Constansa

This past week in Galati had some high and very low points. I'll start with the bad news to get it out of the way. On Wednesday, a Roma stole my iPhone. The police said it was a French technique, as she covered my phone with a flyer and asked me for money (distracting me) and then swiped my phone when she removed the flyer from the table. I was actually skyping with my parents on my ipad, and had forgotten my phone was even on the table. She was kicked out before I realized she had stolen my phone. Once I realized my phone was missing, we called the police and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at the police station writing our statements with help of a translator. Unfortunately, the "Find my iPhone" app was not activated on my phone, leaving me no idea where my phone is or could be. The police seemed very confident about finding my phone, but just in case, I had my parents deactivate my number and I erased all personal information from the phone. Though this experience was very negative, I was able to learn part of the police process and learned that apple has some really cool features you can access online without a phone. I have become even more paranoid about where my belongings are and the people around me since then. I am very glad she just took my phone, and not my wallet with my money and passport inside.

Putting the theft aside, I had a great birthday and relaxing weekend in Constansa. I celebrated my birthday on Thursday night with my friends here in Galati because Jordan and I left for Constansa early Friday, my actual birthday. Thursday night at Bankers is movie night, so we watched Some Like it Hot with Marilyn Monroe. I thought I had never seen the movie before, but once the movie was playing, I remembered watching it with my grandparents this past Christmas. It is still a great movie, and I recommend anyone to watch it if you have never seen it. Afterwards, my friends surprised me with two ice cream cakes and a present! They gave me a traditional Romanian shirt and necklace that were beautiful! To them, thank you so much again for the wonderful gifts and just coming to celebrate my birthday, it meant a lot. :)

Everyone who came to celebrate my birthday! :)

Blowing out my 23 candles on my ice cream cakes

My traditional Romanian shirt and necklace

Friday morning, Jordan and I left for Constansa. We took a bus for the 3.5 hour commute. It was very helpful to have met an English speaker on the bus who helped us find the public transportation to get to our hotel. The hotel we stayed in was actually in Mamaia which is isthmus between the Black Sea and Siutghiol Lake, just a 10 minute bus ride away from Constansa. After checking into the hotel, Jordan and I went in search of the aquarium there. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I love aquariums and thought it would be a perfect place to go on my birthday. We had a very difficult time navigating the bus routes to that section of town, and ended up taking a taxi to Ovidui Square near by the aquarium. Once there, we still had difficulties asking people how to get to the aquarium, but no one understood until we found out that Romanians call aquariums museums of fish. Eventually, we found the aquarium and this one was bigger than Galati, but still does not compare to the one's I've been to in the U.S. They didn't have some of the basic animals I've come to associate with aquariums- sharks, stingrays, or even jelly fish. The main fish on display is a Russian sturgeon which were the most interesting to look at. The only "colorful" fish they had were clown and blue tang fish (aka Nemo and Dori.) Other than those, there was not a lot of interesting fish that catch your eye. After the aquarium, we went to an archaeological museum and saw some Roman ruins that were near by. The archaeological museum was HUGE! There were so many things to look at, it could have taken us hours to walk through the entire thing. They had archaeological exhibits from what it seemed like every time period. We didn't have enough energy to spend many hours there, so we headed back to Mamaia after about an hour.

View of the lake from my hotel room

Beautiful Sun Set

The view we accidentally found while trying to get to the aquarium

Ovidiu's Square that was under construction

The archaeological museum

The "casino" next to the aquarium - it looked closed to us

Inside the aquarium

The aquarium

Roman Ruins

A closer look at the tiled floor

Statue of Ovidiu in front of the archaeological museum

When we got back to the hotel, we walked across the street to the beach. I've never been to the beach in Europe before and had forgotten about the accepted nudity. Needless to say, it was difficult to take pictures that were "clean," and I did not partake in the European beach "style." The Black Sea was not as cold as the ocean in California, but I didn't think it was warm. It was refreshing from the heat of the sun, but was too chilly for me if I spent too much time in the water. I liked that you are able to see the bottom when you go further into the water. I like being able to see where I'm stepping to avoid rocks, shells, or animals.The sand would have been soft and pleasant had it not been for the mass amount of broken shells that were in the mixture. I still had a good time at the beach where I mainly spent time laying on the sand reading a book. I deemed this beach trip an extra success because I didn't get sun burned!

For my birthday dinner, Jordan and I found this restaurant right on the beach that was perfect because of the great view and various choices of food on the menu. I found out that they don't give free birthday desserts like in the States, I asked and was given a strange look from the waiter. But it was okay because they had margaritas! Those are my favorite drinks at home, and this was the first time I had seen them on the drink menu. I was nervous after ordering the drink that it would be different than margaritas I'm used to in the U.S. (after all "smoothies" in Romania are thought of as mere fruit juice), but it was exactly like margaritas in the U.S., and was happy to have found one on my birthday. :)

Saturday, we spent some time exploring Constansa and tried to see Monsters University, but the time we were at the theater was a Romanian showing, not English. Instead of the movie, we just headed back to the beach in Mamaia and spent the afternoon there laying on the beach. For dinner we went to a more touristy part of Mamaia, and found a restaurant with many different types of food with a good view of the boardwalk for people watching. There were tons of people walking around playing some carnival games, making this area a great spot to watch other tourists.

After we had dinner, we met up with a friend from Galati at the main mall in Constansa for a Latin dance show, followed by going to a salsa dancing club. I love watching dance shows, so it was great to see one live at the mall. Since the talking was all in Romanian, I wasn't sure if they were just performing of if they were competing for something. Some of them got medals, but others didn't. I'm not sure what I watched, but enjoyed watching the dances. One of the most interesting dances was this guy who was a belly dancer. I don't think I've seen a guy belly dancer before. He was wearing a bright green outfit that had sequins around the hips to show off every move he made. I remember thinking that it was interesting how he moved his hips better than almost any woman I've ever seen, and that when he turned around, from the back, he looked like a woman. I was very confused for most of the performance because he was trying to be seductive, but I thought all of his moves were very feminine making him look more like a girl. Following his performance, there were two guys that I think were from South America with extremely deep V cut shirts and tight pants. I had no idea what their dance was called, I just remember them shimming.. A LOT. Watching the dance show put me in the mood to dance at the salsa club. I thought my previous experience at a Latin club would help me, but it did not. A guy asked me to dance, and after telling him I wasn't very good/ didn't know how to salsa dance, he insisted it was okay- he would help me. I think he underestimated my lack of salsa dance skills and knowledge of the dance because when we were done dancing he told me I desperately need to take lessons when I get back to the States. I only danced one more dance with our friend, and he was more helpful in telling me directions of what to do in the dance. With more instruction, I did much better and had my confidence restored.

I left Constansa early Sunday morning to get things ready for my trip to Germany this week! I'm very excited to spend 5 days in Munich with Jordan and our classmate, Ellyn, who is interning in Montenegro. The weather should be a lot cooler, and there is lots to see!

Until next time!