Journey to Romania

Whew.. what a journey.. no fire trucks awaiting my arrival like last time but eventful nevertheless! Trish, Hannah, and Emily helped me get my luggage (2 49.5 pound checked bags and 1 30+ pound carry on PLUS my backpack with laptop, camera, etc.) into McGhee Tyson Airport around 1pm on Friday. We had to move just a few things around in the checked baggage and stick some things into my carry on to make the weight limit but we did it! I then had a 2 hour wait in the smallest airport in America (not sure if it is really the smallest but it sure feels like it when you have 2 hours to spare)!
The flight itself was uneventful.. I landed in Detroit on time and had exactly 1 hour to get off the plane, find the new gate, get on the new plane, and take-off! When I saw that I had an hour I thought it would be fine -- wasn;t thinking about the fact that you normally board at least 30 minutes before the take off time that is printed on the ticket! Of course we landed at one end of the Detroit Metro airport and my flight to Amsterdam was boarding at the other end of the airport! LOL But I made it fine... I finally made it to the gate after half-running only to find a HUGE line of people AND TSA doing a spot check by pulling people out of line!! LOL I just sat down and waited for the line to go down and watched the TSA officers search people's bags and bodies.
The flight to Amsterdam was long... long... long... we left Detroit around 7pm (too early to sleep) and there were too many distractions on the plane to read (can you believe I couldn't read?!). I tried to watch 3 different movies -- Duplicity (too slow of a start), The Reader (too lovey dovey), Benjamin Button (I was just too distracted -- the man across the aisle from me smelled horribly of body odor and talked the whole time!)... finally I watched a 30 minute segment of Law and Order LOL... tried to read... ate dinner (nasty chicken, potatoes, and green beans -- US AIR has FABULOUS food compared to Northwest!!). Tried to read again... tried to play a game.. I was so antsy, had a headache, then my stomach started hurting.. not sure if it was stress or what but I just couldn't get settled -- no sleep on this portion of the journey! Landed in Amsterdam around 12am EST... once again I had one hour exactly until the plane left... basically 30 minutes to board. This was my first experience in the Amsterdam airport and I must say I was NOT impressed... it is HUGE and there were people EVERYWHERE.. lots of trash falling out of trashcans... Frankfort and Zurich were both so much nicer! Once again I finally made it to the gate after full out running only to find an ever HUGER (yes I know that isn't a word) line of people AND find a security check in place here also. Finally I was on an over-stuffed plane heading to Bucharest (still not sure how so many people are going to same places I am going LOL)!
So there I was on this HOT plane filled with people feeling horribly sick to my stomach and trying to figure out how on earth I was going to get my 300 pound luggage onto the train once I arrived in Romania. Having had no sleep for almost 24 hours!! Those of you who know me know that I need at least 9 hours a night to function.. 10 hours to actually be nice to other people! :-)
Finally arrived in Bucharest... the nice man at Passport Control didn;t even speak to me - just looked at my passport and stamped it (which was wonderful! I always feel guilty (for no reason) when I talk to Passport Control LOL). Two nice gentlemen were passing out luggage carts as I got to the baggage claim -- my bags popped right out with only one looking a little worse for the wear... I loaded them on the luggage cart and headed out to meet Dan, Mihaela's husband and our team leader for this 3 weeks. Turns out I was one of the last volunteers to arrive so we only had to wait about 45 minutes for the others to arrive. Dan had hired a large tour bus to bring us to Tutova so I worried about the train for nothing and one of the lovely volunteers gave me Advil since mine was in the bottom of one of my bags and I didn't want to empty the bag to get the meds!
We loaded our luggage on the bus and headed for Tutova. I was able to sleep for about 20 minutes before we stopped at McDonald's for dinner. After a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke light I almost felt like my old self again! LOL .. Okay not really! We made it to Tutova around 9pm local time -- which is 2 pm EST.. I think the not sleeping for 24+ hours worked out well because when I went to bed at 10:15 local time I was able to sleep through the night and am already acclimated to Romanian time.. I have felt great today!
We are a team of 19.. we think we are team number 137 (Dan is going to double check and let us know). Two members of our team got sick on arrival (stomach virus we think).. they are staying overnight in Bucharest and will hopefully be here by tomorrow night. we are a mixed group but all American -- our youngest member is 16 years old and our oldest -- well who knows?? one member mentioned her 61st birthday is this month! So we have a large age range. Today we did our team building exercises and got to know one another a little better. I think it is going to be an interesting team!
This morning after breakfast 2 previous volunteers and I snuck over to the clinic to see the babies for a while!! It was great! We had all of the babies in the non-mobile playroom! LOL Of course Ema-Elena is the first baby I visited -- she was in her crib crying.. she was soaked with sweat (she is a hot blooded little baby!! LOL)... Unfortunately she didn't stop crying when I picked her up.. I spent most of my time this morning holding her and trying to visit with the other babies at the same time... I have some of those lightweight dresses in the clothing I brought so I am going to try my best to get her dressed in those as much as possible!
We came back to the hotel for lunch and more meetings THEN we got to go back and see the babies again!! YIPEE!! Ema was like a different baby... very relaxed and didn't cry at all! How weird is that?! I am hoping that it is the seizure medicine that she is taking now (maybe they give it to her around noon?!?).. at any rate she was a much happier baby this afternoon! I haven't taken any pictures of the babies yet.. shocking I know! Not sure if I will get pictures tomorrow or not.. trying to take it slow and enjoy rather than shooting pics constantly... don't worry though you know I will be sending you guys tons of pics!! :-)
Take care.. more baby updates tomorrow!!