Saturday Aug 8

If a baby cries it doesn't matter if you are already carrying one to them! That is why you have 2 arms!




Babies everywhere!

Today was our day to sleep in. We were not expected at the clinic and we hadn't made any other definite plans. But I was awake at 6 AM all slept out. At 6:30 we got the hear a pounding on the door next to us and "Trent" being yelled. Turns out he missed his alarm and got a "gentle" wake up call from Miheala. I tried to fall back asleep but it would not come so I got up and played on the computer. At 8 am we finally went down to breakfast and the 5 of us that stayed behind decided to go over to the clinic and help with the morning. We got there and the "good" nurse was there- Valli. She is always working with the kids and pushing them to do what needs to be done to get caught up. We decided to play a little zone defense and split into 2 rooms with the kids. Two adults per room and a "floater." We got the bottles fed and cereals given and then it was play time. And a wonderful game for us adults- "who has the smelly diaper?" After changing a few kids we managed to keep all of them mostly happy. The toddlers escaped down the hall and were soon rounded up. We gave the kids their snacks and soon it was time to give them their noon bottles. We had managed to keep all of the babies awake until about half of them petered out and fell asleep about 10 minutes before diaper change time! After giving them all bottles and good night kisses we put them down for naps and walked back to the hotel. Amy and I had checked out the bus schedule to Barlad to meet up with our last year's country leader Ciprian. We were going to meet him after we caught the 1 PM bus but during the weekends we get to order off the menu. That takes a bit longer to do. We decided to catch the 3:15 bus. The rest of the group was going to ride in with us but Delta and Trevor stayed behind to take a nap. Alex came along. We were standing at the bus stop getting a little worried because the bus was late. A "local" girl came and was standing there as well. We felt a little better. We rode the bus into Barlad and then we were unsure where to get off. I knew where we wanted to end up and as we were getting closer to our destination I figured I would ask her where we got off. I told her we wanted the Occident hotel and she said "this is the stop"- as we were pulling away. She said something to the bus driver and he said something back- I am not sure what because it had nothing to do with dirty diapers or bottles- about the gist of my Romanian. The next thing she said was "englishers" Which caused the whole bus to turn and chuckle at us. Apparently the bus driver then told Amy we should have told him that when we got on the bus! But no worries we got there and it was a $1 to ride it.
We met up with Ciprain and he took us to the Public Garden. He tried to take our group there last year but it was a hot day and many of the group were too tired to go. We walked the whole length again and caught up on our lives. We stopped in the Barlad Zoo. It cost 1 Lei (33 cents) to get in. It was so worth every penny! LOL The marine exhibit was smaller than a fish display at a pet store in the States. We then walked around and saw an ostrich, goats, two bears, and Parakeets. We got to the Tiger exhibit and there were 3 tigers, all in separate cages and it was just that- cages. There was a "barricade" to keep people away from the cages. It came up to my shins. We then moved a bit further down and got to the lions in their cages. They apparently ran out of money when they were building those barricades because the entire corner was not barricaded off. And the best part of it was that the cages were rebar. The rebar was loose- Amy was about to put her arm into the cage for a wonderful photo op and Chip yelled at her. Seriously- does he not know a great picture when it is smack dab in front of him! We vowed to come the next day to reenact the photo. As we walked farther we came across about 5 dogs in separate cages. They were caged and chicken wired around the cage. We saw some sort of rat-like creature as well. Amy thought they reminded her of a scene in The Princess Bride. There were cages full of guinea pigs, rabbits, and Siamese cats too.

We sat on a bench and people watched and talked. Chip gave us the low-down on what guys are thinking and how to "convince" them to make changes in their lives. After some confusion as to whether Chip's pants were appropriate for dinner (Amy asked if he had plans for dinner, he heard "pants" for dinner) we started walking to someplace for dinner. But first we had to stop and get ice cream- it was along the way. We went to the Hotel Premiere for dinner. The food was good. Amy and I ordered chicken and ratatouille style vegetable on a hot plate. The food came in a 9x13 sized pan with a baking stone that was sizzling! It was good but we broke out in a sweat eating it. Chip had his glass of beer by my pan and it warmed it up. We ordered the premiere dessert with no idea as to what it was and it turned out to be ice cream as well. Happy day- Ice cream twice in 4 hours. We sat and talked and caught up some more. It was good to talk to him again. I missed his insight into what is what. After a 3 1/2 hour dinner we figured it was time to get going. Alex was quite bored! We talked about going back into Barlad the next day and Chip put us in a cab and sent us on our way.

Our fantastic dinner still sizzling

Amy with the Premiere Dessert.

Notice the redness in her face- it was caused by the dinner.