We arrived in London at 10:15 am London time and started running the moment we stepped off the shuttle bus at Heathrow airport. We met up with Bruce and 2 Livada interns, Alexandra and Joseph, rode the subway for about 40 minutes to the Tower of London, toured the Tower of London and had lunch at some little sidewalk stands. Some of us had baguette sandwiches (very yummy!), some had fish 'n chips and wait for this...the largest group had SUBWAY!! The weather in London went between misting and raining. The temperature was 60 degrees. And of course, being the "Royal" geek that I am, I loved seeing the Crown Jewels. The Torture Chamber was Avis and Stacey's favorite. After our whirlwind tour of the Tower, we were back on the subway heading back to the airport for our flight to Bucharest.
We arrived in Bucharest about 11:45 pm Romania time, loaded up our bags, loaded ourselves onto the bus and off we went. Our first stop was a 24 hour McDonalds but only the drive thru was opened...so, we walked through the drive thru. There was a very long line of cars behind us!! Got our midnight snack, loaded ourselves back on the bus and we were off for our 6ish hour bus ride to Targu Mures.
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| Our special drive-thru when we arrived in Bucharest! |
We arrived about 6:30 am...exhausted!! We got in a short nap, gathered at 10:00 am, split into 2 groups...half of us went to Apalina (gypsy village) and half went to the baby hospital. My group started at Apalina...my favorite moment of the day...Jordan's favorite kid from last year, Luci (Loochee) saw him get off the bus and came running to him, yelled Jordan and gave him a huge hug. Lots of people saw their favs from last year...Kathleen saw Anna and LeAnn found Florina and Livinia (probably botched that spelling) and others made new friends. After walking around the village, they had prepared us a little snack of chips, candy and drinks. And then off we went again to our next destination...LUNCH!!
LeAnn and I tried to go get our fabric for our special gypsy skirts but the fabric store was closed and there was no place to exchange money. :( Maybe Monday!! Lunch stop was McDonalds and pretty uneventful. Then off to the baby hospital. How wonderful (and sad at the same time) to see "our" babies. They have all changed so much. Wanting to see them is selfish because we became so attached. Another part of me was so happy their families had to come back to get them.
Edna, if you read this, there is a park in the back of the hospital that has things for the babies to climb on, a slide and a mini climbing wall. Alina is a counselor with the group homes and the new person doing the baby ministry , Gabby, is very nice!!
After that, we met back up with the rest of the group for dinner at the Livida office. We are completely exhausted as we have not had much sleep since Thursday night. Hopefully, we will have a great night's sleep and be rested up for church tomorrow, orientation for us and with our translators, some time with our friends at the group home and dinner at Tip Top for some authentic Hungarian Goulash. Thanks to so many who helped pull this together for all of us!!
LeAnn has loaded lots of pictures on Facebook. I'll try to get some on here later tomorrow!
Good night and love from Romania!!
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