(My blog has been glitching a lot and I dont know why so excuse the random fonts and messed up layout.. I cant seem to fix them) So the picnic was a great turn out: there were probably 30 or so people there. It was about an hour walk.. we walked out into the country. It was SUCH a gorgeous day and were all were in high spirits. The landscape was so gorgeous and the company was amazing. I am starting to really love the people here.. they come from such different backgrounds and have such interesting viewpoints and opinions. There are a ton of trees on the walk and it reminded me of home in Lexington. The forest was SO green that in all my pictures it looks like I boosted the color saturation in Photoshop or something. When all of us got to our destination we set up camp; some chatted it up for a bit, others kicked around the soccer ball (or football). We were on the side of this little highway and there were no buildings in sight. The road was straight and we would see Bullet bikes just tear by going easily over 100 mph (no speed limits are enforced)..ah looked so fun. Where is Brad and the R6 when you need them? ;) Dinner consisted of fruit salad, Pizza (Romanian style with lots of ham and olives), these viva treats that were like chocolate cereal with real chocolate inside.. fresh nectarines and orange fanta. Megan and I were sitting on a blanket with the Sister missionaries and two of their “friends” that they brought. Their friends/ investigators were these two Romanian girls named Ionica and Maria. Ionica spoke very good English and said that she was a dancer. She said that she loved all types of “artistic dance” like the tango and salsa. Below: Jessie kicking the ball! Left to right: Jessie, Monica, Arelia (in Germany jersey), Mihai
It was interesting, as we kept talking she tried to guess Megan and my age. She thought that we were 22! Nice. She was saying that we seemed really old for our age compared to European girls (don’t know if that is a good thing or bad thing haha!). She was also saying that we were really friendly.. she was saying that in Romania people are not very friendly because they are not easily trusting. She said because they were communist and then socialist, they have had mistrust ingrained in their minds since childhood to the point that it has become part of the culture. We have definitely noticed a sense of mistrust and just general unfriendliness. Arelia asked us what we thought of the people in the branch. We said we thought they were really friendly and it was nice to know that we had friends in Romania (they really befriend the girls from BYU that come every semester). She is from a different country and has darker skin. Usually people with darker skin are from Hungary or gypsie background. She was saying that because of this she is shunned a lot by the Romanian people. She is a really cool girl and seems to have a lot of really interesting insights and experiences. It is great to see that even though people like her have been through a lot, they can maintain their sense of humor.
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Just hanging out.. Arelia is in the BYU t shirt and Jenima is in sunglasses (I dont know how to spell her name!) She is so amazing. She speaks very good english and always has her ipod earbuds threaded through her shirt and poking out her collar. Whenever you ask her what she is listening to she always just says "nothing!" She told megan she was saving the battery haha then why carry it around?
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