So Much So Fast

I'm here!

We've been here for so little time but we've already done so much.

Grocery shopping was an adventure with not knowing what most of the stuff was saying. Luckily there are pictures for explanations :) The food is so good though. Candy bars taste better and the bread is amazing (that's pretty much all I'm eaten so far). We did order shaorma (or shawarma) at the food court in the mall yesterday. It was so good and there were french fries in it :)

My apartment (and Nathan) went to a piața to get fruits and veggies. That was better than the store because we actually know the words for fruits and veggies. Our Romanian friend, Aurelia, came with us too. We got the American tourist experience though when we tried to buy a watermelon. The sign said something like 4 lei per kilogram, but then he tried to charge us over 300 lei (300 lei = $100)!

Me and Aurelia after going to the piața

Out of the three apartments, mine is the least American and the only one without wifi, but it's actually pretty cool. The only thing I really wish we had was a clothes dryer, but those don't really exist in a lot of Europe.

Picture time now, as it's probably the best way to really help you see what's been happening:

Here's our kitchen. It's basically our communal area because the "living room" has been turned into a third bedroom. But hey, that means we each get our own room.

This is my room, which is really the living room, also containing the creepy baby painting.

Iași, România - The view from one of the apartments

The familiarity of the modern mall food court (but with some really weird Romanian ads on the billboard)

Green apple juice here is actually green... It's weird and makes me very hesitant to actually try it. I found some really good pineapple juice though.

 The thank you note we wrote for our land lady. We can't really talk to her yet because she only speaks Romanian and she talks really fast, but we took way longer than it probably should have and wrote this for her. We know we used all the right words, the grammar on the other hand...

The awkward elevator picture. The elevators are so tiny here. They only comfortably fit 4 people with no stuff, but we don't want to have to climb all the stairs, so we tend to squeeze in six at a time.

Mars bars actually exist here! And candy bars in general are better because they're made with better chocolate.

Carousel by the mall that we always walk past.

The evil stairs of death. Seriously though, it's something like 7 flights of stairs. I've been here all of two days and I've already gone up them 4 times and down them twice.

First night out exploring! I don't think Nathan appreciates being dragged into all of our girly group pictures.

Our first Sunday here! All of us in front of the church building. We kinda doubled the number of people in sacrament meeting...

The Cultural Palace! It's super cool and there's lots of grass and stuff around it to hang out.

A couple of our "inherited" friends from the branch hanging out in front of the Cultural Palace. It was pretty hot out this afternoon, and it's supposed to be even worse later in the summer...

We're also going to get a lot of exercise this summer. Some of the other girls want to go running, but I don't really see the point when we're already going to do so much walking every day.

Noi suntem în Iași, România! Noi avem mers la Auchan și biserica. Mâncarele este foarte bună. La revedere!

(We are in Iași, Romania. We went to Auchan (Romanian Walmart) and church. The food is really good. Good bye!)