The first 6 weeks or so have felt crazy busy we feel like we haven’t stopped! Since arriving in Bucharest for a conference, spending a couple of weeks in Oradea at Leanne’s while looking for our own apartment, before heading off for a week and a bit in Spain, and in between all of that going back and forth to Budapest twice to sort out our visa and for a church concert…it has felt just a little hectic!
We are finally set up in our own apartment now, which has been so nice to feel like we have a home. We are in a good location for work and groceries; there is a tram stop right outside the building which makes it pretty handy to get around, even though there is only one tram line for the city!
It’s a cosy space with a lounge room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. And it was renovated just before we moved in so it has more of a modern feel than the eastern European flair (purple and orange walls) that other places we saw had for the same price.
It’s a cosy space with a lounge room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. And it was renovated just before we moved in so it has more of a modern feel than the eastern European flair (purple and orange walls) that other places we saw had for the same price.
We're loving that a 5 minute walk gets us to a market where we can get our fresh fruit and veggies from local farmers. It’s the start of summer here (like December in Aus) and the last 16 days have been constantly hot. Every day has been at least 31 degrees except for 2 (28 degrees) and we’ve had a couple of 35 degree days lately, unfortunately there is no beach around to help cool us down. Some new friends have lent us a fan and that has helped a lot!
So…. the language has been difficult. Just going to get a few groceries takes at least an hour by the time we translate everything and choose from all the brands that we have no idea which are ok and which are not! However, we are learning…the other day Shell ordered 3 coffee’s with sugar entirely in Romanian, even for a Romanian! Tim even ordered a pizza over the phone and got it delivered to our apartment, all in Romanian – it actually arrived in time and was what we ordered! Our language tutor says she has high hopes that Tim will pass for Romanian in a couple of months…no mention of Shell’s fluency tho :/….
We had our first Romanian water problem this week, we turned on our hot water to wash some dishes and it was all brown!!! We asked the couple we had over for dinner about it and they said that someone is probably ‘working on the pipes’ and that it happens a bit, “don’t worry you should get it back in a day or so.” Only one time they had been without it for a month….when I asked if you can shower in it they said it, “depends how desperate you are for a shower”!! Haha, so that was an adventure, but our water was back the next day (clear) so that was all good!