Europe Met the Crazy Americans...Part 1

    

     Wow! How do words even begin to describe all that I saw and felt over those three weeks. It's been over two months and thoughts are still sinking in that I had actually been there. After speaking at several churches and a ladies meeting about the amazing experience that I had, I am finally sitting down writing about the time I spent in Romania.

  

    The adventure had started! I excitedly walked through security and wandered up to my gate to sit down and soak it all in. The thoughts that this country girl was seriously heading to Europe on a mission’s trip ran through my mind as I waited patiently to board. This was only the first part of my journey though, as I was to meet three other team mates in Georgia.
     Upon arrival in Atlanta I began to navigate through the airport; I decided to evade the underground tram to the luggage claim and instead fast, walk along side it on moving sidewalks, figuring that I would beat it to the destination. I accomplished my goal of beating the tram to the claim and I met up with Bethany there.  Warm, muggy air greeted me as I stepped outside of the airport doors and into the Georgia atmosphere. I greeted Rachel, fellow teammate and chauffeur, and we all clambered into her lovely car ready for the next leg of adventure.

      After spending a wonderful evening, night and morning at Rachel’s home amid her family’s southern hospitality, us four girls, Amanda had arrived later on in the evening, headed to Walmart to get snacks for the long overnight flight that we would be embarking on later that day. We were delighted to discover dark berry skittles, pretzel m&ms, cheez-its, and some other “healthy” snacks. We were prepared for that flight and for the adventure in Romania.



  On June 13^th the team boarded the flight out of Atlanta to head to Paris, France and then onto Budapest, Hungary. It was the start of our friendship, I mean seriously, being stuck on an eight hour flight with nothing to do but trying to convince yourself that you should sleep gives you plenty of time to connect.
   I got to see the sunrise and Paris, I truly wish that we all could have had a longer layover so that we could see the city, but alas, it was not to be.

       Upon the arrival in Budapest, my body was now cooperating and telling me that it was time to sleep, but I had to again tell it that NO it had to AWAKE! So the perfect key to staying awake after an overnight flight is to take a small nap and tour the amazing city of Budapest. I had heard of Budapest before but was not prepared for the great architect and beautifulness of it. Venders lined the streets with their colorful items, restaurants seemed to have poured out into the street with tables and umbrella’s set up for shade, and apartment homes were painted brightly and contained little window boxes with flowers. The sights are so hard to describe, the lost me in a sense of wonder and excitement at how busy this city was and yet how very cool.

     I got to complete a so-called bucket list item, I rode a subway! Yes, this country girl got to ride her first one and she did not realize it until after a second ride. My city friends got a kick out of that one. It was pretty amazing even though I had no idea what anything meant but I sure did enjoy the ride and the really high escalators. One thing I noticed right away with the food is that they like soup, and if you want “normal” water that Americans are used to you have to ask for “flat water” or they would bring you a carbonated kind. I have to say that I found it very interesting, not bad by any means just interesting. It was like drinking pop that had no flavor, it was clear like water but had bubbles like pop, and it had a slightly different taste to it. I know great explanation there huh?

First Subway Ride.





How we truly felt.....EXHAUSTED! =)

    
      While there I got to climb to the top of a church and view the whole city, saw a synagogue-even though we missed the tour, took a sunset silhouette picture, ate a shwarma- no American brand of shwarma will compare to the spectacularness of the ones I had in Romania- and got to know the team even better. But this was just the beginning! The team would be heading out soon to start working with local kids in the city of Deva. My heart grinned that the thought of getting to interact with these kids, I could not wait to see what God had in store for me and the rest of the team.

     ~Laura Arminta
p.s. I'm going to start working on part 2

The Parliment Building of Hungary

The Old Castle of the Royal Family....They downsized to a smaller one.

All Over Again!

       The time has come in a full repeating mode, meaning a special time is now dawning upon us--myself included. In a sort of ray of excitement I look forward to the stretching of my brain beyond the normal capacity and to have it stuffed full of new information. Ah, yes the days where my head swims from the overload and tries to digest the information in smaller amounts. How the summer days had delighted me with great adventure and the stretching of my character but now comes the great test of it all, SCHOOL!
     
       Yes, ladies and gentlemen, college will be starting once again for myself and though I look forward with great optimism, I cringe slightly at the thought of tests and exams. But do not fear! I shall be the victor!

   With much gusto,
       ~Laura Arminta

Hit the Ground Running

Hey ya'll!
     Life has been a crazy whirl wind of activities since the day I left for Romania and the day that I returned. When I am done with speaking to the church's that supported me I plan on writing a couple posts about the trip and include a slideshow of numerous pictures. For what kind of post is without pictures?
     As soon as I arrived back in the States from Romania I embarked on a weeklong vacation with my family. It was so much fun to be able to explore parts of the U.S. that I had never seen with my family. But that is also another post in the future. After the vacation, I started back into work at my job as a CNA and I started to plan the details for my friends wedding cake. I forgot how much planning goes into the design and the layout of a wedding cake. The theme was country. So it included camo, daisy's and simple elegance.
      I went onto pinterest to search out ideas for a wedding cake the contained moss hunting camo and lo and behold I discovered my inspiration.

 

      I love the tiered squares, and the giant daisys. It was the country and elegant cake I was looking for. And so the planning began in full force. With a cake idea and I began to figure out how much batter was needed, how many batches of icing and how many flowers would have to be created.

 

    With the help of a great friend, my mom and my siblings, I was able to make over about two hundred miniture daisys, twenty medium sized daisys, and eight large daisys. They looked stunning. I do not think that I could have been more pleased with how they turned out.

    Then began the crazy part of the cake. I decided on a three tiered, square cake and to give the cakes a wood like texture I wanted to try drizzling white chocolate all over the cakes. Yes, I know, everyone thought I was crazy and I hoped that it would work.

 

     So at about 11:00 PM after work I started to ice the cakes and smooth them out. Upon completion of that, I began one of the most messiest things that I have done yet in my cake decorating adventures; drizzling white chocolate at vertical and horizontal angles. It was a lot of fun  to drizzle chocolate all over with no purpose but to be crazy and make it look cool. I have to say when I started I was saying in my head, "Oh boy! This had better look good or I'm ruined." But I think it turned out pretty sweet in the long run.

 

 

     I went to bed around 2:00 the next morning and slept for three hours before we had to load up three, two layered cakes and three sheet cakes into our mini van and head up to Minnesota to get the cakes put together. It was an intense car ride as I kept praying the cakes would not move or shift. The only small catastrophe was when mom made a sudden stop at a stoplight and all the cakes scooted forward into each other. But we praised the Lord when we saw that only a few dents had been made in the icing and a few of the chocolate lines had been broken, nothing more. I sighed with relief when we arrived on the scene and I could go into my cake decorator mode. It is where I usually block out everything but the cake and hardly notice what others are doing.

 

     With my sisters help, I touched up the dents that had been made, stacked the tiers and began to add the moss hunting camo, daisy's and other little details to the main cake. For the sheet cakes I added the cutting lines, and my mom and sisters placed the miniture daisys, rosebuds and camo leaves in a quilt like fashion.

 

    As I stepped back from the cake, I took it all in and sighed with relief. The cake was complete and it looked amazing! Even better than I had hoped, and the bride and groom loved it! That made my day complete. Now I could enjoy the wedding to its fullest.

 

        ~Laura Arminta

 

 

 

 





I Had Moved On

        My heart so desired to go on a mission trip once again, but timing seemed like everything. Nothing was fitting in where I needed it and so with sadness of heart I figured that this was God's way of saying no, so I moved on. I stayed busy with working,  thinking of my mom's family runion that we were thinking of attending, and thinking of my brother at Army bootcamp. One day I had this desire to once again look at mission trips through Global Encounters; and I came across a picture of two Romanian boys staring intently into the camera. I felt my heart strings tugged but i reminded myself that it was not possible because of the dates so I moved on once again from that desire. But at work all that I could think about was those boys, and I felt God giving me a nudge; so I figured it would not hurt to sign up and put in my application. Upon the completion of the application my heart felt at peace and excitment began to build, I knew that my parents were 100% behind me and their plans were beginning to change as well for our vacation.

The Farmland of Romania

 

         When I got the letter of acceptance, I felt like exploding with this crazy amount of joyful energy and ran to tell my mom and later my dad. My family's vacation had also changed in that my family is meeting me In Maryland when I fly back to the States. As I think about it more I smile, because I once again realize that God  truly does care about the seemingly little desires in our hearts. He also works to fit what looks to impossible into a person's life leaving them amazed at how it happened. So keep your eyed open to see what God has in store for today. =) And I'm looking forward to what God has in store for the team and I in Romania as I fly out tomorrow.

    Laura Arminta

 

The Flag of Romania


     

It Finally Came!

So I have a friend going on a missions trip through her college and I wanted to support her. The college group was raising their support through a coffee organization, which I thought was pretty cool and unique so I ordered two different kinds Valentine Blend, and Good Night Moon. Yesterday, my coffee finally came in and the smell was amazing! But I pulled my self-control out of me and waited till today to drink it. It was SO worth it! The sweetest moment of the whole day was when I made up a batch of the Valentine Blend and my family decided that it would be awesome of them to help me drink all the coffee. As I sat down at the table with my coffee cup brimming full of that amazing dark drink and began to study for my Sociology test, my two younger brothers decided to join me at the table. One having his colors and color-by-number and the other having has his word search they sat down to do with their "work" and began to drink their coffee. It was so cute. I love those little moments in life that turn out to be the sweetest moments. Don't take for granted any moment of the day, because you never know how you might be blessed through even the smallest of things.
 
~Laura Arminta

When the Opportunities Come, Grab Them!

   Two months before October I bought tickets to New York to go to a dear friends wedding. I talked my other friend Joni to come with me, so that after the wedding we could explore New York together. You only get about one chance to do this. =) It was really God opening the door. I would have never thought that I could go out there. As fun as the idea was, there was no way I could be setting money aside for a trip like that. So, He sent a tax refund. =) He has a funny sense of humor. The refund was enough to pay for a round trip plane ticket and some spending cash. He also provided a way for Joni to come too. I was pretty pumped about this. I had met Joni and Kate-the young lady getting married-on a misson trip to Chiapas, Mexico.



 

We had not seen each other since then and we were excited to once again see each other face-to-face. Joni's flight was to arrive twenty minutes after me....so that meant I would get to see Katie first. haha. But God had other plans. Joni's flight was uneventful but, mine on the other hand was quite adventurous. I tend to run into adventure without even trying. I flew out to JFK without a single problem, I ran to my next flight and boarded it right as they were given the call to all last minute passengers. Of course then, I would have a seat way in the back and so I "strolled" through the tiny aisle till I came to my window seat. My first thought when I sat down was, "Alright, I made it! Better call home and let them know." and my second thought was, "I'm still going to beat Joni to Buffalo!"

    At about 8:00 PM the plane began to back out as I settled into the seat, I was feeling pretty confident that this flight would be a breeze. But alas, it was not to be. Why should it be? Life would be so boring if there were not a few bumps in the road, a few "not going to go your way" moments. The plane took a long time getting to the "road" that leads to the runway and then it just sat there waiting for it's turn to get cleared for take-off. I guess New York City had had a storm just before I flew in and so some other flights had been delayed causing a slight traffic jam. We sat in that lovely airplane for an hour waiting to get cleared. People began to complain, I still have not figured out how that helped them. I just realized that I was beginning to live the stories I had read of people sitting in an airplane for a few hours. How cool is that?! I can now relate. =P

I taught this kid how to pose for crazy pics.

      9:00 PM came, the pilot told us over the intercom that we were going to have to return to the gate--at those words my heart did do a little nose dive--but we were going to fuel up and change flight attendants. You could hear all the passengers hearts sink by the way they took the news. I took the opportunity of fueling to talk a little bit to the girl next to me. She was from the Philippines and was on her way to see her boyfriend from Canada. I thought that was pretty cool. We talked about how they met, phones, and a few other random things. One of the coolest things in life is to meet new people. I love it! So finally at 10:00 PM, two hours later than planned we took-off.

My first thought, "I'm feeling tired."
 
My second thought, "Hey now, this is cool. The little pillow cushions on the chair bend. I wonder if it was to keep the other guys head from falling over the line into the other persons personal bubble. The guy who thought this up was a genius."

My third thought, "Sad day, Joni will beat me to Buffalo."

      The rest of the flight was uneventful and I met up with everyone at the airport. It was so amazing to catch up. It was like we had never been apart, we "just picked up where we left off" ~Joni. The wedding was beautiful, Katie's family was awesome and I loved getting to know them.

 

The night before the wedding Joni, Katie's soon-to-be sister-in-law Megan, and I could not sleep so we watched "The Little Princess" on Joni's phone, and then Megan and I talked about everything under then sun from eleven o'clock at night to two o'clock the next morning. Joni and I got to explore the town a little bit on Sunday and see the beautiful fall foliage even though it was drizzling out.

On Monday we went to go see the Niagara Falls. Never in my entire life did I ever think that I would see the Falls. EVER!

 

    We also walked into Canada by going over the Rainbow Bridge. We thought that the fact that we walked into Canada was one of coolness. haha. We walked through some of the Clifton Hills, a massive sized amusement park along the street. I have never seen that many people in one place. There were people everywhere! I had a Tim Hortons mocha over there as well and I could not figure out how to get the tab open on the coffee lid. That goes to show you how often I buy coffee. =P It was worth the trouble though.

Joni's boyfriend. =)

Figuring out the coffee tab.

Joni and I

      On Tuesday, Joni and Letchworth State Park. "The Mini Grand Canyon of the East." We got to see the most beautiful, scenic views ever. New York is  like an artist's palate. Sprays of red, orange, and gold were splashed across the tree leaves.

 

The result is breathtaking beauty. It was a time that I will never forget. A time of memories, moments of awe, and a time of learning to take every moment and enjoy it. =)

         ~Laura Arminta