Ankara, Istanbul, Belgrade, Timisoara and Arad. After a long trip with the airplane, I arrived in  Belgrade. Then, with a special bus, I moved from Belgrade to Timisoara. For the first time i stepped in Timisoara. I had very mixed feelings – my English was not so good, I had no Romanian money in my pocket, and no credit on my phone. I was just waiting for someone from Zury Association (the hosting organization). I had an unnecessary and inevitable feeling of excitement. I wanted to eat, but I only have Euros, and I don’t know where the money exchange office is.

Eventually, someone is waving at me and smiles.  That person is Catalin.  Then I took a deep breath, cause I knew, everything is going to be alright – we’re going to eat, we’re gonna go home. It really did feel very nice. We started our travel to Arad, and talked in the car; but I was a little ashamed.  I can’t imagine my English being understood. It was funny and hard. Together we arrived at Arad and we came home.

Oh, the meeting with my new friends….

Some Spanish people say “hola” (Carlos). Another volunteer smiles and warmly approaches me. (Steve).  I’m going to my room, and Steve comes to my room with the camera in his hand. He starts to record “Hello, how are you?” he asks. I was very tired and I just wanted to sleep. My room was facing towards the church, and that gave me an interesting feeling, maybe for the first time in 23 years. At night, I met the other volunteer from Spain. (Estefenia). She was speaking very fast in English. Sometimes I couldn’t understand her, or the other. Also, Steve was smoking Nargile in kitchen, and was a wonderful thing to see water pipe in the kitchen. I felt like i was back in Turkey. I was lucky. I was between friends.

It is like a jump out of the frying pan, and into the fire.

The most wonderful 7 months of my life started with hope.