Emily and Nils: January 2009

Birthday Socks and the Holidays!

Yes ladies and gentlemen.... These are the BEST SOCKS EVER! My mom made these for my 27th birthday. This is definitely an awesome present. I had to open up the holidays by paying proper tribute to these socks. Oh... and Nils cut my hair too! Nice job, huh!

So... HAPPY HOLIDAYS, MERRY CHRISTMAS, and HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone!! Nils and I had a few adventures before wrapping up 2008. Follow along as we take on our little two week adventure... :)

Christmas 2008

First stop... this really beautiful hotel... Hotel COOL (that's the actual name of the hotel!). We had the good fortune of working at a ski camp during Christmas week and getting all of our expenses paid for. What we had to do??

We had to teach ski classes every day from 10:30a to 1:00p and from 2:30p to 5:00p. Here's a group of Emily's students walking up the slope. (Cristiana, Andrei, and Andi)

Here's Nils with some of the students, (Robi and Anna), as they wait to get their ski gear

In the evenings, Nils and I would provide music, games, and crafts.

It snowed every day, which made it especially nice for skiing. By the end of the week, though, we were pretty wiped out.

New Year's 2008
Nils and I had planned on making a trip to Istanbul for New Year's. But even the best laid plans don't always work out. After making 3 trips to buy International tickets and being told that the strike in Hungary meant no trains to Istanbul, we decided to wait until after Christmas to get our tickets. In Bucuresti, at the train station, on our fourth visit to a CFR ticket office, we were told that all the tickets to Istanbul would sold out for the next three days and the strike in Hungary wasn't even related to trains traveling through to Istanbul. Oh well...

So instead, with the help of some well-travelled friends (thank you Elder and Sora Hanson!), we decided to tour more of Romania.

In Sibiu... a beautiful city which won the title "Cultural Capital of Europe" in 2007. Definitely worth seeing!

In Braşov, another wonderful city with lovely Christmas lights and old buildings.

And on New Year's Eve in Bucuresti, enjoying a celebration with local missionaries!

Though we miss and love you all very much, we are grateful for the many friends (new and old) who have helped make this holiday season in Romania warm and wonderful!

In Service Training (IST) Oct 20-25

IST (In Service Training) occurs at the 6-month mark after officially becoming Peace Corps volunteers. Ours was October 20-25th and was in the beautiful city of Miercurea Ciuc.

To get there we travelled by train

Here is a picture of some of the staff who did such a good job planning and preparing the training for us! Training and lodging were all at this really nice hotel. Quite posh for the Peace Corps...

Since training was so close to Halloween, one of the volunteers, Richard, who lives in M. Ciuc arranged a Halloween party for our group at a local restaurant. Nils and I couldn't help it... we just had to dress up as Sarah Palin and Joe Six-pack. Little did we know that the other couple in our group were also planning to dress up as Sarah Palin and "Joe the Plumber" (his name is actually Joe too!). Lots of fun! (For those of you who may have forgotten who these people are... Sarah Palin ran with John McCain as his Vice Presidential candidate. During the Vice Presidential and Presidential debates, Sarah Palin referred to "Joe Six-Pack" and John McCain referred to "Joe the Plumber" as ordinary "guys" the common people could relate to. )

My counterpart Dragoş joined us on the last night for a hockey game and genuine Hungarian/Romanian cuisine. Yum!

Fishing Trip Oct 4th, 2008

Sorina and Marian are some of the best people to go fishing with! They not only know all the sites, but know how to enjoy the countryside to the fullest!

But to get there... we need to take a ferry...