About Romania
-Nickie
I’ve never been that confused about a country. When people ask me about Romania, I wanna say I hate it, but i couldn’t; I wanna say I love it, but i wouldn’t. Even after 7 weeks satying there, I still don’t know how I should feel about this country. Though,I am sure about one thing, it’s that when I first arrived in that place, I disliked it, but when I was about to leave, I struggled to say goodbye. I’ve met people who helped with everything they could, I’ve also been treated meanly by the same nationality. I went to places where one can fully enjoy every minute there, I was in places in whichi almost died because of boredom and emptiness. This is Romania, famous as the country of Dracula, but remained in one’s heart for various random moments.
·O Iași! My Iași!
Among all the cities I’ve travelled to, Iasi is like my“home”, maybe just because it’s the place I stayed for the longest, but I think it’s also because I have a family there.Oh and a little background knowledge here, I went to Romania not just for travelling, I was there for a volunteer project in which I taught kids aged from 11 to 16 English, and the project was in the city of Iasi. There’s a saying in my country that children is the future of a nation, I totally agree, to a certain extent, you can really predict the future situation of a country from its youngsters. Well, from my experience in Romania, I can say for sure that Romania will have a nice future. The school I taught in lives in a village called Girbesti. Like all the schools in the countryside, mine is not well-equipped in the facilities, and in a way, nor in the teachers either. But you still see the desire in the eyes of the kids, not just because I am a foreigner, also because I came with something they’ve never known. At the very beginning, the children were shy, part of the reason,I suppose, is that they can’t speak English so well. But by the end of my sessions,they held me so tightly that I felt like part of me left there with my kids.
In Romania, Iasi is known as the city of universities. Local people tell me that there are four universities in Iasi. So, that makes sense why this place seems to me a wee bit boring during the vacation time. On the other hand, you would treasure more the time you spend on staying with the ones you truly care instead of rushing to noisy and crowded places for“fun”. To be honest, sometimes, I’m into parties and bars where I can dance and drink and laugh loud meaninglessly. So-called party animal or whatever. But of course you can find places like this in Iasi. Underground and other nearby pubs can offer you everything young fellows may like, though the music really sucks.(Sorry to talk true)
Though,oddly, I found something else in Iasi that got me satisfied. It’s a place named Palas. First, it’s a palace, which you can know from the name; second, it’s a shopping mall; third, it’s a lifestyle. I love going shopping, like most of the girls do, so I firstly fell for Palas for the things I could shop there. Then I discovered the food court where I could grab something to drink or eat while enjoying the free wifi and looking at Palas through the windows. And let me ask if you guys know the feeling of sitting and lying on the grass for quite a while without doing anything or just talking to your friends. O those gold old days and nice dirty jokes. Frankly, I’ve been hearing people talking about finding inner peace. I never know what inner peace feels like, but I do know how my mind went blank when I was lying on the soft grass.
All I’ve been thinking is that we call a place HOME not because we have a house there or we’ve been staying there for years, it’s all because we have people we love in that place and we know that place, what’s more important, we rely on that place. Well, that’s what Iasi is to me.
What AIESEC trying to make us believe is that we should get out of our comfort zone to live and explore in other parts of the world, but for now, leaving Romania and going back to my own country is actually leaving my comfort zone.
already planning my next trip back to my HOME.
