Eurojournal - 27 June 2006

Been in Kolozsvar for two days now. Beginning to recover from jet-lag, homesickness and culture shock. Kolozsvar is larger than expected but very charming. The views from our “window” in our dorm are amazing. We are in a dorm on the top floor of the Unitarian high school. The window is on the roof so we can open it and pop our heads out and see the whole city. It’s breathtaking.

Yesterday was challenging as the people in the town speak Romanian. Technically Romanian is easier to learn than Hungarian. However I was just getting a few words in Hungarian down, like thank you (koszonom). We found a supermarket on our street. That was an experience! We did find vegan food (soymilk, muesli, fresh fruits and veggies and bread). We also found a place that sold smoothies and fresh squeezed juices. Yum! And the worker knew English. I learned how to work with the currency from him. Later we napped for a few hours. Afterwards we foraged for dinner and checked out the skatepark and language school. We found a few places with veggie burgers and I ordered in Romanian. We spent some time at the Central Park which was really nice. We saw a horse drawn buggy and Byron found a tree with which we were not familiar.

Today we relaxed while James and Byron went to language school. Luna, Liam and I did some weaving and coloring. We napped for the afternoon. James and Byron are back. Liam spent some time studying Hungarian with the CD Rom. We are going to look into the internet café across the street and forage for dinner.

It is interesting to watch the children adapt. Luna says “Hallo” to everyone she meets mimicking those we met in Budapest. Byron has been motivated to learn Hungarian, so much that he is taking 5 days of Hungarian intensives with James at the language school. Liam wanted to go with James and Byron this morning for language school. He loves the number two (ket) and four (negy).