Half Way

Right in the Middle

The last couple of weeks have been flavoured by holiday talk.  Back to work this week.  It was lovely to see the patients again, but I did need a break.  It is now just over 3 months through this 6 month placement with VfHM.  By the way, I keep forgetting to link to the charity site.  Here it is - http://www.vfmh.org.uk/.  Next week will be a bit of a reflection on the experience so far.  This week, mainly plus some pretty photographs from my holiday.

Oh, by the way, now I have got my dear little Samsung Netbook back from the menders the formatting will probably go all wrong again - which it has!!



A Service Centre in Turga
Mures.  If only they did
Samsung products!!



Talking of my Samsung N130.  There is a big sticker on the front proclaiming all the benefits it brings.  One of these is an 'International Warranty'.  Well, zero out of ten for Samsung themselves who could not have been more useless than a Lyons Tea franchise based entirely on the chocolate teapot principle.  Eleven out of ten to Curry's in the UK who responded smartly to my email and managed to fix it (manufacturing fault) under UK warranty in double quick time so that my sister could bring it out to me.  Samsung claim that there are no Samsung service centres in Romania and that I would have to wait until the placement ended.  In the meantime they are happily selling Samsung Netbooks in a PC store in Turga Mures, all the information screens at the airport are Samsung, as are those at the Mall.

Rant over.

Volunteering

I have to say that when I told people about this placement some 4 months before I started, everyone was very supportive and many said that they would love to do something like this.  It is proving to be quite difficult to get the necessary number of volunteers applying at the moment - I guess this is the understandable knock-on effect from the current round of cuts and job uncertainty in the UK etc.

Can I ask a favour - both of people I know and those I don't - who read this blog.  Can you think of anyone you know who works in a relevant profession who you thik might be interested.  This might be someone who wants to take a short career break, or even someone recently retired.  Email them a link to the charity's website (above), or even a link to this blog.  They might really thank you for it - I am very glad that I came out here.

Sighisoara

It should have a diacritic under the second 's' which makes it sound like a 'sh'.  Also, don't pronounce or use the 'h' at all - its there for emergencies only.

Sighisoara is a lovely place Link to the lovely place and well worth several visits.

Cobbled streets, painted buildings
and odd little towers everywhere

The medieval part is up
the hill surrounded by a
fortified wall

Our unofficial guide.  He either led
or followed us all around the town
eventually having a sleep where we
decided to stop fo coffee.



The clock tower.  Worth a
visit.  Some quite steep and
creaky stairs, but we got to
the top. Wonderful



Covered steps up to the cathedral
at the very top.  We were struggling
when this chap just ran all the way up.



The lovely Lutheran (?)
Cathedral at the top.
Remember this is a Saxon
town.  Almost all the graves
bear German names.  Sadly
most Saxons have now left.

Short video this week.  We had a really peaceful walk around the cathedral and graveyard.  When we started to walk back down towards the covered steps the 'children' from the school next door started to come out. All of a sudden the peace was broken by music blasting out.  We naturally assumed that some of the students had turned their ghetto blaster up full...wrong.



Love it.

The rest

It is the law for cats in Romania
to wear collars that match the
colour of their eyes.  Not sure why.

Pe Curand

Paul