The Last 24 Hours (despite being deleriously exhausted for most of it)

Romania is the strangest combination of familiar and not familiar on so many levels. A lot of the basics in Bucharest, thus far, aren't that different than in other European cities that I've been to, especially since, for the moment, I'm staying around the corner from the 'main drag' in central Bucharest. There have been no major surprises about the bathrooms or anything like that - at least not the apartment - and around the corner from my house are a 24-hour McDonald's, an Everest (European sandwich chain), and a KFC (not that these are necessarily places I would go). I'm also down the street from a HoJo's with a Pizza Hut on the ground floor, however here is a major difference - the Howard Johnson is actually called the Howard Johnson Grand Plaza and used to be one of Bucharest's most well known hotels - and is probably one of the most expensive places to stay in town. That Pizza Hut, which I believe is the same one we ate at to appease my sister when we were here seven years ago - is actually a more upscale style restaurant rather than the normal strip-mall style pizza hut.

Language
While things sound familiar, whether or not i understand someone is not always a straight forward issue. Every seventh or so word I haven't heard often enough at home to know what it means. Also, because I have to pay more attention in order to understand someone clearly, if someone speaks too quickly, mumbles, has an unfamiliar accent, or uses any sort of slang I miss things and have to get them to repeat themselves. Or I get that puzzled face I'm trying to learn how to avoid and then they respond to me in English with some sort of snarky smile on. On top of that, my speaking skills are so far behind my comprehension that I speak slowly and not always in full sentences - especially when speaking requires declining a noun or conjugating verb I'm not very familiar with.

As far as my experiences thus far...
one of my my mom's high school best friends, Mara, picked me up from the airport and brought me to the apartment. She was extremely helpful in finding the place and left me with several packages of Romanian salamis and cheese (de oaia - sheep), bread, icre, etc. Even a couple of sarmale. I can say this - at least I'm more used to the food than I would be in many other places. :)

After she left, it was the sketchy Internet cafe and contacting various contacting various family members and family friends, while also trying to figure out how to use my mobile (the instructions for which, of course, are all in Romanian). Actually, it's not taken me very long to figure out as it's not so different than the plan I had in Strasbourg and the phone is similar to my old nokia which I love so much.

As far as contacting me:
I CAN receive calls and texts from the US (texts to international mobiles on Verizon are 25 cents a text, but I don't know about any other plan) and I'm sure calling will be absurdly expensive (international calls to mobiles tend to be really out of control). I do not have a land line in the house, but hope to find a good place to plug in my laptop and use Skype (I don't see a place to plug in my headphones here - also I think the timer on this computer shaves off a few seconds as it goes...of course, right?) Email me if you would like my mobile number anyway though.
Pictures also won't be happening until I find a place to connect the laptop - possibly a cafe with free wireless that my father had heard about.