I uploaded the pictures from the 2nd camera. Once again, the link is: http://www.potterfam.com/gallery/mission_moldova. If you've already looked, then you'll want to go to the last couple of pages of each album. I added the most pictures to Buildings/Scenary, about 9 to demonstrations, and a couple each to the other two albums.
I have some video files too, and I'll probably be posting links to those soon, I still need to get, at the least, the one of me doing my bo staff kata. I'm not going to post all the videos either, b/c some are just of the crowds we had at demos, or driving. But I do have a video of each of us doing a weapons kata.
So, the trip to Moldova, Romania and Ukraine was really great. Quite the adventure. The demonstrations went great, but there was a LOT of traveling to get to places. Going over the borders was a big hassel that took a lot of time, and seemingly for no real reason. I got sick when I woke up on the day we were going to go to Ukraine. I ended up throwing-up about 9 times that day. For about the first hour I was throwing up every 15~20 minutes... and mostly dry heaving... yeah fun. I finally got better toward the evening, and had already stopped throwing-up about mid day. Thanks be to God for that. The day after Ukraine, which I missed b/c of all that, I guess I looked like "walking death", according to my teammates.. and the Moldova Team Members would keep asking if I was ok. That entire day was spent traveling in a bus to get to Romania.
Other interesting points. There is pretty much no air conditioning over there. This by itself isn't too odd... but they don't have fans either... I mean, the people can buy fans, but they don't, because they believe it will give them a cold. They also don't roll down the windows much in a car, and IF they do, it will only be on one side of the car, because they think that the draft that will be created will cause them to get a cold. They also don't use the air conditioning that they have in the cars. It was usually always above 90 while we were over there. But, the Prison in Romania we did a demo out... it DID have air conditioning. They also didn't use very much meat, but this is because, I imagine, meat is a little more expensive. Lots of potatoes, lots of carbs. The people in Romania and Moldova were very nice, and there were quite a few people that could speak at least a little English. Lots of English shirts and hats and music. Seemed like more American music on the radio then music from their own country. It was very interesting seeing the stark contrasts side by side. A motorcycle passing a donkey driven cart, for example. Lots of horse or donkey drawn carts on the streets, and you'd just pass them. One bus we were in, the speedometer didn't even work, so I guess he just went as fast as he wanted to.
I'll try and post a more detailed account, but I haven't managed to write it up yet.
Also, I've signed up to be a substitute teacher for the Jenks High School. Yeah, I know, I'm crazy. Since I will be doing the afterschool karate program every day during the week... well it is AFTERschool, which means I am free DURING school, so I thought, meh, why not. I found out the pay is $65 per day, and some of the teachers I had in Highschool are putting me on their "preferred sub list", so that's pretty cool. Wonder if I'll snap though.
Also I will be getting a NEW CELL PHONE NUMBER. I actually already have the number, but I don't have the phone yet, so I just know what the number IS. Not going to post it here, but I will be calling people and letting them know. Here is the phone I am getting. Thanks to a deal with United frequent flyer, I was able to get the phone for free, plus frequent flyer miles. Because it is a special deal, one of the restrictions was I could not port an existing cingular wireless number over. Not THAT big of a deal. Why am I doing all of this, parents moving to Texas, I need to get on my own plan. This deal came up, so I took it.
Ok, that's all, later.
TUMEO.
I have to wake up in less than 6 hours and do a demonstration at a school, so whereas I could put some text, I won't, I'll just give you a link to where I uploaded the pictures to.
These are not all of the pictures, I am still waiting to get my hands on the pictures I took with someone else's camera, I'll let you know when I get those, and post them, as well as make a real post on here about the trip.
Since I was taking the pictures, I am not in very many of them.
http://www.potterfam.com/gallery/mission_moldova
I have returned from my trips. I actually returned on Wednesday, just a little past 2pm. What isn't nice about that is the fact it was 53 hours later then when I was going to orginally return. Yeah, 2 extra days in Romania, that part wasn't so much fun. We waited in the line for an hour and half, got to the counter, and then we were told our reservations had been canceled... yeah, canceled. Apparently, when we were rescheduled because our flight to Chicago had been canceled, it messed things up. Since we never made the flight from Chicago to Warsaw and Warsaw to Romania, that canceled all the flights after that point. It was a mess trying to get things straightened out, but my dad came to the rescue in the end and got the 3 of us out of Romania.
The trip was great, I took a lot of pictures this time, unfortunatly, since I was the one taking the pictures, there are not a lot of me, but maybe that's good after all. I don't have all of them, I took a few with someone else's camera, so I need to get a cd from him, and then I'll have them all. I'll try and post the pictures up somewhere so people can see them, but I've got a lot of things to take care of.
I'm still debating on whether to go to Norman on Saturday after I work and visit until Tuesday. That means I could also pick-up my diploma on my way back from Norman on Tuesday, which would be good.
Anyways, I'm hungry, so food.
TUMEO.
Hello from Moldova. So far things have been going well. It was a long time traveling on Friday and Saturday, and we arrived in Moldova at 4:00AM on Sunday finally. Then we woke up around 7~8AM and went to the Church of the people we were staying with. Brian and myself gave a little talk, but no Martial Arts demonstration. That night we did a demo in the public square, though we didn't mention to the officials we would be talking about Christ... oops, us crazy Americans. Monday we did a demonstration at a camp and then drove to a village and did it at the church there. This morning we were hoping to go to a prison, but the head people didn't want the martial arts because they feared the prisoners would try and do it after we left. We then went to another camp. Tonight we will be going to another village, and tomorrow is Ukraine, where we will do 2 demonstrations. Thursday will be a travel day, going from Moldova to Romania, and then we will do demonstrations in Romania on Friday and Saturday, flying out on Sunday for home.
It's been a great experience so far. People eat a lot of "carbs" and not a lot of meat. It is good food though. People are friendly, and quite a few know a little to a decent amount of English.
Now I wish I had brought my laptop, and/or my additional small memory card, because I am taking a lot of pictures this trip. I am also taking video on the camera for short little clips. I started doing a double kick combo on breaking boards, a jumping round house kick followed immeaditly by a turning side kick. I'll probably build it up to something more, but that is getting technically, and many might not even know what I am talking about.
That is all for now, not sure if I will get another chance to get on the internet.
Ciao.