Day 4

It's a new day it Iasi! The plan was to go explore the city but we woke up to Jessi sick. She must have gotten food poisoning or something to that effect. We still ended up going, just a little later than expected. Two boys from the branch, Mihai and Patru as well as Mihai's sister Monica toured us around. We visited a couple different places, the Culture Palace which is usually an art and science museum. It was closed for renovation like many of the cultural sites in Iasi.

Mihai is very informative, while Patru is quite the character. He makes fun of us often but gives us lots of good laughs also. He helps us with Romanian while we help him with his english. He speaks fluent Spanish but when we ask how he

knows it he says "is secret". A saying that Patru says quite often is "asta-i viaţa" or "this is life"... it basically translates to be like "so it goes" "what else would you expect" or "that's life".... he says it after almost anything though. Mihai and his

sister were talking about how most European designers were "trash" or scummy people.Patru would then declare. "This is life!".

Iasi is a very old city with lots of very old buildings. This is a church that was built back in the 1400's! There was a wedding there today. Just today we saw 3 wedding

processions. One was a gypsie

wedding which was pretty cool to see.

One of the churches we went to was very pretty and we were able to watch a service inside.

The majority of Romanian churches are for the Orthadox church which formed at the same time as the catholic. After the Apostles died, there was a split between the Vatican and Constantinople

regarding how the Christian church should be run. The Vatican thought that there should be one supreme leader while Constantinople thought that all clergy should be equal. Ultimately both church leaders excommunicated the other. One became the first pope of Catholicism, the other a

patriarch for the Orthadox church.

Outside of the chapel there was a room that was lined on adjacent sides with pools of water. One represents the living and one represents the dead. Orthodox followers light incense candles

and place in the water and offer prayers for the living or the dead. Because of all the old incense and wax that is sitting at the bottom of the pool, the incense can stand upright. The many little lit candles look really pretty reflecting in the water.

Unfortunately, I can only take pictures of the outside of buildings, Romania seems to have a lot of restrictions and rules regarding photography. Petru is continually calling us paparazzi.

Well that is all for today... all of my commentary is here on my blog but there are a few more pictures on my facebook in the album "Este Viata". Here is one for picture for kicks and giggles... a nun texting!! Keep it fresh and I will catch you on the flip side.