Day 1 and 2

I have safely mad it to a little village about thirty minutes outside Cluj, Romania. My bags are intact along with all of my belongings -- at least, as far as I know nothing is missing. I'm not exactly sure where to start.

The flight over was pleasant, albeit loud. Not because of the plane itself but because of the people on it. For one, there was an older gentleman in my row that spoke to the lady next to me for over how the world doesn't ever read or do anything smart. Honestly, I should have listened more, but I was feeling particularly selfish. It was also loud because of the group predominantly high school students from South Carolina. Like me they hardly slept on the flight, but instead of watching movies and listening to music, they talked (loudly) with one another. I can't say too much as I have been the same way, however, the loud, obnoxious America stereotype is not one I'd like to perpetuate. So while my row mates and fellow Americans continued to talk, I watched a movie on a screen that was stored under my seat. How to Train Your Dragon was the name of the movie, which ended up being better than I thought it would be. I heard it was cute but I've been a little disappointed with kid’s movies lately. Anyway, the movie was cute and played the father/ son motif well from the side of the Son. About half way through the movie they served our meal. I tried to use what little German I could to tell the flight attendant what I wanted. After it didn't turn out so well, I ordered in English and the attendant said it was good for me to use what I can. So I did. Please, thank you, and orange juice were about all I got out.
Nothing else happened except that it was unusually warm on the plane. We landed in Munich were I rushed to the gate for my next flight because I didn't know how long it would take. For whatever reason the Munich airport likes to put everyone through security at least three times, so I had do everything save taking off my shoes. The most unfortunate part of the process was when they made me drink all the water in my water bottle (because it was a security risk?) before I could go through. I drank it down as fast as I could gather my things and continued to the gate. I was a little let down because it was the last of my water from North Carolina. The water that you can drink in most of Europe is bottled and tastes...different to say the least; not bad, just not as good tasting to my American taste buds. As I got closer to the gate, I started to feel really warm. I thought it was just because I was moving as quickly as I could. As I found the gate I realized that, for whatever reason, the air conditioning wasn't on. Just then I was shocked to realize that I was in Europe. All of the sudden there men and women all around me who European, no mistaking it. I sat for a while worried that the others I was meeting would miss the flight and that I would have to enter Romania on my own. Thankfully they just a few minutes after me and we were able to get on the plane headed to Cluj without a problem. The flight to Cluj was also uneventful with the exception of two of my row mates, both of whom were Romanian. They were friendly and very talkative, mostly because the guy wanted to date the girl.
That was when things started to get interesting; our landing was less than stellar and scared us all a bit. We got off the plane and got our things and went into to passport control which consisted of three booths and four agents. Matt, Mark and I got into line and pulled our passports out with the loud, obnoxious group behind us. Pretty much the entire time they were in line they yelled back and forth at one another, not in anger, just because they liked being loud. Like any East European passport control, it was intimidating enough without people yelling across the room. We made it through without any trouble, thankfully, got all our stuff from baggage claim and headed for the door when a woman pulled us aside. None of us (Mark, Matt, or I) speak Romania, so it we floundered for a minute trying to understand what the problem was. Thankfully a younger woman came and translated for us; they wanted to know what we had packed. Apparently that we had so many bags piled up was a red flag. After seeing a few bags with clothes in them and playing a little dumb, we were able to get through to the other side.
We found our contact after a few minutes of waiting and trying to call him. We got loaded up and headed to our hotel about twenty or thirty minutes from the airport where we found out that the rooms we thought we would have had been occupied for the past week and the occupants needed weren’t planning on leaving. When we asked why they were allowed to stay and found out that there is a law that says that the landlord can’t kick them out… Okay. We asked later if we could get the room after they left this weekend and were told that they weren’t leaving until the weekend of the 23th. Right… Honestly, the hotel is really nice for being in the middle of nowhere and the restaurant in the hotel has really good food, so I shouldn’t complain. Once we got checked in and freshened up, we had some lunch and did our best to stay awake and plan the week out. We had to keep moving to stay awake, so we headed back to Cluj to the Romanian equivalent of Sam’s club to get bottles of water for the group and then went to the mall. That Cluj has a mall is not so weird to me; what is is that it is three stories tall filled with stores that the majority of the population can’t afford. Our contact told us that no one buys anything; they just go to the food court for dinner. I’m not sure how proud I am to say that my first dinner in Romania was a McDonalds Greek Wrap. I will say that it was really good and really filling; I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish only because I was so tired. After a quick trip to Starbucks and three games of Chess (Matt and Mike – 3; Sam -0), we headed back to the hotel where Mark unsuccessfully tried to buy some Skype credit during which I was able to talk to my wife. My goal was to stay up until 8. We made it to 12 am.
There is more to say, but I have a pretty good feeling I’ve lost the majority of my readership already. I’ll get more up with more reflection later.