Posted by Natalie
Anyone who knows me will know how much I despise being cold, sit huddled up in a scarf by my personal heater at work, and eat soup for lunch EVERY day.
Well, I am now in hot heaven, as the temperature here in Targoviste is 26 degrees, and our first proper day has been gorgeously sunny – sun cream and freckles are both coming out in force and I actually said no to soup in favour of a salad!
Zoe, Rachael and I are staying with two lovely hosts, and Emilian and Christina Sirbu, who have a beautiful house, two dogs, four pigs, 15 chickens (plus loads of baby chicks in incubators), turkeys, and a huge garden with its own vineyard – we are feeling very lucky!
Our first day has taken us to Neagra, a buffalo reservation where the herd were very kindly waiting for us.
It’s the largest of four sites in Romania running a successful breeding programme for the European Bison, which we heard more about from our guides. We were able to see two of them in an impressive display of locking horns, and an equally impressive display of appetite and jaw strength when being hand fed entire cobs of sweetcorn.
Back in Targoviste we had a look around the city’s farmers’ market which was full of fresh produce and some really, REALLY delicious cheeses, which later on we’ll be enjoying for dinner at Win and Matt’s host Laurentiu’s house.
We had lunch back at Cocosul Negru, and we’re now working on our presentation at the Romanian GSE team leader Valentin’s offices. We’ll be giving our first presentation on Wednesday, to the Rotary club of Targoviste – hopefully they enjoy it!
Coming up this week we’ll be splitting up for individual vocational activities as well as touring and learning more about the history of Targoviste, before heading for the mountains and some of the country’s most beautiful and famous castles. We’ll try and keep updating as often as we can!
Rotary International GSE - Romania 2013 