greenelephant: 2013

Wishes..
When you were younger did you ever wish on anything ??
Maybe a shooting star ,or on a wishing well..
Well i still do i think that these little wishes are really special and if they come through you cant get that smile off your face. Now im not talking about wishing for huge crazy unrealistic things like winning the lotto or winning tickets to something (couldnt think of anything) i talking about little things like wishing you will have lasange for dinner or wishing you will see a certain person or wishing you will get ........ Chocolate !! :)
There is three things i wish on and id like to share them with you guys ( hopefully im not alone ) so here it goes:

Wish Dandelions (not sure if thats the corect name)
I always make a wish on the first car i see in the new year with that year on the licence plate.
and last of all i wish on the first star i see at night.

One of my dreams is to run through a huge field full of dandelion wishes.
Im not saying wishes come through because of these things i believe wishes have a way of coming through no matter how you wish for them.

Bucharest Trip 2013.

I'm recently back form an amazing volunteer trip in Bucharest ,for any of you that was wondering Bucharest is in Romania its about a four hour flight from Dublin. The journey there was long and tiring as our flight was really early in the morning this resulted in me looking like a mess in my comfiest clothes dragging my bags around the airport.

I am quite the nervous flyer so wasn't looking forward to that part of the experience but for some reason that day i was uncharacteristically calm what was of course until the plane started zooming up into the sky !! The plane journey was mostly occupied of playing the name game you know the game where you start with the letter A and work your way to Z calling out celebrity names or what my self and my best friend were doing was characters from books but for some reason kept on getting stuck on Q !! Even as i write this blog post i cant think of one so i goggled it.

Characters that begin with Q

Day one:

Arrived at the airport and was picked up by a man from the volunteer center although i was really disappointing not to have one of those signs waiting for me at the airport with my groups name on it.Next was the bus ride to the center which took about 40 minutes and in those 40 minutes i experienced many near death experiences well maybe a slight exaggeration but the drivers over there a little crazy not wanting to offend anyone or anything but their road system is looney the cars going any direction they want literally and u-turning all over the place but thankfully arrived safely . I am going to do my best to describe what i saw out my window the most common site is huge blocks of flats also very long streets and of course i saw one or two universal M's (mc donalds) signs.

When i entered the center there was a beautiful banner up welcoming us. The rest of that day was meeting the children for a brief time and settling in to what would be our home for the next seven days.

Day two:

Which is really day one my group choose to get up early and help dress the children in the morning and do their hair when they came into thee center.We then had breakfast. (Every morning we had breakfast at 9 am, lunch at half one and dinner at 6.) After breakfast we spent the next 3 hours with the children the first hour or so included the children practicing their writing and many enthusiastic children trying to show you their work

Then the children went for a nap this is when we had 30 mins free time and then lunch followed by 2 hours of painting the moral.

In the evening we played many card games i think my SPIT skills have come on a great deal.

Day Three:

Today we visited a few of the children's homes.

It was a real eye opener on the way to the houses we were given a insight to the different family situations.

Its really hard to believe that the children you see at the center are so happy and full of life and you think of that they have to go back to at the end of the day. I would have to say that was the most difficult part of the trip.Everyone was kinda lost in there own thoughts that day i feel.

We have found a new source of entertainment of the evenings and that is The Sea-Saw i seriously love this thing it was so fun !!

Day Four:

Today we finished the mural at long last really happy with it. We got the children too stamp their hands to make leaves for the tree and we all put our own hand-prints and name so a bit of us will be there forever.

We all so did two other murals one of Hello kitty and other of the map of Europe showing the journey we made from Ireland to Romania.The reason behind the Hello Kitty mural was because one day i wore a HK t-shirt and all you could see was the feet but yet some child started tugging at my t-shirt and shouting HELLO KITTY HELLO KITTY how on earth could that child know it was Hello Kitty from the feet ill never know.

Day Five and Six:

Off to the mountains we go !!

Day trip

Draculas Castle (amazing !!)
Food Market
Parelment House (second largest in the World)
Tour around Old Bucharest
Outdoor open air house museum (where we saw Romania's most famous fashion designer)
Huge Shopping center
The metro
Ski lift (my first time )

Day Seven:

Today was amazing and sad all in one. The children preformaned a concert for us. It brought tears to my eyes it was beautiful also we did some irish dancing for them and others sang. Then we had a dance party!!