As my second full day in Bucharest winds down, I thought now would be a good time to take a moment and catch up on how things are going on our "Big Adventure" as it has come to be called. Our flights were fine, and Neva even made friends with another little girl in the airport. She was so excited to come tell me, "Mom, she speaks English!" Of course, we were in London, so our chances were pretty good, but it was reassuring for her to find a girl from Miami to play dolls with. Neva slept for about an hour on the first flight, while Grammie and I logged about 30 minutes each (I blame it on the many movie choices), so after a 5 hour layover, we were all asleep before the flight to Bucharest even left the ground. Neva slept the entire way, while Grammie and I woke up to eat our lunches and go right back to sleep. Chris was a sight for sore eyes when we emerged from customs after assembling our 6 checked bags and 6 carry-ons, and got an extended clingy hug from Neva all the way out to the parking lot. Many thanks go out to Mihai and Cristina our drivers/friends for bringing Chris and their 2 cars out to the airport to meet us and drive us back to the apartment...and for returning a little while later to drop off the 2 bags we left in the trunk of one of the cars! Chris cooked us a nice dinner at home then we all hit the sack around 10PM.

Chris leaves for work the next morning (it is a workday after all), and I open my eyes to see 1:10 on my clock. 1:10??? It can't be AM, so that must mean...Yes, I have just slept for 15 hours (almost straight, since we were all up at 3AM with Neva) and have missed breakfast and lunch. I jump out of bed feeling very guilty, as I am sure that Grammie has been up with Neva all morning and is surely just as tired as I am. But what is that sound coming from the couch? Oh, it's just Grammie snoring through her third nap of the day. But where is my daughter? The apartment is awfully quiet. She is also still in bed, sound asleep. I call to her, rub her back and get no response. So off I go to take my shower and get ready to face the day...or at least the afternoon. When I finally get her out of bed at 1:30, she rolls over, opens her eyes and asks, "Is it time to go find a playground?"

So off we go to face our first big adventure in Bucharest. I'm still not sure how taking a right turn on the street translates into a left turn in my mind when I look at the map, but we did find a small playground, hit a grocery store and make it back home before realizing we had taken the two long sides of a triangular path connecting the apartment, the playground and the grocery store. Fortunately, we made it back inside before the downpour started and had enough supplies to make dinner.

Day 2 got off to an earlier start as we were all up by 9. At this rate, we might just get adjusted to the time zone within the week! We set off on the Metro to Parcul Herastrau in search of a "big" playground for Neva and found a huge one, complete with trampoline and pony rides. The pony wrangler just happened to be away from the ponies when we went to look, but she did get a 5 minute jumping session on the trampoline so all was well. One quick stop at the store on the way home and we were ready for another yummy pork dinner. If we continue to keep our daily itinerary to a minimum, we might just survive the year!

So ends the first few days of our collective experience. Chris has a definite head start on the rest of us, but I'm hoping we'll catch up fast. As we discuss the Romanian language and pronunciation and share tales of our experiences thus far, it becomes clear that we still have a great deal to learn, but are already making progress. Neva wants to learn how to say more things in Romanian to her new friends at the playground, while Chris and I would just like to be able to get through the day without having to rely on the English skills of strangers or sign language. And so it begins.