March 16, 2015

Well first of all, Orthodox easter is different than our easter, so it comes a bit later.  This year it's april 12.  Easter is a pretty big deal here, it's actually bigger than christmas, so it's huge.  But pretty much the biggest thing that happens is the midnight mass.  Everyone goes to the church where they have a flame (indirectly) from Jerusalem and you light your candle off it and take it home with you then put it in your window.  Then there's also the easter egg WWE where you take your boiled eggs and say Jesus resurrected then someone else responds yes, he resurrected.  Then you smash your eggs together and whoever's egg didn't smash is the winner.  They also have the nice little easter markets where you can get really cool painted eggs and other spring-y stuff.  Oh and of course there's the easter feast where you HAVE to eat lamb.  It's the traditional easter meal.  So yeah, there are some romanian easter traditions for you.

In other news, the Alstons, a senior couple that used to be here in Timisoara came back for the weekend because they're going home in a few weeks.  They were here last time I was here and they're pretty much the coolest people of all time.  It was super awesome to be able to see them again before they go back.

Also this week we were officially given permission to make a facebook page for our English classes with the help of the Masons, that family that lives here.  We put it up exactly a week ago and now we have over 500 people on the page, so hopefully we get some good english classes this week.  We're working on honing our skills as teachers so the classes are worthwhile and make people want to bring their friends and come back.

It's been dreary and cold this past week but then it got warm today and everyone seemed to come out of hibernation.  The streets were incredibly packed and everyone went out to eat at whatever outdoor restaurants were open this week.  We're really hoping that the weather stays this way because everyone is actually outside and we're not just walking around a ghost town.