Christmas Cheer

This morning the rain had stopped and the sun was shinning Harlow and I headed downstairs for an early breakfast.  They put up a Christmas tree in the restaurant and she was thrilled.  She brought both her babies up to the tree to show them, it killed me when she held them out so they could get a closer look.

Sitting at a table next to the tree was a guy with gray hair and glasses, she pointed at him and said "Mama HOHOHO" from across the restaurant.  Then she ran back laughing at herself.  Already a little comedian, wonder where she gets that from.

After breakfast, if you want to call it breakfast, oh pancakes I miss you, we met up with another mom from the film and walked down to the park.  

The first month we were in Bucharest they had this beautiful lake that was in the center of the park similar to Central Park in New York with all the row boats.  Well a couple weeks ago they drained it and all the trees leaves had fallen and the park kind of lost it's luster.  Now look at it, a winter wonderland...

They replaced the lake with a huge ice skating rink, music was blasting and people were out there making it happen.  We stood and watched for a while, for a Tuesday it was pretty packed, the more I watched the more I decided I would NEVER go ice skating here.  Everyone out there was skating like a professional.  I would have looked like Bambi with my scrawny limbs trying to sync up, umm no not going to happen.  There goes my winter fantasy of Jason and I all bundled up with our mittens and scarves on drinking hot hot chocolate while holding hand on the ice.

You should have seen the little bug's face when she saw this Christmas tree they put up in the main entrance.

 Harlow and Hunter

Christmas markets are being set up all over the city, this one ran straight through the park all the way to the other side which is a long distance.  They sell every thing from food, decorations, clothes and housewares.  The ones that sell homemade holiday candy are my favorite.

Oh alot of the little huts in the holiday markets sell meat: sausages, salami, ham

There was a sensational life size sled with reindeer and presents, I bet Santa probably makes an appearance during the weekends, maybe even lets you get in there and take pictures with him.

The reindeer had real fur on them.

We will have to come back on the weekend and see for ourself what they do with this.

Also they had a life size nativity scene over by the children's park equipment.

Which I thought was a rather odd placement, I mean what kid wouldn't want to climb in there and try to pet all the fake animals, my kid tried too.  It took two cookies to derail her.  

Just looking at this picture makes me what to sing Silent Night, come on you know you want to.

I feel very blessed to be able to see how another country celebrates, I'm sad Harlow won't remember all of this.

But at least she's having a ball! 

Mom that picture's for you.























Noapte buna

You better shop around

Since Jason had the weekend off I felt much more comfortable exploring the city with him.
Saturday we hitched a ride over to the La Baneasa Shopping Center where all of my dreams came true.
Seriously this mall was massive and the stores were incredible.  We only made it through the first half before calling it quits.  But I'll be back, and I'm going to need a couple extra suitcases after :)

All the stores where comparable to Zara, the quality of everything seems much nicer then our crappy Forever 21 and H and M, but at a reasonable price.  There's one store in peticular called Bershka

 that had an awesome selection of super cute and affordable real leather jackets.  A wall full of flat thigh high boots that I've never even seen before and must purchase immediately, did somebody say birthday shopping?  Sorry Jason but if I have to spend my birthday here alone, I'm going to have purchase myself this little beauty, only 430 lei which converts to about 150 dollars which isn't too bad for a leather jacket.  Oh and maybe I'll need these shoes too, you know to match?  Check out the rest of their stuff, the possibilties are endless
http://www.bershka.com/coleccion.php



My other new discovery was Zara Home store, not that I can lug any housewares back overseas, but I can dream about it as I walk through their beautiful bed displays.  My style everything right down to their picture frames.  They even had a children's bedroom line with cute hot pink duvets and vintage looking pillow cases.  Jason gave me the eye when I put a beautiful knit hot pink and white blanket in my cart for Harlow.  "Really Michelle?  We're not taking that on the plane!"

Damn...





Also I discover Carrefour which I'm assuming is Europe's version of Target.  This place was crazzzy big with a full sized grocery store too.  I found one about a 20 minute walk from our place. So now I know where I can buy diapers and pretty much anything else I'll need.


  The mall 20 minutes from our apartment is called Unirea and it's really bizarre inside, almost like a giant department store but if you take a closer look they are little shops within 4 floors.  I'll probably end up spending more time here since it's within walking distance.  All this walking I can see why people eat so many carbs here, you can shed it in a matter of minutes just walking.  Everybody walks and I've seen a lot of people fall :( yesterday one woman fell so hard I heard it from across the street. So many people and the streets are old and in poor condition it's bound to happen.

But on a happier note  we found an amazing park right down the street!  It's beautiful and reminds me of Central Park with all the trees and row boats in the lake.  I took a couple pictures on the iphone located in my mobile me galley.
http://gallery.me.com/michellehamer#gallery

For now things are pretty good over here, I've got everything I need.  Now if we could just get used to the time change everything would be perfect.

Till next time, thanks for reading.

La revedere!! (goodbye