School....EEEEEKKKKKK

Today my host sister, Oana, told me about my school. I'm scared to death now! I will be attending Colegiul National Alexandru Lahovari! For some background, my school does five subjects and switch classes three times a year. Usually get a set pick of electives.



It's very very close to our home , max. 5 minutes of  walking . It's one of the best highschools in town . The teachers are very nice and warm , although there are some exceptions which are very severe . I am sure you will be very wellcome and you will also make a lot of friends . 

About the school program.. It's a lot different from the American school . We have 16 subjects : mathematics , Romanian  , English , French or German , physics , chemistry , computers and  TIC (tehnologia informatiei si a comunicarii - The technology of information and comunication )  , music and drawing ( I think we have this 2 until the 11th grade ) , physical education , history , geography , biology , religion and social science . You might think it will be hard with so many subjects but I assure you it won't because you'll have maximum 6 hours a day and some subjects are not even seriously treated . You'll have school in the early morning , frrom about 7.30 am to about 1.30 pm . It's a good thing because you'll have all the day free to do everything you want . 

I'm glad about some of this because I need certain classes to graduate like English, TIC, physical education, and French. Other than those I'm scared. I did just take biology this year and I got an A! Religion is another subject of worry because I'm atheist. I'm not the strong kind that says that I don't believe in god, I'm more of an undecided. I know some stories about religion, but I don't know that much because I wasn't raised around that stuff. History, if it's European History, isn't a huge problem I took AP Euro here, and I'm still awaiting my test scores! Another scary thought is my arrival date. Rotary would like me to arrive in Bucharest between September 1 through tenth. I've been contacting my host family about it, and nothing has been decided, but what if it is the tenth. School starts on September 12th! I will only have TWO days of learning Romanian. Granted, I'm trying right now to learn but it's going at a very slow pace. The grammar confuses me and just how they phrase things. 

 

 Yay for pictures!
 şcoală = school

New update on the host fam :)

      So today my country contact got me all the paperwork, including the guarentee form! Now it's all official that I'm going and I'm so happy. Things that weren't covered in the email were I will have a host father named Claudiu and a host mother Daniela! They each own their own business, but thats all that I have gotten about them. My counselor in Romania will be Dinu Constantinescu! Now I have no idea how to pronounce any of these names! My counselors email is very long: cabacdinuconstantinescu is the beginning part of his email! I got some pictures from  my host family. Cohiba is so adorable, and FLUFFY! Their flat is extremely beautiful!

Cohiba is just too cute!
dragut = cute

HOST FAMILY

      Today has been a wonderful day! I discovered my host town and host family! My host sister, Oana, emailed me although she is going to be an exchange student to the US! Here is the email!

Hi Carli ! 

My name is Oana Chariton . My parents will be your first host family next year . I'm not going to be here when you come because I'm going to the US as an exchange student , too . 

Today we got your application . You're going to stay in Ramnicu-Valcea , a small town according to Romanian limits . It has about 120 000 inhabitants . We are living in a 4-rooms flat pretty close to the center of the town . I don't know the school you will be going to but it's sure one of the best highschools in the town . All the exchange students went either to Colegiul National Alexandru Lahovari which is 5 minutes walking away from home or to Colegiul National Mircea cel Batran which is about 100 meters away from the other highschool , so neither of them is far from home. You are going to stay in my room , which is not too big . I would send you a picture of it but it's kinda messy now. We have a fish tank and a dog . It's a havanese bichon named Cohiba . He is 2 years old , but it's very very frisky . I saw in your application that you like to play the piano ! I'm very glad to hear this because we have a piano in out flat . My father likes to play the piano , too . I think you and my father will get along very well ! You seem to have a lot in common ! I don't know what else to tell you , but if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me . 

I'd love to hear more about you . What do you like to do, how do you usually spend your free time?

Take care and hope you will like it here! 

First of all, three people have told me that Ramnicu-Valcea is a small town. I live in a town with a total of 20,000 people, Ramnicu-Valcea is about five times bigger! Another funny thing is that I haven't actually learned how to pronounce it! My friends and I call it RV! A new thing for me will be the flat, I have always live in a large house in a suburb. I'm glad to experience more city living and not having as much space! It was rather comforting to hear that she is also not amazingly tidy, because the last thing I am is tidy. I will definitely try to keep clean, but I need to work on my organization skills! I am SOOOO excited to have a dog, as you know I have two dogs and two cats. It will be nice to have a dog while there. A dog will always love you, and it won't expect me to speak Romanian to it! I'm excited that they have a piano, it's such a big part of my life and it's comforting to know that when I'm feeling homesick I can just go and play away! It's also nice to know that me and my host father will have something in common!

Pictures of Ramnicu-Valcea

Now I know I said that I loved to play piano and I tried to upload one of me playing from my computer

it didn't work

as you can probably tell

:)

Romanian word

fericit = happy

Getting to know you!

Since some of you probably don't know that much about me, I felt like I should do a post about my current life right now!

Bug

Family: I live with my mother, and we have 4 animals! Dotti and Socks are our two dogs and they are so adorable! Dotti is.....crazy and Socks is.......lazy. Then we have 2 cats. Bug and Smoki! You can just say those two hate each other, one is rather strange. Bug she loves to be held like baby Simba in the lion king!



Dotti being too adorable






On the other hand my older sister lives with my father. She at the current moment is on the adventure of a lifetime in Europe. On this side of the family my grandmother also lives in my hometown.



Life at Home: We rent out rooms to college students and other people in our community. Since we do this I definitly get my fair share of personalities! Sometimes you will get people who will sing on the deck at 2 in the morning (not so wonderful) and people who are completely awesome! Although sometimes I feel like my puppies love them more :(.......(not really, I'm their master)



Anna, Vee, Danni



Friends: I have a great friend group! One of my friends is also an exchange outbounder with me, except she's going to Sweden! I seem to be really close with her lately because we have something to talk about, and with her and my constant babbling about the exchange other friends become rather annoyed, so we really have each other to talk about the exchange with. Another friend in which she quite enjoys our constant babbling is Anna. I've known Anna since fourth grade, but she moved away in seventh grade to AUSTRALIA! She returned to us in our sophomore year in highschool, so she can relate to our excitment! Becca, the most talkative out of all of them, I met in sixth grade. She's also awesome! Whitney, I met in eighth grade, and she's a great cook! Sequoia, just joined our little group, and she's awesome! She loves to write and stuff.....

Vee, whose danni's host sister, is ADORABLE! I love her she so cute! Sadly though, she's leaving very soon. She is the inbounder from Thailand!



Summer Palace







Forbidden City



Most Memorable Experience: I feel like you can learn so much about a person if they only tell one story. My story is when I went to China about 3 years ago. It was amazing! It was for two weeks and we went to four cities. First stop Beijing, the city with crazy architecture! I went to the forbidden city on the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Sqaure, and managed to got picked up by a military person and carried across a courtyard! Second stop Xi'an, we rode old, rickety bikes on the city wall. Me and all of my friends crashed and injured ourselves. I sadly enough broke my camera :( Third stop, Guilin. The most BEAUTIFUL city on this planet. The mountain are just gorgeous, I would suggest to everybody who is going to china to go there! Last stop Shang hai the end of the journey. Where my friends bought lasers and illegaly brought them back to America! OH NO! I have criminals for friends! oh well!



Me and Danni at the Sacred Way

Fun Facts about Moi

I'm lactose intolerant

My favorite foods are Chai, Chocolate, and Cheese (rather sucks to be lactose intolerant)

I've played piano for 12 years

I love to be involved in theatre!

I love the French language!

I am smiling at you
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FAQ

Where is Romania: Romania is in Eastern Europe.

What is the language: Romanian

What is the currency: New Leu

What is the population: 21,959,278

What is the capital: Bucharest

Fun Facts

Joined the EU in 2007

The story of Dracula is set in Romania

Was communist until 1989

:D
When I leave: End of August, beginning of September

How long: One Year

Where: I'll inform you when I find out too!

What am I most excited about: The history and the culture, how their values differ from our considering communism was only 23 years ago!

What am I most scared about: The language barrier, in romania not many people speak english this sparks the thoughts of how will my relationship with the host family go, how will I make friends? So on and so forth.

The Experience Till Now

        Now who would have thought that I would be going to ROMANIA! Exciting isn't it? I'm going through Rotary Youth Exchange and leave in about 11 weeks. Now some people fail to understand is that 11 weeks is long enough to the point where you can't worry about it, but close enough that in the back of your mind you're starting to imagine. I still have no exact leave, no district, no town, and no family! Scary isn't it? Now for the experience until now...

        First, the interview. Probably the most worrying thing on the planet. Trying to be perfect every single second. In my district there were 42 candidates at first, and only 27 spots! Though it seemed nerve racking it was actually quite fun. During the interview we had a "world fair." That is where all the inbound exchange students tried to "sell" us on their country, and may I just say Poland has AMAZING CAKE. We all had two interviews, and may I say the questions were...strange. One asked what my favorite superhero was! I said batman! Now after these interviews, we all went our different ways.

         The Letter! Now this was probably the most nerve racking part. There is a certain town in a district that got them two weeks after the interview. The rest of us on the other hand had to wait a month, yeah twice as long. The day that our letter came, we all knew it was so me and my sister followed the mail lady and watched her put it into the mail box. Creepy, we know. That is when I found out I was going to Romania, and my reaction was screaming at the top of my lungs. Sadly, enough though it was during winter break so by the time that we got to school and everybody was asking about it, the excitement had worn off and the impatience settled in.

Japan, Romania, Thailand, Australia, Sweden

         Orientation, now I was excited to see all of the outbounders again! The way to describe orientation was, them giving us information at lightning speed and us writing it down at lightning speed. For this blogs purpose, I'm going to refer to my fellow outbounders by their country, and if there are two...oh well they can deal with it! Italy was sitting right next to me and we would split up stuff so we could just copy the notes later. A lot of writing and not a lot of socializing. I had ten pages worth of notes and blisters on my right hand! We also got inaugurated into rotary, a ceremony in which we get our blazers! All the blazers are way to LARGE!

        Now, school is over and summer is in. In the town I live in getting a job is as hard as getting a pig to sing, and I have nothing to do! I do have a "job" for the month of July but thats in awhile, so I've been studying romanian. It's a very hard language, and there are very few tools to learn it. My brain hurts, so far I've been using three tools: live mocha, translating online articles, and quizlet. If you are interested in learning a language, but have no way I would suggest live mocha. It isn't perfect, but it gives basic lessons! It is free, but only if you do so many reviews on others.
        Thank you for reading, I know I'm not very eloquent but I feel like I should put my thoughts into something while there! Thank you and La Revedere!

La Revedere = Goodbye in romanian