One Year Behind and Looking Forward to the Other Two

Thunder-Thunder-Birds!

On year in Romania and we continue to really enjoy our time here.  June was a busy month.  We went the first week to Mamaia, located on the Romanian Black Sea and saw the Thunderbirds.  It was awesome!  I have never seen them before.  The things they can do with those jet planes are simply crazy.  It was a quick vist of 2.5 days, but it was great.  The Romanian Black Sea is OK, colder than the Bulgaria.  Their hotels are mostly old, the service sucked.  Now I know why all the Romanians do not go to their sea. 

After Mamaia, I went to Bulgaria to celebrate my 20th anniversary from high school graduation.  My class was 35 people.  Only about 15 came.  Some people I have really not seen since we graduated in 1991.  Everybody was pretty much cool and 5 of us were out until 4 am.  It is interesting to see how everybody has grown up.  This was the weekend of June 10th.

Sunset over Mykonos

The weekend of June 16th, Mike and I, we went to Mykonos for 5 days.  I have not relaxed like that ever in my life.  Mike organized the best vacation up to date.  The goal was to go to Mykonos and party like its 1999, however we established early on that laying on the beach like a giant slug for hours under a nice umbrella and pushing a button that summons a waitress that brings you wine and mussels all day, is so much better.  Yes it is very expensive but damn it, it was worth it.

In July, we celebrated America's birthday with a  big 'ol party in the AMB's house.  The theme was Hawai'i.  All the guests wore Hawaiian shirts or outfits.  The facilities guys even built a 10 feet tall volcano.  They did a great job.  The thing actually slowly grew up through the night and kept making angry noises and spat lava.  I think the Romanian guests didn't know what to do with it because it was something they have not seen before.  There was a lot of dancing and tons of food.  I didn't have anything but tuna seviche.  I was too busy dancing I guess.

In July, the little one turned 3.  It is crazy how fast time flies.  We invited about 10 kids and their parents to a bouncy castle area.  There was a lot of running and throwing stuff.  We found the best birthday cake place ever in Bucharest.  They made him a Lightning McQueen car cake that also tasted super yummy.  Usually, cakes are either nice looking but taste like crap or they taste yummy and look blah.  Well, we scored with one that was both yummy and looking great. I never had anything like this when I was growing up.  I am glad that we have the opportunity to have such parties for him.  Romania has bunch of those kids play areas.  The super cool part is that they are either in the malls or the place itself has a restaurant.  The parents can chill while the kids are tended by nanies of a sort.  It gives you time to have a meal without chasing a child.  A very good idea!

August we went to the Bulgarian seaside.  We experimented on the way down and took a ferry over the Danube. When I say ferry, I don't mean those nice big fancy ones.  I mean a platform that fits about 12-15 cars that putters between the two countries.  It was an experience that added about 1.5hrs to our travel time.  Needless to say, we did not repeat it on the way back.  My mom met us at Sv Vlas and so did Bonnie, Neil and Sofi.  I liked the resort, but I was sad to see how the  beautiful wild beaches have been ruined.  The big hotels have either built giant walls to support them or have built cement platforms with umbrellas on top, so they can charge you for them.  The service was great.  The food was great.  It is totally much cheaper than Greece or Romania, but I think that next year the family vaction will be in the Southern part of the Black Sea in Bulgaria.  There is no huge resorts there, so it is more native still.

In September, the Embassy moved to a new building.  We have been working towards this one single moment for over 2 years (I just for 1).  It was an event!  Coordinating the move of 4 buildings into one.  Hundreds of peoppe packing.  Getting computers and phones and security systems online was insane.  It was exhausting but we moved.  Now the commute is a bit longer and we are no longer smack in the middle of the city, but we have a new beautiful building.  Everything is clean and pretty.  There is no more old moldy attics and staircase of death.  We have a nice new building!

This is it for now.  I will cover October (I won best costume at the Marine House Halloween party) and November (trip to Zagreb and Marine Corps Ball) in couple of days, or months, knowing me. Good night!

Shakira, Opera, Rapture and Farewell

Shakira was AAAAAWEESOME! It rained during most of the concert and umbrellas were not allowed. We did not have any garbage bags to cover ourselves with and no one will sells us theirs even though Mike offered 100 RON (over $30) per bag. Oh and it was so freaking cold, I thought I was going to die. We stayed thought, we stayed until we heard "waka-waka". Of course it was the last song and I have never felt such joy, because that meant we can leave.

We proceed to run in the rain to Lipscani and lost the rest of the group. Mike and I huddled under the heat lamps of a Turkish restaurant, where I proceeded to take my shoes one by one and empty them, because they were full of water. We then found the rest of the group in the Gin factor where we continued the night until 2 am. It was totally awesome!

The next week it was a different musical event-we went to the opera and saw Rigoletto. It was lovely and it was an opportunity to get all dressed up.

Then we were told that it is the end of the world and that Rapture will happen on May 25. We made sure to celebrate the night and wish Drucker a farewell at the same time.

The reason that I am not writing in the blog is not because there is nothing interesting happening, as it was in Botswana, but because there is so much stuff that I truly have no time. And it is not parties or crazy adventures, but just stuff to do.

During the week, usually I get home at 5:30. Mike is still working, so Nikolai and I hang out and sometimes I cook dinner too. It has been raining every day for the past week, so we have done much during the week, but the goal is to go out for a walk every night before his bed time. Again, there are so many cool little streets around us with amazing old-style houses. Michael just discovered another street while biking, couple of weeks ago. It is a side street that I go by every day on the way back from work, but I didn't know it existed (the last 5 words were typed by Nikolai, who wanted to help me. I think this is a good way of learning the alphabet, don't you). I will take some pictures and load them so I have them for posterity.
I also drove down to Bulgaria by myself only with Niko. It took us 4.5 hours which was great. It was Easter and Mike didn't have any holidays, as Easter is not a holiday in the U.S. but it surely is a holiday in Romania. I took couple of extra days too and made a nice 5 days off with my mom and grandma. We drove back with my mom and she stayed with us until Saturday, so it was nice. Mike was super busy at work, so we couldn't take advantage of baba being here, but it was still nice to have my mom over.

We also had a 4.9 earthquake at 5:30 am on May 1st. The cats did not indicate that the earthquake was coming. They were sleeping like the dead. Niko on the other side was up at 3:00 am. I tried to put him to sleep by 3:40 am but at 4:15 am he was up again. As Mike was not sleeping too and he was downstairs on the couch, I took Nikolai to bed with me only to be woken up by the bed shaking and the closets rumbling. It wasn't scary but at that time I realized how unprepared we are if the BIG earthquake that is overdue by 10 years hits. I knew where the passports were and that was that. Mike came flying up the stairs put his jeans on and said "Let's go outside" which by the way is the worst thing you can do, if you are not sure that the earthquake is gone. The buildings here are enforced for earthquakes but stairs are always the weak point. We have decided to do get a "go bag" ready. This way in case something big happens we can pick up and go. This also means that we have to take pictures of all our belongings-TVs, laptops, cameras, jewelry, etc. They are all insured but in order to claim them, I have to show serial numbers.

We are also planning our vacations. Yes, "vacations" is what I said. As Bulgaria doesn't count as vacation anymore, because we can go any time we want, we are venturing around. Mike and I will go to Mykonos and baba will come up here to take care of the wee one. Then we will take one vacation or possible two with him. Ioana has invited us to France in August for as long as we want and we also are talking to Neil and Bonnie about possibly going to the Canaries with the kids. I have no idea where I will find all that vacation time but will see.

Last but not least, Mike and I are going to a concert today. We will see Shakira on Constitution Square. I think I have not been on a concert since 1996 when Mike and I saw "The Cure". It will be fun. We are going with Matt and Heidi and Lauren. Hopefully, tomorrow I will remember to post my impressions.

Spring is Here!

We were sick pretty much for a month at this point, but the sun has started coming out and I think we are almost all up to par.

Heather, our college roommate that we have not seen since 1998, came to visit us the weekend of the 11th-13th March. It was great to see her and I would like to say that we had a very good program set for her. On Friday we went to a Romanian restaurant for some traditional duck with sauerkraut. Yummy! On Saturday morning, we visited the Romanian Palace of the Parliament. Holy crap it is an amazing building! It is the largest civilian building in the world or the second largest after the Pentagon. Everything in it was made in Romania. For example, Romania did not have any silk production, but the Romanian dictator wanted it all from Romania, so they created a silk farm just so they can do the wall coverings for the Parliament. The work is amazing!

Later on Saturday, we were invited to Bucharest's own movie award ceremony. We had no idea what to expect but knew it was a black-tie event in a friend of mine's house and that we had to bring an acceptance speech. When we arrived, each of us had a tag pinned on the back with a name of a movie star. We had to mingle with the rest of the guests and ask questions and try to guess the name of the star we represented. I was Kate Blanchette, Mike was Jeff Bridges and regretfully I cannot remeber who Heather was. Anyways, once everybody knew who s/he was, we sat for a very different dinner. We each received a blank menu and a list of 15 movies. We had to select the order in which the food represented by the movies should be served. I really did not know what to expect. As dishes came out, we realized that some of the movies were not related to food but to utensiles. There were several times where people got only food and no utensiles, or just utensiles and no food. The food was super yummy! Kevi, Laurie, Ray and Valerie were amazing hosts. After we were done eating, the award ceremony kicked in. Each of us won an award (yes, they went all the way and created gold stars out of wood and painted with gold paint and put them on a piedestal with a plaque stating the award). When the winner went to the podium to receive the awards, s/he had to pick from the box of the acceptance speeches and read it. I won for best dramatic performance in a short animated film. It was a total blast. I have never been to any other party-ever!

Then on Sunday we set off to Sinaia for the nearest to us castle-Peles Castle. I have never been inside a castle before and for my first one this one was rather spectacular.

Regretfully, I in order to take pictures inside, I had to pay 30 Euro to use my own camera and I was cheap so I didn't, but please take my word on it the woodwork and the stonework was so intricate, I couldn't belive my eyes. I also found out that a palace, aside of the ballrooms and the reading and drawing rooms is just a lot of apartments and bedroom for cousins and other royalty visiting. Holy crap where was a lot of freaking rooms. And every single one has it's own theme and color. Very unique!

Winter in Eastern Europe


It finally caught up to us. It started with e visit to the kid play area in one of the malls. It resulted with the wee-one being sick, then Mike and then me. Of course Nikolai got back to normal in 2 days. However, Mike and are still coughing and congested. It has been two full weeks. We have not been sick like this for a long time, if ever. And I put in this, the cold we all got the last couple of weeks in Botswana in July, that led to my vocal cords being inflamed for close to 4 months. The good news is that we did not let this stop us and on Friday, Feb 18th, we got organized and drove down to Sofia for President's Day. The original idea was to leave on Thursday and spend several days skiing/snowboarding. We ended up leaving on Friday and spending majority of the time indoors and not going to the mountain even once, but it was good. We saw friends and family and my mom helped with Nikolai.

It is I, the worse blogger ever!


I would like to blame Facebook for my slackiness. It is just so much easier to type a quick status every day rather than typing weekly updates. But that is not an excuse. I see my blog as my censored diary. One day I will look back and at least have some record of my life. I have found that Michael has much better memory than me for long term events. I forget everything and I am afraid one day when I am old I will remember nothing. Then I will be able to turn back to this blog and recollect what I did during my life.

We left Botswana on August 1st via a car ride by our friends Natalie and Kalvar to Johanesburg. We spent a night there and really hoped to have an easier trip home, but that was not to be. Again, SA did not fail us and made us run around with the cats. Initially, they were to be dropped off at the check-in along with the luggage. After some substantial arguing, we were told that the girls have to be taken to the cargo area, that was 2 miles away. This meant that I had to hustle to the plane with Nikolai and carry-on luggage by myself, while Mike had to run to drop off the girls and get to the flight. We were sure that he won't make it, so we said our good byes. His saga was worse than mine as the girls could not get on the same flight as us. That meant that he had to find a cat sitter for the night. He didn't have enough cash. He borrowed cash from the taxi driver and once everything was settled he had to find an ATM to pay back the cabby. I was sitting at the gate, ready to hold the flight when I saw him running. He made it!
The flight was a nightmare. Nikolai would not sleep. He also got some weird rash on the palm of his hands and it itched like hell. He cried so much that he threw up. Again SA sucked! The stewardesses were giving me napkins to wipe the puke and watching me. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. If I wasn't for sure that there is an air Marshall and he will zap me, I may have lost it and started screaming. I surely tried to rip the seat belt off the chair, but they build them tough. After 18 hrs of an insane flight we made it. I was so happy to be home. Jen and Matt welcomed us to their house and we should have stayed there for all 6 weeks. But no, we, like crazy people, spent the next 6 weeks traveling like mad. We were in VA for a week. Then we went to WA for 2 weeks. A week in the WA trip I went to LA to visit Kj and then Mike and I we went to Lv to meet Bruce, Chris, Jaime and Dave joined us too. When we came back to VA, I spent a week of consultations and went to SC. Then it was time to get on the road again. OMG, the trip to Bucharest was a dream. Nikolai still did not sleep but it was only 8 hours to Frankfurt and then 2 hrs to Bucharest. Piece of cake! When we arrived, the girls were waiting for us in the baggage area and so was Anna Maria.
I am really enjoying Bucharest. It is so close to my mom's house. She has come to visit us 2 times already and we have been there 2 times too. As Mike says, vacation has a new meaning for us, because Sofia is only 4 hours away from here. There are three beautiful parks in less then 5 minutes from our apartment so the baby is a happy camper. I am really excited about spring and on. We have trips planned and just being able to walk through a big city that has so much life and stuff to do is great.

That's a year in a nutshell. I will work on updating the blog more often, I promise.

March 2010

(yes, I took me a year to publish this)

What a busy month it has been!

The first weekend of March, we decided that is it time for us to go and finally see "Avatar". As it is well known by all our friends, Mike is coo-coo when it comes to movies, so has to either see them in the most perfect movie atmoshpere or not see them until they are availble on Blu-Ray. Well, that meant that we had to find a place where we could see "Avatar" in 3D. The closest place that showed it in 3D was in the movie theatre of the Monte Casino Resort Hotel in Johannesburg. So yep, we went to a different country to see a movie. It was very nice though. The Monte Casino has 3 hotels, a little square and bunch of restaurants in and out and of course a ginat casino.

It took us about 3.5 hrs to get to Johannesburg after the mandatory McDonald's rest stop in Rustenburg. Nikolai was left behind with his nanny and uncle E-Rock, who came from Selebi-Phikwe to babysit.

We hit a pseoudo sushi place, that was simply awlful, but the bad taste was counteracted by the great time we had at the roulette tables. we had no idea what was going on but in the end after starting with 200 Rand we came out of it with 400 Rand and that was only after 15 minutes of playing.

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8 Feb 2011-regretfully, I don't know what else we did in March 2010. I know that I chased away a guy out of our yard that was trying to reach in the house through the window and steal Mike's laptop and other stuff. It was 4 am and I was checking on the little one when I heard a wierd noise coming out of Mike's office. I walked in half asleep to see a short teenager on the other side of the window reaching in through the window screen. And what do you think I did? I clapped really loud and yelled "HEY!!! GET OUT OF HERE!! HEY" and clapped couple of more times. Of course after the first "HEY" he was gone in a jiffy. I woke up Mike who started talking rather loud of how he is going to get his gun. He does not have a gun, but he has a very real looking made in China toy gun with a laser sight on it. So he went through the entire house and looked out of all the windows. I called Post 1 and they in turn called the roving patrol who was there in less than a minute because they were in the area. Once they were in the compound, Mike flew out of the house like a bullet and searched the entire yard. They could not find anyone. Mike found one of his golf clubs laying broken in half next to the office window. It seems that the thief tried to bend the metal bars on the outside of the window and couldn't do it cause the club broke. So he went for the package of sand paper and lifted up the window screen started reaching in and I walked in on him.

We found where he came from in the morning. Out neighbours are never home and the house next to them is a shack where two "youts" live. They must have jumped over to the neighbors and then climbed up the very convenient pile of dirt and leaves that took them to the top of our fence. Where they simply stepped over the electric fence and on to a tall mulburry tree.

Of course, for safety the facilities folks cut the tree down and we made sure the electric fence is always up and running strong.

We also found out that we were not the only victims. They seem to have gone through the neighbours' yard but all they could get to was the big trunk of Embassy stuff that they had left on the front porch. Couple of days later there was a break in the Angolan Embassy which was two houses down from us. It seems that they got the biggest lute there. They stole the Ambassador's big screen TV from his office and bunch of other stuff.

They never got caught.

I think we also ended up in Selebi-Phikwe and visited Erich but I can't remeber for sure.