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Rotary GSE Trip to Romania 2005
For District 5220
Team Leader Phyllis Nusz
Representing Modesto Sunrise Monet Castenada
Representing Modesto Kathleen Ennis
Representing Yosemite Jun Kinoshita
Representing Mariposa Joe Toska
I created this website chronicling our adventures as we traveled throughout Romania with the hope of encouraging others to participate in Rotary Exchange Programs. If you are interested in finding out more about the GSE Program log on to http://www.rotary.org/foundation/educational/gse/
One of the other goals of this site is my way to say thanks to Rotary District 5220 and all the Romanians who made this whole trip possible.
I tried to combine several major components in the pages which follow so that this site might interest Rotarians and non Rotarians alike.
1) Information about the cities we visited and the places we saw in each city, i.e. schools, hospitals, business etc... Some of this may not be interesting to the non Rotarian but there is plenty of other interesting photos and information particularly if you plan a visit to Romania.
2) Photos of as many people who we met as possible, (names are generally omitted because I can't remember them all).
3) Information (names, phone numbers and email addresses) about the various business we visited and utilized along the way, in the hopes that others may take advantage of the great hospitality and service we received while there.
The above map shows the general plan of our grand adventure. All the cities listed are our overnight stops. We also visited several other locations not listed as day stops, many of which I have included photos of. While we are on the subject of photos I should inform you that I lost all of my photos from the first three weeks of the trip so there are many gaps in this history, some which my fellow teammates covered with their photos but ultimately there are many irreplaceable photos missing from this fully inadequate history.
Romania was once an outpost of the Roman empire and their language is Latin based hence the name Romania. This makes Romania quite unique in Eastern Europe because in general Eastern Europeans speak a Slavic language related to Russian. The only other exception is Hungary which speaks a language related to Finnish. Hungary is just northwest of Romania and has been part of Romania as well as the reverse so many of the place names and some words come from Hungarian which some may consider Romania's second language especially in the northwestern region.
The first day of our 25 day adventure began here in the San Francisco Airport.
Our whole team assembled before departure.
It was a long flight but with all the excitement we couldn't sleep so we stayed up most of the night in the first class lobby drinking espresso and VSOP scotch (we didn't actually travel first class but we had connections). So naturally we were tired by the time we got to our first stop, Paris, France. Kathleen catching up on some shut eye in the airport. While in the Paris Airport me and Monet each had an $8.00 Heineken!!! Oh well the scotch was free.
Arrival in Bucharest International Airport.
Romania Travel Information Links
Just a little example to illustrate how to use the phone system in Romania
To call the hostel inside Brasov Dial the phone #
514-296
To call inside Romania but not in Brasov Dial city code + phone #
0268-514-296
Outside Romania Dial Country code + city code + phone #
(40) 268-514-296
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