Photos from Romanialand

Ok attempt to load up photos is underway..can't work out how to get the lay out how i want but you get the idea


This is the Danube...the land you see is Serbia!!
We passed this as we were on a long hot train journey back from Timisoara





Below left: Zoezoe and I in the rose garden
in Timisoara. Beautiful!

Adventure One (Photos to the right):

On top of the mountains in Busteni! Yes we did cheat...we took the cable car!

Summer

After a brief return to normal Cardiff weather- coinciding with the start of Wimbledon as is tradition- the halcyon days of summer continue uninterrupted.

Germany have just beaten Argentina in the quarter finals of the World Cup, much to mine and Lou's satisfaction and Andrew Murray is through to the 3rd round at Wimbledon. As can be seen from this we are spending much of our time in front of the TV.

I actually had to do some work yesterday as I lead a seminar but it was all over by lunch allowing me to carry on making my dress (now finished.)

Vix has started working 3 hours a day (just about, she finishes early most of the time) and Lou is back in the hospital of doom. Vix and I shocked her earlier by coming down to say hello to her LUNCHTIME visitor in our pyjamas... Rachel loved it!

I feel an explanation of the nightwear worn in this house will clarify why Lou was embarrassed, Victoria was sporting a very lovely bright green t-shirt saying "make trade fair" and some pink dotty pyjama bottoms. I, the picture of beauty and elegance, was wearing huge baggy surgical scrubs bottoms not quite tied up enough and a grey vest. Lovely!

On a trip to shot in the dark last night I discovered where many of the people we see in church socialise, I recognised a fair number of the people in there. Obviously as it's a coffee shop rather than a pub or bar it is ok to visit with friends, especially ones of the opposite sex.

Fran
xx

Adventuring and Doctoring

Well no one appears to have blogged for ages!! Obviously having way to much fun without me!

Weekend: Overnight train trip was very exciting - triple bunkbeds on the train!!
We had a lovely weekend in Timisoara - its an beautiful city with a fairy tale church right in the centre of town!

(Look!! I've managed a picture!! i'm in shock!!)


Then we went to stay with some contacts of zoezoe's who run a charity with street children in Arad (1hr from Timisoara). We went to meet the woman at the train station - she was surrounded by a mass of gypsy people (its probably very politically incorrect to call them that)! It was awesome! We later went and played with abandonned babies in hospital and went to a gypsy "village" (about nine houses) built around the above ground gas pipes. We went with the woman's daughter who is a medical student and was treating some of the gypsies who had cuts and burns. So i got to hold bandages and stuff which was exciting! But it was sad at the same time to see the conditions in which the families were living - never seen anything like it before in Romania.
We are thinking about going back up to Arad to do a bit more work with the charity there in one of our free weeks at the end.


Doctoring quote of the week:
Consultant "what are you doing?"
SHO(very proudly) "I'm talking to the english students about Eminescu" (Eminescu is a famous Romanian writer)
Consultant "Why aren't you working?"
SHO (very very suprised) 'Working!!??!!"

Hilarious the SHO seems to have an aversion to work - he never quite seems to know what he is meant to be doing or which patients are his! That's going to be me soon!! Haha - Hospitals beware!!!

Anyway our consultant guy is away for the next two weeks...so two weeks free to er...uh...Work on our projects of course!!!

We had a lecture this morning on Cystic Fibrosis from the world's number one CF consultant from Imperial College London, UK! It was truely informative and joyous! Zoezoe and I were proudly presented to him at the end, he asked us what our project was on and I was like "er well its just a project i don't know er...um... we're just writing a load of rubbish really" then we ran away!

Think thats about all for now.
I'll love you and leave you.
Hxx

To amend a lie.

To be fair, really haven't been leaving the house all that infrequently, as have been attending many many internationals events. Including hilarious pool party, and various sporting competitions which would have been more hilarious should I have attempted to take part.

And...today Mim and I had the pleasure of one of Frannies open days which was a lot of fun! It's always good to have a little look inside the place where a friend spends a lot of their time. Was cool.

Vix

Actually have job!

Crazy, crazyness. Since dispatching dentistry and no longer spending my days in the hospital of doom, have taken to leaving the house infrequently.

However, I now have a job! Albeit part time, and in telesales...Beware the general public!!!

Vix

The Longest Day

Yesterday was a long hard day in Romania-land.
We completed FIVE activities yesterday (its a new record)!!!!
Generally we don't like to set ourselves too many tasks in a day - lest we fail and then we feel sad. But as yesterday was the longest day of the year we thought we'd go for it!!

1. Hospital placment
Yes this counts as an activity...and in fact yesterday we were in for over 3hrs!! And did lots so thats a definite big activity point for us!!
2. Lunch in the park
This too counts - especially the getting to the park bit - which involved one very very squished bus journey. Everything here seems to take three times as long as it does in the UK!
3. Swimming with two girls from the christian union. That was a definite add to the list of Romania experiences activity! The grubby yellow slime round the water line and all over the bottom of the pool and the hilarity of trying to get a swimming cap on my head (and then having to be seen in public) all brought joy to the day!
4. Dinner at susan's house (though getting to her house could be counted as an activity in itself - it was quite and adventure!). Proper meal with meat in (my Iron levels are being filled up well out here - enough to survive another year in our house i reckon!!) and lots of fun company. Much hilarity playing PIT which involves lots of shouting and mean tactics!! Heeeheee I love it!!
5. Phone conversation with the non-stupid, very beautiful vix! With the added joy of further serenading from the fobbit! Yet again i endured the stares of Romania's watching a crazy english Hannah lady getting very excited during the conversation.

As a result the Hannah Lady is incredible tired today and will hopefully sleep well in her bed on the train tonight as she travels to the beautiful place of Timisoara with her companions zoezoe and whitters.

love you
xxx

Fatty Europian girls!

The girls of this house took one for the fatty white girls of the west this evening. Had many varieties of Chinese food with many tiny tiny asian Chinese/Taiwanese girls.

Must say Fran, Lou and Mim sitting opposite me took up about the same space as the eight chinese girls sitting next to me. Funny thing is Lou and Mim are particularly tiny varieties of Western girls. Work that one out.

Vix

Counting Sheep

How do you count sheep?

Random question I know but zoezoe and I made this bizarre discovery:

I count sheep by imagining them jumping over a gate one by one.
Zoezoe counts sheep by imagining a field of them and counting all the sheep in the field.

Weird...i just assumed that everyone counted sheep like me, but zoezoe's way makes more sense than my way.

Hmm....How do you people count sheep?

Other than the sheep discovery...we have been sweltering away here the last few day, but its the kind of heat thats too hot to sit out in...tricky!
We are thinking of going to an outdoor swimming pool sometime this week...but we need to do research and find out which one has the least number of naked people at it! Also tricky!

Love you
Hxxx

Apology for failure

A house apology goes out to the Fathers of the girls of this house for our general lack of appreciatiation. Apart from Mim who was inspired to run out and get a card for her Dad, to celebrate Fathers day, when he announced that he was to visit yesterday, no other Fathers of this house have yet recieved a card.

We do all love our Fathers very muchly, we know we're rubbish.

No more to be said!

Vix

Project Work

Well no one seems to have written in the blog for a whole day!!
What's going on? I fear that all my beloved housemates may have been abducted by aliens or burnt the house down!!

What to say...
Have done approx half of my project now (how i love waffle!!) actually looks quite good...lots of little pictures and tables! Still haven't found a computer in this land with power point on it though..slightly problematic as project is meant to be submitted as power point (think we need to tell Alcolado that we're going to submit it as a word document!)
Obviously its all the horrible research parts that are left to do!
We have taken hostage of Aidan's and Whitney's laptops for the purpose of project work and have invaded Whitney's house for the day to use her internet...so at last we have been somewhat productive! Though I am getting incredibly BOOOORRRREEEEDDDDD now - only so many hours a Hannah Lady can work for!
Though the tennis is providing welcome distraction (though Tim Henman has just lost - bad line call meant he lost his serve and then he kind of collapsed! Nightmare!...bring on Wimbledon!)

Just realised its Fathers day tomorrow...slightly tricky due to several reasons
i) no way can a card get from here to home in less than 12hrs
ii) my parents are on holiday in France so i can't even do the phone home thing
Ah well yet another father's day will slip by unrecognised by me...my poor dad.

Am getting ever closer to working out how to put pictures on this thing....give me a few more weeks!!!

Love you xxxx

Beautiful day!

Today has truely been a beautiful day!
Spend most afternoon in boat on Roath lake with Busted Joe and Ioney, ah.
Only forgot camera, nightmare.
So instead am attaching a beautiful picture of one of the many beautiful flowers in our garden, as a symbolic picture of my day!






















Vix

P.s If anyone can tell me the name of this flower, would be appreciated muchly.

Our First Visitor!

Today was a very special and beautiful day. We entertained our first guest in our humble place of residence. The visitor's identity shall be kept secret for speculation's sake.
I spent an hour with said guest helping put up posters advertising OSCEB's (the Romanian CU) english camp this summer, we went wandering around all the other student halls near where zoezoe and i live, it was quite exciting and we found lots of bars and restaurants that i'd not discovered before!!
I was zoezoe's kitchen slave for the afternoon and chopped up lots of onions that made me cry and helped her(well kind of hovered around her really) prepare the delicious two course meal! We put our visitor to work (in traditional heathfield style) giving them the manly task of opening the cans with zoezoe's ever trusty penknife!
We had huge amounts of yummy nachos and wraps with re-fried beans and salsa, delicious and nutricious. I feel a proper fatty tonight!!
Then we came with our guest to cafe-nescu, we have sat them with some other friends infront of the stupid football (there's some football thing going on at the moment apparently!) and we are now doing "research" for our projects! (its going really well hence the blogging!- its called procrastination i believe!)

Love you Girlies
Mwa
xxxxxxxxxxx

Deserted, again

It is a Wednesday evening in the house. I have just returned from Rainbows to find that all my housemates have found something exciting to do with their evening.

Iona, Mim and I have just spent a lovely few days on the Gower peninsula. As it is not the weekend the place was nearly deserted and the beaches very quiet.

Monday evening:

We arrived at the campsite and pitched our tent before walking down the road to Rhossili village to the pub. Upon arrival at the campsite we discovered that a group of college students from the noisier end of the neighbour spectrum were also camping there.

Tuesday:

Having awoken early due to heat, lack of space and noise we started our breakfast only to discover that the gas stove bit and the gas cannister were not compatible and sat down for our breakfast of marmite and cheese on bread. A very lovely gentleman in a nearby caravan kindly made us some coffee. We set out for the beach for a morning swim armed only with a towel and bathing stuff. After a nice walk along the cliffs we found a lush little bay (can't tell you the name in case it gets too well known.)

We quickly clambered down the rocks and changed into our swimming stuff. In the bay with us were a school group (we think) and some instructors- they were all wearing wetsuits, buoyancy aids and helmets. Running past them into the water in our bikinis drew lots of applause and encouragement! We spent lots of time jumping through the waves and got very cold, but stayed in to prove a point to the other group who were doing exactly the same thing as us only in slightly shallower water.

After lunch and coffee (we bought a different cannister) we went to Rhossili bay and sat on the beach with books and ate ice cream.

I've run out of inspiration I'm afraid and so will continue the story of our holiday when I can think of something to say.

URRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

urrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh! This word simply does not begin to describe the overall mingingness of my house work today...
... Cardiff has, once again, been blessed with rain:) The plants and vegetables were all pleased and lapped it up. However, the beasts (aka snails and slugs) also appreciated the rain. These beasts are not any old beasts they are HUGE and ugly and slimey and where there are as many as there were today the Fobbit just can't cope. My job was to Kill the beasts! (A slow, painful, organic death in salt water for those interested)
Urrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh! Involves Fobbit like activity including: 1) a loud noise 2) vibration through the whole body 3) tensing of the whole body 4) hyperventilation.
Such is the power of the word that it is still having an effect thinking about it hours later... TRICKY!

Lou xx

Wedding Day!! Romanian style!

Hello,
I'm not feeling particularly inspired today, but i feel that someone else ought to be adding posts other than poor old abandonned vix!

So Zoezoe and I went up to Brasov this weekend for the wedding of two of my friends from my time here before! It was a beautiful rainy day! The bride was only 15minutes late! The flower girl was grumpy and the ring bearer (aged 4yrs) fell asleep!! I also am lammenting the loss of the beautiful body of the best man...who has gained 20kg in weight over the past 10months!(its so sad!!)

Anyway...It was actually a really lovely service, Dan (the groom who is British) said his vows in Romanian and Simona (the bride, who is Romanian) said her vows in English....it was beautiful...i cried!!
The reception afterwards was true Romanian style...six course meal served over 11hours with lots and lots of dancing in between each course (yes i did have to dance with the sweaty, minging, drunk, middle-aged, next-door neighbour too many times! Ugh!!) We also had dancing waiters, lots and lots of lush traditional Romanian food...stuffed cabbage, meat, mamiliga (maize stuff) and deep fat fried vegetables! (its good - we should try it!!) Then the men plotted and stole the bride and the groom had to go and chase them and bring them all beer in exchange for his bride! (Dan looked really upset when Simona was taken away!- Bless!)

It was great though, Dan and Simona both worked at the house in Brasov where i was a volunteer in my gap year working with special needs kids and young adults, and a lot of the kids and their parents came to the wedding and reception, so i got to see them all too, and it was a lovely atmosphere, all the kids from the house were dancing (we even got the people in wheelchairs on the dance floor and spun them around) and all the people from church (who agree with dancing) were dancing and then lots of us volunteers from the house were there especially for the wedding, and then all of Simona and Dan's families were there...it was lovely lovely day...if a little long....zoezoe and i were very very tired by the end of the evening.

Right thats about all for now...i'm going home for a nap! ( we might have been talking till very late last night!...oops)

The Hannah Lady

Medicine, the doss subject!

Whoever said medicine was hard, certainly not me.
The medics are currently on their 'SSE', otherwise known as their structured summer holiday, apparently their course doesn't break up for the summer untill the end of July. Untill then they have to spend their time reading books and visiting the museum, big pit and other local attractions.

They have just left us for a camping trip.

















All these activities are an attempt to turn them into well rounded individuals, less likely to kill off all their patients. In my opinion it is an attempt to give them a stress free holiday, because they won't have time to get a job like normal students. Meanwile, Louise continues in the hospital of doom, with the challenges of daily life, to complex to be reduced to a citing on the blog.

And I, well I have my 'Case Reports' due in, what more can I say?

Do I sound bitter, do I, do I????

Vix

Baptisms

Was Georges baptisms today!

Before:






















After:























Was awesome, love George to pieces! Super Godly girl!

Vix.

Birthday Bash

Just returned from sis's B'day






















Happy B'day Gem!
not the best picture, sure she'll kill me.

And got to hang out with my parents
















Ah, what a lovely couple!

Well, better get on with the dredded coursework.

Vix

Sunshine

The house has worryingly become a picture of quiet domesticity. The kitchen and lounge were cleaned thoroughly yesterday and Mim is baking bread. With two members of the house away it seems unusually quiet and empty. Vix is away this evening as well so Mim and I will be the rejects left behind.

Since our beach trip on Wednesday (which I'll leave Mim to write about as she knows how to put pictures on this thing) nothing much has happened. Vix has been doing lots of work, she's at the library at the moment supposedly studying. The plethora of emails from her tell a slightly different story.

xx

Miracles

The Sun is shinning in Cardiff!
And
Franny is cleaning the kitchen!















What a day!

Vix.