so very quickly, because I never have enough time on the internet, a couple things that have happened since last time I updated (or that I just forgot to mention...)

-Went to a Romanian wedding! Alexandru's son got married and invited us to the wedding (Eastern Orthodox) AND to the reception. It was awesome and so much fun. Only 3 of the girls decided to go, along with Eric, but we had a really great time and it was really cool seeing how they do the ceremony. Very different from how we do it.

-Took a weekend trip to Pitesti, Curtea de Arges, and Poienari Fortress (Dracula's real castle). We took an overnight bus from Zalau to Pitesti, where we arrived at about 5 am. We checked the first hotel we found for rooms (this was not a planned trip at all... we just kind of went with it) and they let us check in immediately and even go up to the rooms (because it was already 'today' so why wouldn't we be allowed to go up? Sometimes, I love Romanian logic). After a couple hour nap we set out to find the way to Curtea de Arges (took about 3 hours to find the right bus), and then took a taxi from Curtea de Arges to Poienari. Once we got to Poienari we faced the 1480-step ascent to the top... but boy was it worth it! The castle itself is just ruins now, but the views were absolutely breathtaking. No worries, I've got pictures :)
There's nothing else around Poienari so we had to hitchhike back to Curtea de Arges! We had a group of 7 people-4 boys and 3 girls. We decided to be safe and make sure that each girl went with a boy, and we also decided to go as a group of 3 and a group of 4 that could break into 2 groups of 2 if necessary. I ended up in the group of three, with 2 of the boys, not because I would be safer with 2 boys, but because they would be safer with the black belt. Oop.
Got picked up by a nice older couple (in a sweet Audi) that happened to be headed to the exact same destination, a monastery in Curtea de Arges. They told us about the legend of the monastery (a bit too long to type out but essentially the builder's wife is said to be entombed in the walls as a human sacrifice because otherwise the monastery would not remain standing) and when we got there we realized that it's the monument on the back of the 1 Lei bill! Pretty cool :)

Nothing else terribly exciting has happened... just been hanging around. We have no power or water at camp so... that sucks but hopefully it will be fixed soon. We've got one more week of digging and then home a few days after that. Time's flying by now!