Cluj Part Two

Hey There!

Ok, so the rest of Cluj! I woke up super early Saturday morning and moseyed around till 11 when we headed out into the streets of Cluj to get some much needed coffee and check out the two huge churches nearby. We sat in an outdoor cafe for a really long time, sipping our cappuccinos and enjoying the day. Afterwards we wandered through a beautiful Catholic Church. Inside, a baby boy was being baptized. It was so lovely to see something as ordinary yet special as a baptism happen in a church that was over 6öö years old and simply dripping in gold and ornate frescos. After that, we met up with one of my closest friends on the trip,ű. It was so great to see him. We walked back to the hostel, dropped off his bags, and then continued our lazy walking tour of the center of cluj. After consulting my friends guide book A rough Guide to Romania we decided to head to this random museum it called the Ethnographic Museum. For the rest of the trip we called him Rough Guy after his comical guidebook. The museum was really cool. We saw all these random farming machines from the 1800s. Basically the whole time went something like this

Me. Oh look at that cool machine! I wonder what all those pointy things were for

My friend, dead serious, They use to use this to punish children, dont you see where they would hook their wrists in, and look that part would pull their hair

Me, verz earnestly, How awful! Thats so crazy!!

My friend, Hhhahaha Im kidding, its a plow

After that we sat outside at the cafe nearby and talked about development issues and Africa and the peace corps and what we want to do with out lives in general. One of my friends was telling me about the work he had done in Ghana with disease prevention and polio vaccination. I love these people. They really inspire me.

After that we headed back and chilled out. At around 8, we bought some snacks at a local grocery store and then walked up this massive hill to this amazing panaromic view of Cluj. We sat their, munching on our chips, watching the sun set over this beautiful old city. It was great. Then one of my friends threw a huge slug at me, which was not so great but hilarious. We went to dinner at the restaurant looking over the whole city. The meal was expensive by Romanian terms which meant it was like 8 dollars a person.

Tha night, Eli and I went to a club with some friends from the hostel. It was really fun, we danced all night to 90s rock oldies and got amazing gyros that actually had french fries in them at 3 am.

The next morning, we woke up and I looked at mz phone which is still on New York time. I wrongly converted the times and thought it was 12, so we jumped out of bed and started to rush through breakfast. When, 15 minutes later, someone told us it was actually 10 it was so cool it felt like we had gained 2 hours!

That morning we headed over to the famous botanical gardens which were quite beautiful. Its semi strange to find this magnificent forest within a city like Cluj but so cool.

It was a wonderful weekend overall.

Ive had a great week of teaching for the last few days and my kids continue to rock. I cant believe it is almost over. Ill write more about that later!

Miss and love you all!

Emma