Whilst I am currently in laid up in hospital, I figured it would be a good time to do some blogging...since I am currently unable to concentrate on anything else, such as my academic university work - which due to being poorly I am now behind on.

Anyway...

In January I went to Romania, for the third time, in order to undertake a study for my linguistics dissertation on the affects of gender on SLA. It was my first ever solo flight! In which I drove myself to the airport, navigated my way through the airport on my own, and even survived the flight without panicking too much! It was scary flying alone, and it landed on snow!! However, I am glad that I did it, and I feel more confident to do so again in the future.

I arrived in Romania when it was Unification day, a special holiday, which was further extended to Tuesday meaning that the children and teachers had to attend school on a Saturday to make up for the lost day! I stayed in Bacau Romania, which was so so soooo cold, I thought England was cold in winter but Romania is much colder. I was fortunate enough to be put up by the lovely Ina - who is so kind and caring and such a passionate and inspirational EFL teacher! I also met another lovely lady called Cathy, who was kind enough to take me out of an evening - and we had many funny adventures!!

I went to a Romanian school, which was so different to ours back in the UK - but it was a great experience! I also visited Ina's very own English language centre, which was so lovely! I really enjoyed being in the centre and getting to work with the children - I felt famous because they were all so excited to see an English person haha! Bless them!

When I was not in a school environment, I managed to have a few trips:


We went to Iasi one weekend to visit the stunningly beautiful palace, and the huge shopping mall!!





Myself, Cathy, her husband and their friends all went to a traditional Romanian restaurant, where I tried Borscht and sarmale - I like the borscht but sarmale, not so much. It was in the most beautiful setting, within a snowy forest! It was exactly like Christmas all over again - but a traditional Christmas with snow, wreaths, candles, wooden beams! There was also two small stray dogs out side of the restaurant, which being a dog lover I found to be very sad! The fluffy one was ever so cute! Cathy's husband gave the dogs some dog food from their car, as they own two lovely dogs.



One evening, after working in Ina's language centre myself and Cathy went on a walk around Bacau. We walked to the local park which had a beautiful cathedral and even an ice skating rink! I could not believe just how much snow there was! In England we don't get much snow at all and even if we do get any it is a tiny blanket of snow which does not settle.  That evening we also went to a cinema - which to my surprise all the films were in English, with Romanian subtitles. We watched Collateral Beauty, which was a fantastic film!! Myself and Cathy both love Keira Knightley's films so it was wonderful to watch!



I had such a lovely time in Romania with Cathy and Ina! Unfortunately, on my return home I found out that my Nanna had passed away - which was awful since only 8 weeks previously we lost my Grandad.