Thursday, February 4, 2010

Moved (and Broke) A Piano, And Magic Sauce



I'm just going to give a play-by-play of how today went down. I wake up, eat breakfast with Danny and Ruben, and then take a shower. After I get out, Ruben tells me that we're going to go to a school nearby. As we walk towards the school, we see the gypsy woman of a few days ago and she recognizes me. The school is located behind the local synagogue, and as we approached the front door I had no idea what we were doing. Inside we meet four very loud, hairy, and hilarious Romanian men. The main guy, Manu, starts giving orders and before you know it we're moving a ridiculously heavy piano up a flight of stairs. All the men were telling me orders to do, like where to stand as we're awkwardly climbing the stairs. After that is up the stairs, we move an old one down, which was just as awkward as coming up. We then move this one into a van, which we all pile into and start driving down the street.

Everyone was having a merry drive down the road when the piano fell and broke the back window. Nothing scares you more than glass breaking when you least expect it. The entire back window busted out, with a corner of the piano out the window. We keep driving to our location and with every bump we hit, more and more glass gets on the road. I started laughing because of the situation, but nobody else did. Once we got to the house we were going to, we unloaded it and cleaned up the glass. On the way back, a guy next to me starts speaking to me and I have no idea what to say except (in Romanian) "I understand a little Romanian. Sorry, sir." He starts laughing and says, "What, you don't think I know English?" I laugh, he laughs, we all laugh. They told me they thought I was Romanian the entire time (which was why they were giving me orders earlier) but that I was just quiet. They thought I was from Timisoara because of my eyes, but that I look exactly like a native. Manu tells me that all the guys are orphans and are glad that I'm here helping in Romania. Manu then starts telling me how much he loves Manchester United, apparently thinking that if I speak English that I must be from England.

After that, we had a "leader meeting" in our apartment for a couple hours and then went to a local hotel to find a big room for our big meetings to meet at. The room has a lot of velvet. I mean, A LOT of velvet. I loved it, and I think that's what we're going to be using (for a while, at least). After that, we came back to the apartment and made Ruben's famous dish that he calls "Magic Sauce" (pictured above). It was magical, indeed.

Tomorrow we're going to Timisoara again, and next week we're going to Straja on a winter camp trip with the youth. More updates to come. Enjoy watching the Super Bowl, and go Saints.

4 comments:

  1. Alex, you're doing great work. Keep it up and stay strong. We love ya and miss ya, but will keep in touch with ya as I am looking into the Skype set up. Camera will need to big enough so you can see Sandey, too, when we call you.

    You're the best.

    Love,

    Mark, Pam and K-Bug

    ReplyDelete
  2. Literally I laughed out loud...in the computer lab.

    Glad you're fitting in so well, we prayed for you this morning at John's!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I told you they'd think you were a native.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Saints win! Saints win!

    I really enjoy reading your blog, especially now that you're Romanian.

    Matt Marchbanks

    ReplyDelete