Christmas Package

Today we received our "Christmas" package from my mom. I put Christmas in quotes because it was really just a bunch of stuff we asked her to send, but since it's almost Christmas, it came with a few goodies. Here's a partial list of the contents:

• SOS pads. I didn't know these came in flavors! The lavender scent is kind of weird, but my glass casserole dish has never looked better. 
• New shoes for me--size 12 Clark's. The looks of incredulity I got every time I asked for women's size 43 (European equivalent of US 12) were getting old. I bought these off of eBay a few weeks ago--nice red leather, perfect for fall/winter. Until now, all I had were sandals, a thin pair of tennis shoes, and some too-nice black leather heels. 
• A monster bottle of fish oil. Vitamins, supplements, and OTC medication is really expensive here. For example, a little box of 10 Advil is about $4.00. Generic brands are not priced much better.
• A bottle of chewable vitamin C, 500 mg per tablet. When I had a bad cold last month, I sent Alex to the pharmacy to get me some 500 mg vitamin C, since most vitamin C I've seen here is about 40 mg per pill. She came back with a small box of 500 mg capsules, but reported that the pharmacist had made her swear to not give me more than one a day. Apparently European vitamin C must be dangerous?
• Vitamin D, 5000 IU per capsule. I wonder what the local pharmacist would say about these?
• A new set of scriptures! This was a very nice surprise. A few months ago I was traveling by train, and left my scriptures on board. We went back several times to see if the cleaning lady had found them, with no luck. My theory is that the cleaning lady runs a profitable little side business selling lost and found items; she was a little too vehement about shooing us out of her "territory." Maybe someone will read them and end up being converted to the Church--it would make up for the disappointment of losing the set I've been reading and making notes in for the last eight years. In the meantime, my new set is so nice and shiny and pretty I'm having a hard time deciding what to read next. I recently finished the NT and the Book of Mormon. Maybe I'll just start back in Genesis this time and read all the way through, to break in the new set. It's the only way you can ever be certain you have separated ALL the pages.
• Mapeleine. You can get real Canadian grade A maple syrup here, but it costs about $8/100 mL, and the bottle always runs out far too quickly. Mapeleine is a great compromise. I think I will have to make pancakes tonight!
• Adhesive picture hangers. The walls of our apartment all appear to be made of concrete. We have not yet found a way to put a nail or screw in the wall. It's a good thing Mom sent us something that we can use to put pictures up, because we now have a few holes to cover. Alex and I put her mother's childhood portrait back into its original frame and put it on the wall tonight. The picture and frame weighs 1.3 kg--the hangers we used should bear up to 2.6 kg. Now we just wait and see if it sticks all through the night.
• Twisty tabs! This might be my favorite thing in the box. I've already used three! I think Mom sent me a year's supply.
• A nice big Ziploc bag. These come in very handy, and they are durable enough that you can reuse them many times if you wash and dry them thoroughly.
• A nice surprise--Mom used a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing to fill up some of the empty space in the Ziploc bag. This is Alex's favorite, and the only way you will ever be able to get her to eat salad.
• Milk-Bone chewy dog treats. Pocak doesn't like most dog treats, and certainly not anything that's hard or tough or meant to be gnawed on. I'm not sure why. We haven't found any acceptable local substitutes for his favorite American brand, so we will make these last for several months.

Thank you, Mom!

Language learning goals

I'm feeling a lot better today; except for the post-nasal drip, I think the flu/head cold/whatever that was is over. However, now Alex is coming down with it. (I tried not to give it to you--sorry!)

So I expect to the next couple of days to be quiet, and therefore, I'm spending some time today thinking about goals and plans I've been neglecting, like working on our company website and studying Romanian.

My language goals are, by mid-September, to be able to

• understand and participate in Church
• read with basic comprehension
• shop and use public transportation competently and confidently
• discuss business, management, and basic accounting topics

I certainly have a lot of work to do!

Comparative economics

Alex and I are in the middle of a consulting project for a Romanian nonprofit. We are preparing a report on a number of topics relating to their operations, but a large part of my responsibilities have to do with the financial data. (This won't be as interesting to my readers as it is to me, so you are forgiven if you skip this post!) I have learned a lot of very interesting things in the past few weeks about local economics and household finances. Here is a simple comparison.

Two months in Romania

I'm coming up on two months in my new home. It's strange--I feel completely comfortable in my new life, as if I've been here for years, not weeks. I have absolutely no transition anxiety. When you consider that I once went from an LDS mission to student housing and college classes far from home in only five days with no problems, I guess it shouldn't be that unexpected.

So how is my life different? Now, I wake up in the morning with the comforting feeling that I have several hours to get things done before anyone else is up, because of the time difference between the US and Europe. It's like I'm getting all the perks of getting up at 4 am to get work done, but without actually having to get up until 10 am.

I'm also enjoying a much simpler life, with less multitasking. Here's a simple example: we no longer have a doggie door, so we have to take Pocak out every four hours or so. And since I no longer have an iPhone, I can't check my email or do other stuff online when I'm out of wifi range. And there's no one expecting me to call, even if I had the international minutes to do so. So now, when I walk the dog, that's all I'm doing--walking the dog!

Learning Romanian is going okay, but slower than I had hoped. Most of the time, I have people around who speak English or Hungarian, so I'm not forced to communicate the way I was in Hungary. Also, my comprehension is way ahead of my actual speaking vocabulary, because of all the Latin-based words and borrowed Hungarian, so it's too easy to nod my head and just say yes or no, rather than fight my way through a real conversation. I'm aware that these are just excuses for being lazy, but they are also real obstacles right now.

And my immigration status? Won't be a problem. It turns out the easiest way to establish residence is by opening an LLC and getting a permanent visa as a business owner. No proof of income required, just the LLC documentation. We're almost halfway there already--our business will be "up and running" within a week or two, and I have until August to submit my visa paperwork. Piece of cake, especially now that we have a decent lawyer on our side who needs English lessons and website help!

Julie's Adventure in South America

It was still dark, and I was groggy from sleep, but the sign that had just flashed past the train window was absolutely clear: Rio de Janeiro.

I confess, I panicked. I yelled to Alex to get out of bed—we were expected in Bucharest by noon, what on earth were we going to do? And how on earth did we end up on a train going to Brazil? Alex quickly left the cabin to look for someone, and within a few minutes, the train stopped and reversed itself to back up to the last station. More time passed as we waited, and I worked to get all our stuff gathered together. Now that I was thinking more clearly, it made sense that we had ended up on the wrong train. I could vaguely remember the conductor asking me to move into a different car of the train, and it was strange that there were so many Americans around us—that hadn’t been the case when we’d got on in Cluj. Eventually, an elderly couple arrived to help us get to the airport and figure out how to get back to Romania.

I was just on the verge of texting Sister Lundberg something to the effect of “Change in plans. Ended up on wrong train, will try to buy plane ticket from Brazil” when I sat up in bed and realized that I was back in the sleeping car I’d originally gone to bed in last night. The dream had been so real I was seriously disoriented, and it took me ten minutes or so to shake it off completely. I had to spend a few moments reconstructing a map of the world in my head to reassure myself that you can't get from Romania to Brazil by train!

Next time I’ll think twice when a conductor dressed as a mummy asks me to move to a new seat.

A background to fit my mood, and an introduction

The rain does not mean I'm feeling gloomy; it means that the only thing I really hate about Utah's climate is the inversion layer in the winter and that I wish it would rain more often to keep the skies clear.

Everyone else in my family seems to have a blog now, and it appears to be the preferred method of communication to the extended family and circle of friends about one's life circumstances. I see the advantages, of course: it's easy for relatives you don't have much contact with to have a vague idea of what's going on in your life, it's a better way to share pictures than email, and hey! maybe someone will buy something from Amazon through a link on your blog and earn you a few dollars. However, it does bother me that the electronic discussion replaces real interaction. At Christmas, we barely even talked to each other, since everyone was absorbed with their own gadgets. We now communicate better through email, chat, and telephone than face-to-face. At least on a blog, I know whoever reads is actually paying attention--you don't get that guarantee in real life.

I'm not sure how often I'll be posting to this blog in the next few months; Alex and I have some really serious work to be done in the next four months in our business, and already, two and a half weeks into the new year, I feel physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted by the task ahead of us. But at the same time, there's a kind of exhilaration that accompanies working towards such a lofty goal as building a successful, self-sustaining business, and I believe it can be done. I just might sleep for forty days after we're done. (Hence the desire to be a polyphaser.)

So here goes, and I'll try to check in a couple times a month until things get interesting.

2010 Movies in Review

Here are the movies from 2010 that I recommend, broken down into a few different sections: action/adventure, drama, comedy, and movies I would recommend to my parents.