We started our weekend with homemade pancakes and hand-seasoned sausage. Yes, for those that don't know there is no pancake mix or bisquick here. I now make pancakes from flour, milk, a little sugar, an egg and oil. They are very good. We never found a "breakfast" sausage that I liked either, so I have been buying ground pork and seasoning it myself. Growing up on a farm has its advantages!
We then went to Selgross for the "mega-grocery" run. Selgross is the Romanian version of a Sam's Club in the states. As we were walking around we ran into Miheala's Dad. He recognized Maria from Halloween and was very excited to see us out. Then this lady tracked us down because she heard "the english". It was a friend from church, but she didn't know that when she started tracking us! We found these adorable socks and Maria wore them to church the next day. I just love socks!
We spent the afternoon tracking our friend Ashley as he competed in the Florida Ironman! Go Ashley! He made it in a "SMOKING time". (Direct quote from Steve) We stayed up until after 10:30pm so we could see him start the marathon.
Sunday
This morning we picked up Florin, our church member who is in a wheelchair. He rides to church with us since the public transportation is hard on the handicapped. Church was good and the kids were excited since there was a new puppy hanging around in the parking lot.
After church I was craving Chinese food, so we went to the mall to the only Chinese restaurant we have found that's close. Yummy! We all agreed that it really hit the spot.
This afternoon, Steve and Maria went out for a run - in shorts. It was around 37 degrees Fahrenheit, I'm sure they were fussed out by some Romanian old lady!
Now we are watching the NY Marathon. It is such an international event that they are showing it live on EuroSport. The commentators are speaking Romanian though. When they were showing the pros starting, Steve and I looked at each other and we had the same thought, "I can read the signs!". For those of you that have never traveled outside the US, much less lived in another country, it feels very strange to be "home" again, or see "home" in this case. You get used to living in a "bubble" where most of the conversation and the signs are hard to understand. Then when you get back you are overwhelmed by the language. Maria and I spent over $100 in the grocery store for just the TWO of us! Everything looked good, and familiar, and the directions were in ENGLISH! (Sorry for getting off track!) When they "zoomed in" on the athletes we could hear all the conversation. Cool!
Overall, it was a great weekend and the week ahead looks busy with enough stuff to do that it should go by very fast!
