Saturday, July 23rd and Sunday, July 24th, 2011: Brasov, Probably the best city in the world!*

Day 15 & 16: Brasov, Romania

Day 15, Saturday, July 23^rd: Brasov

Steffi, Roxi, Costel, and Beca’s mom, had to work and run errands this morning so Beth and I happily volunteered to spend some time with the kids. We ventured off to Mount Timpa, the home of the “Brasov” sign (picture the “Hollywood” sign, but it says Brasov instead!) to ride a cable car up and hike down. We had great weather, clear skies, and each kid had their own backpack with juice, snack, and dinosaur toys (because you never know when you will need those and it is best to be prepared). We took the short two and a half minute ride up the mountain and began to explore the back of the “Brasov” sign and the amazing views the mountain top offered of the city below.

After a snack break at the top we made our way to the bottom. Our hike took about an hour—we were moving at a pretty good pace considering that we had two sets of six-year-old legs along with us. We had a great lunch of Shwarma sandwiches and the kids got a happy meal at McDonald’s. I forgot how much little kids love their McDonald’s—Beth will be their favorite person for quite sometime after that treat!

After dropping the kids off Beth, Mary, and I walked over to the Brasov Children’s Hospital to volunteer on the respiratory floor—basically we got to hold babies for a few hours (yay!). The kids come to the hospital from all over Brasov and 80% of the semi-abandoned children are of Roma ethnicity (gypsy). What is semi-abandoned you ask? They have parents, but the parents do not, currently, have the financial means to support their child. In Romania, the parents can temporarily drop their children off at an institution of some kind in the hopes that they will have the financial means to support their child at a later date.

They gave us scrub tops and crocs to wear into the well heated babies’ room. There were four babies (all probably around 4 months old) and one older (~7 years old) handicapped child. All of them had a respiratory infection of some kind (you could hear their struggles to breath as you held them) and many also had bites or skin rashes of some kind. Despite their illnesses they were still irresistible and pretty darn cute to hold. You could tell they were enjoying being held as much as I was enjoying holding them. The first baby I picked up was cranky most of the time. He had a pretty bad cold and just couldn’t get comfortable. After he threw up in my lap he seemed a little happier. Who wouldn’t be happier after that? (Beth certainly found it amusing) After his turn I picked up a second baby who was breathing as if he had smoked a pack a day for the first and only four months of his life. The poor thing also had little fleabites all up and down his arms and legs—despite all of this he was in a very happy mood. We had fun looking in mirrors, playing with my volunteer badge, walking over and visiting Beth and her baby, and letting him stand on his little legs, which seemed to bring the most smiles. He had a sweet giggle and was difficult to put down when it was time to go. As we all left, the babies seemed to know their playtime was over and created a mini chorus of cries. I’m not sure how Beth ever got used to walking away everyday! For all of the readers that know Beth I can see where she honed her talents and became the baby whisperer we all know and love today.

After our time at the hospital we headed back to Steffi’s for dinner and stick bread—a wonderful new camping tradition I plan on bringing back to America! * Steffi lives in a house that has been divided into several apartments that also house other volunteers that are working with Firm Foundations. Some are there for a short week visit and others have been in Romania for several years. It was an interesting evening to say the least as people had come from all over the world to work on the different projects Firm Foundations developed in the Brasov area.

We ended with Stick Bread. It is similar to s’mores: you wrap dough around the end of a stick, hold it in the fire until you have a very mini-loaf of bread that is hollow inside once you have removed the stick. You can then put a hot dog, jelly, peanut butter, Nutella (my choice, of course), or any other filling inside. It was a quite a treat. Yum!

Day 16, Sunday, July 24, 2011

Today was our last full day in Europe. We headed to Bucharest and spent a few hours in the city’s Ikea to help Mary and Sarah pick out furniture for their new apartment—they have a great land lord who is letting them pick out their new furnishings! We are settled into our airport hotel so Beth and I can get up at 4:00 a.m. to catch our flight home. We both agree that the final score for the big game is a tie: we totally dominated Europe by never getting lost, hitting awesome sites, navigating the different public transportation systems in each city, and by being us in general. Europe was absolutely amazing with beautiful buildings and scenery along with kind and generous people. We’ll call it a tie.

We can’t wait to see everyone when we get home and have already started planning on our next trip back.

Love,

Beth and Jesse

*"Brasov, Probably the best city in the world!": The city ordered many outdoor umbrellas with this phrase oh them. It struck us as amusing that they included the word "probably". They didn't want come off as too arrogant, we suppose.

**Liz, Beth and I have decided that you will need to build a fire pit in your backyard so we can build a fire to bake stick bread. Sound good? Great, we’ll see you when the first cold front hits Houston!