Romania week 25 - "Not on a Friday"

Hello everybody!
Wow it's been a very tough week, and I have to admit the first few thoughts of coming home have been creeping into my thoughts.The sad news I have to report is that one of my fellow volunteers (Helen) has had to return home rather quickly for personal reasons, which has had me and Karen experience a range of emotions from worry to madness, in no particular order! I won't dwell on this issue because Transylvania never stops surprising us, whatever else is happening....

So to the weekly news: I have had various parts of my person grabbed by many of the female patients during this 6 month stay, and this week was no exception... as much to the amusement of the nurse on duty, as when leaving the women's ward, a female patient ran up to me, bear hugged me from behind, before grabbing my breast... this is not an unusual experience for me here, as another patient greets you in this way each time you see her...... ah well nice to have a bit of intimacy I can hear some of you think... but joking aside things can be a little rough at times on the ward, and last week I was on the end of some aggressive behaviour from a female patient and it was not a pleasant experience as she barricaded herself against the door to prevent me from leaving the ward.. Luckily the other patients are very quick to help you out in kind of problem situation!

To this week's email 'title'... I just wanted to share this gem of a story with you. My colleague Karen is wanting to take a train through Europe to get home rather than fly. And despite the complications of this journey, every part of the journey can be booked on line. but oh no, not the Romanian part,... so she had to go to Turges Mures to make a booking in person, only thing was when she got there she was informed that she was two days to early, and you are not allowed to book a train journey more than a month in advance.... hmm... so after waiting the two extra days, she made a call to the train company who spent almost 30 minutes saying how it was no problem to book the train now... so when she stated she would come and make the booking the response was " oh I'm sorry, you can't make that booking today, not on a Friday" and with no further explanation the phone call ended!!!

I had a quite surreal experience yesterday when going to Turges Mures Zoo, with my good friends Sari & Judith (in picture below), as after climbing a rather steep hill, and a good 6k walk, we arrived at the entrance at 15:30 to be told the zoo closed at 16:00!!! so we rushed round the place like one of the red-ass monkeys we saw in the monkey house.... the zoo has a bear, lions, tigers, monkeys, deer, lama, pumas, birds of prey etc... but the conditions were not good for the animals, and they had very limited space... the kiosk at the entrance had a sign saying you must pay for taking photographs, but no way of checking if you had paid or not.... bizarre!!! Seeing an entire zoo in 30 minutes, even a small one, was a challenge, and we missed seeing the lions close up, but the views over the city were almost worth the climb up the hill anyway!

The English lessons for my neighbourhood kids continue tomorrow, so any suggestions my teaching colleagues would be appreciated.... and other events this week include my 4-day trip to Budapest from Friday-Monday! I am ready for that four day trip!

So that's it for now... I am too hungry to continue without food!!!
Regards from Transylvania!
Dan