Picture My World

I got enough "GOOD IDEA" comments from everybody that I thought I couldn't let you all down now :) After thinking about it, I decided that the best place to start would be where I live while on this side of the pond :)

THE BLOC

(pronounced bloke)

This is the apartment building where we own a small, three room apartment.
Consisting of:
one living room
one bedroom
one den/family room
a kitchen
bathroom
and hallway connecting it all.

It is about 700 square feet and is considered large for living space here.
In the picture above you can see our porch where the clothes are drying on what we would consider the second floor.

It is the only apartment building in the village and is right in the middle of the town,
it is hard to see from the picture below but the other side of the apartment building is the town park. This spring we got permission from the mayor to care for and spruce it up so that everyone can enjoy it.
In previous years the only time it had the grass cut was when someone wanted it for hay.

The people here have no idea/no desire to care for much of anything that isn't their own
(and all too frequently they don't care for that)
So it is a very different idea for them to see someone picking up and caring for something that if they don't have to.


(Next time I will move inside the building:)

A Quick Hello

Howdy from Bretea Romana Romania. I just had to share the wonderful, wonderful news.

Are you ready????

Ok, here goes.

We have FAST internet!!!!

Exciting isn't?

Well, I think it is.
Curtiss and I were so excited when we learned that fast internet was available in the village a few months ago. But knowing the way that things are here we didn't really hold our breath that it was completely true.
I mean what is fast? does that mean it is just faster than what we already had?
Which, by the way, took a good 2-5 minutes just to load a simple page
even longer if you wanted a few pictures to load.
A small video clip? forget it, it will just stutter it's way through if it does anything.
And don't forget that the connection might space out at any point and you have to start all over again.

Last summer I tried several times to have voice chat
(don't even bother with a webcam)
with my family and we got it to work a couple of times,
(that was after trying for an hour and a half)
and then it would die and we would have to try again or just give up and type everything.
(which isn't the easiest when you are trying to plan a wedding:)
Don't get me wrong, we were very thankful that we had any but that doesn't mean that we won't celebrate now that it is even better :)

Curtiss and I are like kids with a new toy,
we'll just smile at each other and say "did you see how fast that went???"
We can't wait to get on the computer.

Anyway, I thought you might all enjoy a small glimpse into some of the way of life here
I was thinking of having a special (maybe weekly) post called
"Picture My World"
where I would have a post about some aspect of life here that might interest all of you.

Whether it be some kind of food, what traveling is like or maybe what it's like to cook on a stove that has no temperature gauge.
What do you think? Would it interest you?
Let me know and I start working on it.

Be Funky

What can I say this is one of my newest favorite things to do. It is so easy and it is cool to see some of the effects that you can do, and the best news is that is doesn't cost a thing. Sarah introduced me to the website and I am forever hooked. It is www.befunky.com

I thought it would be a fun way to share some pictures with Joanna while she is on the other side of the world.

This one of Curtiss and Joanna is one of my favorites

I wish I could paint like this

It is also a cool way to save fuzzy pictures, this picture was quite fuzzy and now it looks pretty good.

It is also a fun way to show my patriotic side.

Even Dad and Mom can get Funky. ;)

We Made It

Hey everybody! I thought it had been long enough for all of you to know whether we made it safely or not. Obviously since I am writing this I must still be alive :)
Curtiss and I had a good but very tiring trip. We left our home in S--- last Tuesday morning and met my parents, siblings and friends in B--- to have a goodbye lunch at a local diner. From there we headed south so that we could spend a couple of days with Curtiss's brother and family. They live near D.C. so Wednesday we all headed to the subway and spent the day sightseeing in the city. We had a really good time going through a couple of the museums there, we went to the Haulocaust Museum and half of the American History Museum.
Thursday we headed t0 the airport about 1:30 in the afternoon and made it through checking in and security fairly quickly. We loaded on time and thought we were going to be leaving on time until the co-pilot came on the speaker saying that we had to go back to the gate because of some mix up with luggage. We got back to the gate and they took a few peices of luggage off the plane and then we headed out again only to be told that no planes were taking off (atleast not going the way we were) due to weather in N.Y.C. SO we ended up sitting on the ground in the plane for two hours before actually getting in the air. After that everything went well, we had a long enough lay over in Germany so that we didn't miss our connecting flight and we got to Romania at about 1:30 Friday (that would be Romanian time, which is 7 hours ahead of the U.S. east coast) we then had a three hour trip from the airport to the apartment. By the time we got here we were both beat and were in bed by 9:00 and slept (for the most part, I was awake for a couple hours in the middle of the night) until 11:00 the next morning.

Now we are slowly but surely getting adjusted to the time change and getting settled in.
I have to go now, as we are going into the city this afternoon to get a few things done that we need to do. I'll try and update again soon.

Blessed Be Your Name

Last night at Prayer and Praise I wasn't feeling much like blessing the name of the Lord, in fact I just wanted to go to bed. After saying our goodbyes to Joanna and Curtiss earlier that day, I was just feeling down. And as I was sitting in the G---'s home I wasn't really thinking much about anything. But after having someone toss me a penny and whisper, " A penny for your thoughts." I started to half heartily think about what is was I was feeling, I was feeling sorry for myself. Well I was sitting there twirling the penny in between my fingers we started to sing, "Blessed Be Your Name" and as the room began to fill with the sound of music, I realized that blessing God's name is a choice, in the good and the bad times we have to make that choice. And as we sang, "You give and you take away, You give and you take away, my heart will choose to say Lord, Blessed be your name." I was able to make that choice of blessing God even when I didn't feel like it.

So to that someone who tossed the penny, "Thanks for tossing it."

Blessed Be Your Name

By Matt Redman

Blessed Be Your Name

In the land that is plentiful

Where Your streams of abundance flow

Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name

When I'm found in the desert place

Though I walk through the wilderness

Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out

I'll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord

Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name

When the sun's shining down on me

When the world's 'all as it should be'

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name

On the road marked with suffering

Though there's pain in the offering

Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out

I'll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord

Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away

You give and take away

My heart will choose to say

Lord, blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name