Journeying through life with Jen and Tina: Night Out :-)

We are enjoying a very beautiful and relaxing day off today. We were traveling this weekend for a game in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It was about an eleven hour bus trip (22 hours round trip). We left Friday morning and arrived Friday night. We slept in a hotel, woke up the next morning, played a game at noon, ate some lunch, and got back on the road for the drive home. It was a lot of driving in a short amount of time, but it was honestly not as bad as I was expecting. I think I listened to about 10 podcasts (thank you Catholic Answers!). While we didn't have time to see a lot of the city, we got a sort of bus tour through the center which was nice. Our assistant coach is from Bucharest so she pointed out some of the main attractions and gave us a little bit of a history lesson. We will go back to Bucharest at least once more this season so hopefully we will have a little more time to explore then.

Things have been going well since our last update. We are currently 6-0 in league play. Our next two games are against the top teams in the league so those games will be a little tougher. We'll let you know how they go.

Last week, before we left for Bucharest, Jen, Kari, Carla, and I went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. As most of you know, Jen and I are pretty cheap so going out to eat is a big deal :-) We figured that we should celebrate completing another month of being in Romania...and getting paid! We had seen this Mexican restaurant a couple of weeks ago when we were at the mall so we made a mental note to go try it out sometime.

In terms of the actual food, it was an interesting experience. We were all prepared to have the food look and taste a little different than what we're used to, but it was a lot different :-) We ordered chips, salsa, and guacamole to start. Our waitress (the sweetest person ever), asked us if we wanted our chips soft or crunchy). We weren't really sure what soft chips were so we ordered crunchy but asked her if she could bring a few soft ones so that we could try them. Interestingly enough, I actually preferred the soft ones :-) The salsa was pretty spicy (although I'm a pretty big baby when it comes to spicy food so I may not be the best judge), and the consistency of it was not what I expected. It wasn't bad though. The guacamole was pretty good. Next, we ordered our entrees. Carla ordered a quesadilla, Kari and I ordered beef enchiladas, and Jen ordered a chicken burrito. When the food came out, we weren't really sure what was what. The enchiladas were shaped like a pizza, and to be honest, they sort of tasted like a pizza without sauce. They definitely weren't bad, but they sure didn't taste like any enchilada that I've ever had. There was no sauce, very little cheese, and I don't even think they used tortillas. It basically tasted like pizza crust with seasoned hamburger meat and a little cheese. A little dry, but not bad :-) Carla's quesadilla was funny. It was pretty much the same as our enchilada (in terms of ingredients), but it looked like three small calzones. Our enchiladas looked more like quesadillas :-) Jen's burrito was pretty much what we would expect a burrito to look like. None of the food was bad, it just isn't the same as what we would expect to see if we ordered Mexican food in America.

It was a fun night out. The atmosphere of the restaurant was nice, our waitress was fantastic, and the company was good :-) And as an added bonus, the food was super cheap! The restaurant is offering a 25% discount all during the month of October. Jen and I had ordered together and shared our food, and our bill came to about 42 lei. Sometimes the big numbers here make things seem expensive at first glance, but when we actually figured it out, we were each paying about $6. For chips, salsa, guacamole, beef enchiladas, a chicken burrito, and a side of avocado, $6 isn't too bad :-) Needless to say, we felt pretty good about our big "splurge."