Theater: Viață de cimitir

Mihaela Popescu Bitănescu is a romanian actress. She worked in more than 15 movies, in television and also in theater. Currently, she works in the National Theatre of Bucharest. On 28th of february Michaela Popescu came to Slobozia with the theater play: Viață de cimitir (Cementery life).
The play was in the Casa de Cultură Municipală - Cinema Galax (House of culture). This center is a new building placed in one of the avenues of Slobozia. The program includes cinema on weekends (with classic and current movies), exhibitions and theater.

One day Daniel and me went to the Cultural Center to check the schedule of the library and we saw the poster of the theater play. We thought it would be a good opportunity to do something special with the kids and get involved in the cultural life of our town. Furthermore our kids love Michaela Popespu, so they were so happy to go to her theater play.  
 

 

On the stage they were 5 persons, on the left side 2 dead persons wearing white suits and Michaela who was the death. On the right side one redhair woman wearing a red dress and a man with black clothes. The aim character was the young and blonde woman who just died. 

The principal argument is the eternal balance between life and death, to accept our reality, accept the death and let things and people going out.  

 

 

Our kids liked the play a lot and they wanted pictures with the actors, so we asked the director of the cultural center, a nice woman who helped us with the tickets and made us a special price (thank you :D). We had to wait a little bit until the actors changed their clothes and our kids met, talked and took pictures with Michaela Popescu and all the actors!

And the actors signed the kid's posters and even on their arms!

Al :)

Slides and thiefs

Buna!

Amara is a small town close to Slobozia (about 15 minutes by bus). Its name comes from "amar" which means bitter. This name is also the name of the village's lake: lacul Amara (lake Amara/bitter). This lake has special characteristics in its components and people go there to have baths  because it has therapeutic properties.

We went to Amara to go to the swimming pool, which is in a Spa called Laguna Blue.

We spent 3 hours in a big swimming pool, a jacuzzi and in the saunas.

*Daniel and Miriam pulled down the bucket of extremly cold water after the sauna!

  

But the thing we enjoy the most, as you can see, was the slide:

After a funny morning in the water we wanted to go to Braila to complete our day with a movie in the cinema.
Daniel and me were in Braila in November but we didn't arrive to the center (big mistake). This time we arrived to the center and we discovered that Braila is a beautiful city with a lot of things to offer.
We didn't have a lot of time but we will come back to explore this city. 

Braila has two cinemas, one is Cinema city, which is placed in The Mall, on the outskirts of the city. The other one is Cinema Central, an old cinema placed in the center of Braila, with only one movie per day and a cheap price (1 euro).

In front of cinema central there is a good restaurant. We ate so good there, in fact we ate so good and so much and we arrived late to the cinema which was closed. So, we will tell you about Cinema Central, but in another post in the future, because for sure we will come back.

Finally we went to Cinema City and we used this chance in the mall to buy things which are impossible to find in Slobozia.
After a big talk with the guy who sell the cinema tickets we chose Identity thief, a comedy.
It was a stupid american comedy, but it was so cool to be in a big cinema eating pop corn :D.

Al :)

Birthdays

On one saturday in Vila Raluca we had 3 birthdays!!! 

To celebrate this special day we prepared a birthday party: funny hats, baloons, kids music, flutes, cookies, chips, grapes, olives...

We sang "happy birthday to you" in romanian version: 

                                                                                   

Multi Ani Traiasca, Multi Ani Traiasca,
La Multi Ani;
Multi Ani Traiasca, Multi Ani Traiasca,
La Multi Ani.
Cine Sa Traiasca, Cine Sa Traiasca,
La Multi Ani;
Cine Sa Traiasca, Cine Sa Traiasca,
La Multi Ani.
---- Sa Traiasca, ---- Sa Traiasca,
               La Multi Ani.               

                 

Romanian birthdays are celebrated with a table full of food, specially with chicken and a big cake.

We danced and sang romanian songs for kids, for example: Elefantul cici and Nu mi e frica de bau bau:

                                                                                  

 

We had a lot of fun and we played a lot!

And remember! If you want to wish happy birthday to someone in romanian you have to say: La multi ani!

Al :)

Carnaval

When the fifth season of the year comes to its end there has to be a big party:

...which gives a big big occasion to celebrate to the maximum. And that`s what we did in Vila Cristina, but before the party started everybody needed some party outfit, so we made a load of super-fancy heads (that looked a little Chinese, but on carnival everything is allowed:))

The next step towards the top-carnival-costume is a nice make-up (we didn`t expect that this step will take us so long.. maybe longer than the actual party - but the kids had fun and the outcome was worth all efforts)

Then - finally - the party got started: None of the important games were missing; balloon trampling,  chocolate robber, newspaper dance etc.

But most fun was the chocolate marshmallow eating contest, although there wasn`t much left of the make-up later. 

Very important (and what I sadly forgot to teach the kids) is the carnival battle cry:

Zicke Zacke Zicke Zacke, Heu Heu Heu. Huralumpa Zigaschdompa, Heu Heu Heu 

Galaxies, Calea-Lactee, solar systems and Co.

There are so many things bustling about in the universe and it seems like a huge chaos... where should I start to explain, what will catch the kids`attention?

Starting with theories and talks is always a big mistake, so I decided that we`re going to create our own planets of papier-mâché. 

Until we had all layers on the balloons and the whole coat was dry, almost two weeks had passed and the kids were moaning when the planets would finally be done (and I heard a lot of times: "What are we going to do with them - can we play football with them?"). But despite all doubts and some failures because of moldiness the result was quite stunning.

Besides playing football, we illustrated a living solar system with our models. Every child chose a planet it wanted to represent and had to arrange with the other children the right order. Then everybody got an instruction by me how to circle the sun, like "Merkur, you have to move very fast" or "Neptune, you`re the slowest of all planets".

I hope that with this activity I could give them an idea of gravitation and how it rules the behaviour of our planets.

But to point out that there is more than our solar system, a bit of talking was necessary, so I tried to explain them with some pictures and all words contained in my modest Romanian vocabulary, that there are infinitely many stars in universe, that galaxies are an accumulation of many billion of stars and that the Milky Way (Rom. "Calea-Lactee") can be seen in the night sky as a stripe.

LG, miri