Some singing from Roman

Here is my class singing the Good Morning Song, first in Romanian then in English. I waited until I got home to post this as the connection I had was slow and this is a long video so it loads in less time here at home.




Corin and Andrew singing about catching a fish alive. This is a cute song about counting.




Equal time for the girls here are Cora, Miruna, and Ramona doing the same song.




And last but not least the Itsy-Bitsy Spider song. Featuring Ingrid (or Vivianna), Sara, and Vivianna (or Ingrid). Lol ok so they are hard to tell apart.

Around Bucharest

Here is a view down Unirii Boulevard looking at the Palace of Parliament. This is the building that Ceausecu built at the end of his time. The parliament not meets there. It is the second largest building as far as square feet in the world. The largest is the Pentagon. This area of Bucharest was the old part and was full of old buildings and churches before Ceausecu decided he needed to build a huge building to house the government and also build a boulevard to rival the champ elisee in Paris. So Unirii Blvd. is a little longer and a little wider that the one in Paris. All of the buildings in this view were built at the same time as the People's House (which is another name for the building)

The fountains on Unirii Blvd represent each of the counties here in Romania. This is a view of the largest, which is for Bucharest.
I thought this one was interesting because you can see this kind of thing all over Bucharest. New buildings right next to old ones. So here is a new office complex right next to two old and run down buildings. One of the people I have met here said one of the problems with fixing up the buildings is that the ownership of many of them is in dispute. When the communists took over they took control of all the buildings, the state owned everything. Now that the communists are gone there are many cases in court as to who the buildings belong to. So no one will invest to fix them up until all of that is cleared up. Anyway I thought this was an interesting view.

Back in Bucharest

Hello all, I am back on the internet after a week. I stayed at a nice home in Bucharest but there was no internet access so of course no posts. Here is Jiji again, this time going to school with some new friends in Bucharest. They attend a school called Discover-me. It is a private school in Bucharest. We would call it a pre-school but here they call it Kindergarden or Gradinita. The students range in age from 3 to 7. In Romania they start 1st grade at 7. These students learn for part of each day in English. We sang some songs and had some fun. Jiji enjoyed it too.
I also have gotten in some sightseeing while I am here also. This is the Arch of Triumph near Herastrau park in Bucharest. This picture is taken right at sunset, the lights had just come on and I thought it gave it a nice look. Although the rain has continued in Roman, and the flooding in that part of the country, here in Bucharest, except for a few thunderstorms, the weather has been nice. Talk to you all later.

A monastery and a castle

Just outside the city of Roman there is a monastery and a castle. The castle was built by a family the family that owns the land. They built the castle in 1880 to replace the house that they had used. They also built a church for the family to use. The church became a monastery. My hosts for the day took me to this place and we had a wonderful time. We ate lunch at the monastery and had the food that they serve to the monks and nuns. The food was vegetarian and it was explained that no meat has been eaten at this monastery for more than 300 years. The food as excellent, especially since it all was picked from the monastery's garden. The head nun, who runs the place sat with us as we ate and talked a little about the history of the place and how it was run. After lunch another nun took us on a tour of the monastery and castle. What an amazing place. We not only went into the big church but also the winter church (because the big church is too cold in the winter for services) but we were able to see them actually painting the inside of the winter church. What a beautiful place. Now you are asking, "Why no pictures?" right? Well my hosts took a video and will give me a copy so then I will share it with you. After the two churches we were allowed to go inside the work areas and see where the nuns sew and knit and paint eggs and also paint the icons for the church. What an amazing insight into the daily running of a monastery. After the monastery we visited the castle. It was used for many years as a home for abandoned children. The inside is pretty run down but still with a little imagination you can visualize what a beautiful place it was. What an amazing afternoon I had today. I hope you that read this can have half as nice a day as I had today.

See ya

Around the countryside

As I have said it is raining here. A lot. This is a picture of a dam at Piatra Neamt. There is so much water in the lake that they are having to let water out to prevent it from overflowing. We were having lunch at a restaurant called the Housewives Club. The food was excellent, and they view was fantastic.

We took the telegondola up to the top of one of the mountains surrounding Piatra Neamt. While we were going up I snapped a picture out the front and managed to catch this picture. The nice woman in this picture is my generous and giving host Sorina Danciu. She has taken care of me and made sure that everything I need, I have. On this ride up the mountain our car and one other car were the only one with riders. Sorina, Constantine, and I were in this one and we noticed one with people coming down. So it was like they were running it just for us. When we got to the top where the view is stupendous we could only see the clouds that we were in. As I said it is raining here. A lot.

Singing

Here is my great class of singers. These guys love to sing songs and recite poetry. This song is the good morning song and they are singing it in Romanian and English. Enjoy.

Reading and eating

Here are two pictures of the students in my late morning class. They are reading from a Reader's Theater book. This group is reading Little Red Riding Hood. It is one way to get them to actually use the English that they do know.

These guys are reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They thought it would be cool to be in a group together until they realized that the story had a mom and a grandmother and of course Goldilocks. But they were troopers and managed to get through it.
And last here is what I had for dinner the other night. It is called Clatite Oscar and is the specialty of the house at the Hotel Roman. It was very good. Too bad I ate it all and did not save any to share with you. By the way it continues to rain here, they are all asking what happened to the summer. In the week before I arrived it was hot, since i have gotten here it is raining. Talk with you all later.

Mark