First Impressions

Hey all! I am excited to share with you my summer experience living in Galati, Romania for my summer internship at SMART. I am currently completing my internship requirement in between my first and second year at Pepperdine School of Public Policy (SPP). I have been in Galati for almost 2 days now, and I can already tell this summer will be one of the most unique summers of my life. 

First, traveling here was quite the adventure. I flew from Phoenix, and had lay overs in Chicago and London. On the 8 hour plane ride to London, I ended up getting sick from something, I'm not sure what. Whatever made my stomach upset, plagued me for my 6 hour lay over in London; therefore, I was not able to do too much more than communicate with my family and friends I had made it safe to Europe.

With all that aside, I finally made it to Romania late Friday night (05/10/13) where Radu, my boss and SPP alumni, and Jordan, fellow SPP intern, were waiting to pick me up. Luckily, all my bags made it safely making my life easier to not have to drive back the 3 hours it takes to drive from Galati to Bucharest.

On the drive from the airport to Galati, Radu took Jordan and me around to see the major government buildings in Bucharest. They are very impressive. The parliament building is the second largest administrative building in the world (after the pentagon), with most of the building being underground. I think this was the most impressive building I have seen so far on my trip. The rest of the drive to Galati was used to ask Radu questions and learn more about Romania.We could only travel on the highway for half of the way, and the rest is similar to driving across Texas, where there is a two lane road that goes through small towns. I was able to see more of the stray dogs I had been warned about in the smaller towns. As we were driving through, some dogs chased after the car, and Radu added that a lot of times they have a stand off with cars because they feel like the car is in their territory. Of course this leads to many dogs getting hit by cars, and many cars having pretty good damage from the large dogs. I certainly don't want to be in the car when a dog is hit.

That said, the driving here in Romania is crazy! People drive really fast and drive/park anywhere... Literally ANYWHERE. They drive on sidewalks, park on sidewalks, and have no concept of spacing between other cars and pedestrians. I was also shocked to find out, there are many vehicles that do not have seat-belts, leaving me wary to travel with anyone other than Radu. Most streets are very narrow, mainly due to cars parked every-which way on either side, but there is definitely no pattern or layout of a grid street system like in Arizona.

As for the weather, I am happy to find it is similar to what I'm use to in California and Arizona with dry heat and a light breeze during the day with cooler nights. The best place I like to be in Galati so far has been by the river that runs by our current apartment, called the Danube. Jordan and I want to explore the areas by the Danube more, including riding the ferry across to learn what is on the other side. We are also hoping to relocate to a two-bedroom apartment along the Danube for a more beautiful view of Galati.

So far, I have met a few of Radu's friends who have been kind enough to cook us lunch the past two days. They mostly speak to each other in Romanian and then relay jokes and such in English to Jordan and me after they can stop laughing. It can be awkward at times because Jordan and I have no idea what's going on and even when we do, their jokes are sometimes not as funny to us, but jokes are always lame when they have to be explained no matter what language. Despite the slight language barrier, they are very nice people and have become like family here in Romania. One has even decided to adopt us as her children because she has a daughter around my age and I remind her a lot of her daughter. She is my favorite of the people we have met, not only because she is like my Romanian mom, but because she is going to take me to some Zumba classes with her! My favorite!