ya'll come in and set a spell.

yesterday was saturday. (obviously.) so it was a nice little break from our normal day's work.
i was going to sleep in. i woke up at 7am instead. my family is probably laughing right now. but yep, this is still me. i don't understand it either. i woke up sick as well (boo!) but what is there to do? not much. in the late morning the roomies and me took a little trip to g market and the piața. (open market. you should probably know that by now.) they were buying fruit at the market. i bought flowers. obviously that's a completely rational thing to do. i'm in love with the sellers at the market. especially the flower ones. they're so nice. and practically shoving flowers in your face for you to smell them. and the other lady buying flowers from the same person as me was giving me advice about them. it was sweet. so i ended up with the most beautiful peonies and chrysanthemums you ever did see. in my opinion, anyways. see here.
and then at g market we bought water, as usual. we go through so much it's not even funny. not being able to drink tap water is a pain in the rear. but we're still alive. so it's a fair trade off, i suppose. and i bought some chocolate and apple juice. first of all, i haven't bought chocolate in a few days now, which is a big deal. romania is making bank on the chocolate sales to our group. ha. and i bought apple juice! which i seriously drink like it's my day job. i'm addicted. essentially, the juices here are the bomb dot com. suc de mere. mmmm. love.
then we went to the english classes that the missionaries teach. which was slightly helpful in learning a bit of romanian. and made me glad i don't have to learn english. and then it was roam romania time! oh the adventures we have. member how i woke up sick? that made the roaming less fun than it could have been. but i still enjoyed it. mostly because i'm starting to see how all the streets eventually connect to one another. it's neat. but not as neat as utah's block system. i've been missing those blocked streets. and naturally this adventure resulted in a million more pictures. naturally.

the rules of wandering.

1. if you want to stop, stop.

2. exception: unless it's in the middle of the road.

3. always have your camera ready.

4. always take the road less traveled.

5. exception: unless that road is a creepy alley filled with killers.

6. look up!

7. exception: make sure you don't trip and break your foot on the broken apart sidewalks and roads.

the metropolitan. aka, the biggest romanian orthodox church in romania. right in our front yard. relatively speaking, that is.

 looks greek, yeah?

halfway house? haaaa. or something.

 university of medicine.

mihai was practicing his gangsta face.

 i wanted a picture of the graffiti that said a beautiful mess. and these men thought i was psychoooo.

that's all i'll say about that. ha. hahahahahaa. see photo. ha.

 view of romania from the top floor/restaurant in hotel unirea. no, we didn't eat there. just showed up for the view of iași.

welp. seeing as my birthday is today, last night we went as a group to little texas! it's a restaurant/hotel that's owned by an american. aka, the only american restaurant here. and one of the most american places to be found in these parts. american food. well, texas food. texas is partially america. ha. and the menu was in english. and the waiter spoke english! and romanian, obviously. and he like to chuckle at us. and we were there for 3 hours. no big. haaaa. fun was had by all. it was hilarious. and my chicken enchiladas were just right. as was the brownie. i really want to go back and try the twice baked potatoes. i love twice baked potatoes. and some other things as well. the menu was literally 10 pages long. or more. it was a bit much. sooo we'll probably go back someday anyway. perfect. ha.
also, i apologize in advance that i look like a goon in all photos. i'm not really sure what the deal is. don't judge me, lizzie. don't you dare judge me.

 cute, i know.

i wasn't kidding when i said we laughed a lot. ha.

mandaroo and me shared nachos.

my chicken enchiladas. mmmm.

brownie!

welcome, friends.

texas and romania. weirdest, cheesiest mix ever? you betcha.