It's Time for Updates: 3. Home Sweet Home

Before starting my internship(s), I decided to allow myself 3-4 weeks to relax. I think I deserve it – heck, we all deserve it – after this challenging spring session. As second year students now, while we aren’t receiving any bail out money, we are at least getting a reward. For some, it’s a trip abroad or a fancy new computer. For me, it is allowing my mom to spoil me with her amazing cooking.

So I set out on a long, 18-hour trip to Romania via Germany. Before I even got home, I got a huge wake-up call in Germany. Yes, I knew from my accounting and finance classes that the Euro is dominating the Dollar, but my transactions were on paper, so who cares if the direct quote is 1.3 or 1.6. Minor details. Well it matters when I’m stuck at the airport in Frankfurt and I have two hours to kill. The very “nice” lady at the check-in is telling me that I’m too early for my departure. I try to explain that I just got off the plane after a 11-hour flight from L.A. and I would
really appreciate it if I could go to my gate and just relax there. She looks at me with a blank stare and then she moves on to the next person. Shoot! I guess I shouldn’t even try to ask to speak with a supervisor. So I decide to check whether I get wireless and take care of some e-mails. Yes! I do get wireless, however, the fee for one (yes, one) hour is 8 Euros.
What?! T-mobile in L.A. is $5.99, here it comes at a premium and it’s almost $11. I go to business school, so a little cost–benefit analysis is telling me that checking my e-mail at that price is a big no! So I decide to go back to my friendly airport worker.

My second treat was going home to Sibiu (Romania) to visit my family and friends. It was three weeks of bliss and I was glad I got to see everybody and travel a little bit. It’s always good to go home because my mom still treats me like a child and does everything for me. So I was pampered with lots of love, attention and especially homemade cooking that I missed. It doesn’t matter how many times I make my mom’s recipes, they just don’t taste as good as when she makes them! And I’d say I’m a pretty good cook. But it always tastes better when mama makes it.

I also missed my town and its old buildings so I took many walks and tried to experience it through tourist eyes. You can see some of the pictures I took in my “tourist walk”. It was a very interesting experience and I recommend it to anybody because you get to see everything from a completely new perspective. You might also discover something new about your hometown.