bomb kids have in store haha" Ty Talbot-FB

"Boy I'm glad I became a true brave before today....LONG LIVE THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE!" Lisa Cheney-FB

"Yes, Bountiful High is trending. Because we blow everything WAY out of proportion! #lovemyschool#BHSlockdown"Luke Larsen_Twitter

"Woke up thinking today would be a good day. Then I found out someone tried to blowup the spiral staircase.... #bountifulgirlproblems" Kelli Carlson-Twitter

"The awkward moment when you are in the bathroom and you hear lockdown." Retweeted by Kade Nordfors-Twitter

"Dad: are you ok? Me: Nope.. Im dead... #bhslockdown" Retweeted by Austin Gleave-Twitter

"Chemistry on the spiral... Dang. Locked down the whole school. #dangerouslove" Retweeted by Katelyn St. John

"If the spiral is damaged in any way...somebody's gonna die #BHSlockdown" Adam Alvey-Twitter

"Playing Kool & The Gang's "You dropped a bomb on me" during the lockdown. Too soon? #BHSlockdown" Patrick Page-Twitter

"This lockdown is an answer to my senioritis prayers. #godworksinmysteriousways" Retweeted by Brett Jones-Twitter

"false alarm chemical "bond" going on at the spiral" Jayne Wortley-Twitter

"It was Doc Stone In the Spiral Stair Case, with the toilet bowl cleaner" Jacob McIntosh-FB

They are gems. Every last one of them.

P.S. After way more work than it was worth, I get a $1 state tax return. How generous of them.

 

19 Days of Nonsense: Tiffany's

Today I found the PERFECT engagement ring.
It looks like every ring I have ever pinned on Pintrest, but sparklier.
I'm in love!!
...with an inanimate object instead of human being.

That's the first problem.
Second problem...it costs a pretty penny.
I mean $20,600 pretty pennies.
A girl can dream right?

(Just for the record it creeped me out MAJOR to see it on my ring finger when I tried it on.)

Pardon the dust

its going to be a LOOOOONG few days while I reconfigure

19 Days of Nonsense: The Little Things

I love my mom. 

She does a lot of little things that add up!

The 2 things that mean a lot to me at the moment are:

1-Every time I come back from Provo there is a single blue (vanilla) Tootsie Roll waiting for me on my pillow. We go grocery shopping together when I am home, and at one point I mentioned to her how those were my favorite flavor. Either that, or she figured it out when I would pick them out of my grandmas candy bucket. I didn't want the chocolate, I wanted the blue tootsies. It is a small token of affection, but it is something I have come to appreciate and look forward to when I visit Bountiful.

2-She ALWAYS gets the popcorn refills when we go to movies. Unless we had dinner before hand, my family can pound the stuff down. I had one of those, "Wow. I'm not mature enough to be a mom. Moms are so unselfish..." moments when I went to see the Hunger Games with my mom and sister. Hannah had already seen the movie twice, so when we needed more popcorn she offered to go get it. It was right then that I realized that my mom had always done it for us. Even if she had never seen the movie. She would get up, leave for a few minutes, and come back with rations. That floored me. I sat there thinking to myself how cool it is that she would do that for us. I couldn't do it. I hate leaving during movies I HAVE seen. I couldn't just get up and go during a brand new movie, and yet here my mom does it without batting an eyelash. As silly as it is, that really REALLY touched my heart. 

My words are stuck in my brain right now, so I'm going to stop trying to be sentimental. On a completely unrelated note, my new backpack came today!! 

 Gah. It's just so adorable. Why do I have such great taste?! WHY.

 

19 Days of Nonsense

I leave for Romania in 19 days.

WOW.
It seems like just yesterday I was accepted to the program and now I'm peacin' out. 

I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited!!

I'm checking out of my apartment a day early so I can spend 5 days with my family instead of 4. 

A lot can happen in 24 hours :)

I have decided to do a little something called "19 Days of Nonsense" to occupy my time while still state side. 

Don't tell anyone, but I'm really doing it to get in a better habit of blogging/journal writing. I have to write or post daily while in Romania and that is going to be HARD. I write in my journal maybe 5 times a year and blog just a little more than that. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do but I'm leaning towards the blog. More for ya'll to read, and less hand cramps for me! Win-win.

Thoughts? 

19 Days of Nonsense: Sisters

 It's true. DON'T MESS. I can remember 2 specific instances where heads were about to roll because I did not like the way individuals were treating my sister. Lucky for them they were minors and prison didn't sound too tempting that day...

I am very protective of Hannah even though I don't live at home anymore (and she is 20 times more mature than I am...) I went home this past weekend and my mom kept pointing out how I was acting like a big sister. Hannah called it bossy. I wasn't trying to be bossy! I was just trying to help her be more efficient...that sounds kind of bossy, but it was not my intention.

Anyway, I really look up to Hannah. She's the one that is 10 feet tall! This is what I had to say about her in May 2011. Still feel the same way. She is a beaut. I kind of had a freak out moment in October when I was facebook stalking her. She is so grown up it scared me. I'm going to need to pick up MMA fighting in order to keep all the guys off her

i LOVE this picture so much

Take care of her while I'm gone.