Kathy and I went to the hospital today. She only stayed for about half an hour and then she left. I'm going to be working in the Preemie ward, with the abandoned gypsy babies. Today there were only two, Toni and Pamela, and tomorrow we'll be getting one more. Many of the gypsy women bring their children to the hospital and then never come back to claim them, and so they are left in the care of the nurses. After the children are brought back to health, if they're parents still haven't come for them, they are placed in foster homes.

Toni (who is in the picture) is about 3 months old, and loves to talk and sing... sort of. Pamela is about four months, but she was born premature and so she only weighs about 4 1/2 pounds.

I had a bit of an adventure on my way home. The tram system here (much like ours at home) runs on an inforced honour system. You buy blank tickets ahead of time and then a machine stamps them when you get on the tram. This was my first time on the tram and I was concentrating on not missing my stop, so I didn't take much noticed when someone brushed past me to get off the tram. It wasn't until the security got on and started checking people's tickets that I realized the person who brushed past me had swiped my ticket! The man didn't speak English so we both got off the tram and waited for his co-worker to arrive, a co-worker who he said spoke English. And he did speak English, after a fashion. I was able to explain to him that I /had/ a ticket, but then had lost it. He then communicated to me that I had to either pay a 24 lei fine, or they would call the police and I could pay 20,000 lei at the police station! Luckily, because we couldn't really communicate all the well, and I didn't have any ID for them to identify me with, they had to let me go with a rather mumbled warning.

I must say, life has sure been exciting so far.