I spent the past holiday season visiting friends and family in Romania.  First, I went to Targu Mures and had a nice relaxing time with some other volunteers.  We ate and ate and didnt leave the apartment until it was time for me to head out to Ploiesti so I could visit my gazda family from PST.  Learned a valuable lesson about how easy stuff could get stolen on trains on the way down there when my friends bag was stolen as he slept.  Didn’t lose anything unreplaceable save his passport.  Oh, and he was heading to Istanbul a few days later.  It was not a pleasant train ride.  There is not much street crime here, so there isn’t much reason to fear strangers here, but to trust them, well…

After spending some time with my gazda, I headed back up to Sighisoara for a cookie roulette party.  Let me just give you a little advice.  Don’t eat a cookie that has a tablespoon of salt in the middle.  It’s actually not as good as you would think.

Finally, off to Sibiu to celebrate new years.  There were tens of thousands of people in the street to celebrate not only Romania joining the EU, but Sibiu becoming the (co) Cultural Capital of Europe, which basically means… uh…   They are a little fireworks crazy here and didn’t hold back on the 31st and the 1st.  Went to a concert in the center square and had a blast with other volunteers and romanian friends.  The biggest difference that I noticed partying for new years here was that there was no countdown.  Well, there probably was, but there were so many people we could have easily missed them counting down on stage.  I guess we just assumed we wouldn’t be able to miss it.