Today we became involved in a community project. This took place at a local playground, where many families and town folk congregated to help out. The idea behind it was to encourage everyone to help with the renovation of the playground and to demonstrate that community spirit can achieve an awful lot. The main NGO running it was Kalaka, which was led by an American guy called Chris who was full of enthusiasm for the project. As we were chatting, he told us that much of the playground equipment had been paid for by local businesses and also by the mayor, who was looking to gain popularity during this election year.

We immediately involved ourselves in the action and donned the Kalaka shirt and acquired a paintbrush and tin of green paint. We painted all the playground railings green, while other families concentrated on the play equipment. I probably got more paint on myself than the railings! The day was a lot of fun. It seemed highly publicised by the media, who went around interviewing people about the project. They even captured Michael on camera, who did his very best to explain who we are (TCV) and why we were there! His interview was apparently going to be on the Hungarian channel MTV1 - so TCV really were going global!

Of course we 'tested out' all the play equipment and had a lot of fun (only to make sure it all works ok.....) alongside the kids.

Soon after we went to Select for lunch, where we had vegetable soup (perfect for Michael!), followed by battered pork and rice. We walked around town for a bit, exploring the shops before trekking to the supermarket. On the way we spotted two lizards bathing in the sun.

We promptly made our way back to the apartment as Simon had an hour long massage to get to! This is when we realised that the masseuse was in fact Janos, who had massaged Simon's leg in the bar a few nights ago! What are the chances of that.

Simon came back very happy and relaxed, so we dragged him back out again so the local bar. Laszlo kindly bought us pizza for dinner, which we munched on with him and his young kids. They had to get back home so the four of us left to seek out a Czech bar that had been recommended to us. We found it but unfortunately the beer we chose to drink tasted of bile so we didn't stay for long. However, the decor was pretty cool as the walls had been covered in drawings of John Lennon, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix.

On the way back home, we spotted a big photo of Janos in the window of a clothing shop, as he is also a well-known model in Romania! This amused us a lot. The evening ended with us lighting a fire in the garden and chilling out around it with a beer.