We’ve finished the 4th of 5 weeks in Romania, and I’m starting to run out of new things to talk about.
I’ve visited a lot of cool places during my time here, and met some awesome people, so I’ll talk about that!
I plan on doing more in-depth dives into every place I visited, but I’ll touch on some of them here!
People
I’ve met some amazing people, all on very different adventures and leading vastly different lives!
The English trainers (the trainers from outside of Romania) are here for the full 5 weeks and from all over the world! We have people from Scotland, Ireland, the Caribbean, China, the US, UK, Canada, and Australia!
In addition, we have many trainers from Romania who are here to manage some technical parts of events and help the kids who can’t speak English as well. They also join some of us for lessons to help translate for younger kids.
They’re all super nice and want to get to know us as much as we want to talk to them! Both the kids and trainers taught us a lot about Romanian culture!
It’s been awesome to meet so many people from different parts of the world with such varying perspectives. We all have different experiences with certain facets of our life like school and public transport, in addition to politics and so many other things! There have been some interesting conversations!
The Romanian trainers get less breaks than the English trainers and often do more work than we do for certain events, but they’re not all here for the full 5 weeks either. Some only stay here for one (5-day) session while others will actually stay for the whole summer! Others stay for varying amounts of time within that range.
We often spend a good amount of time hanging out at night, doing story puzzles that Billy, the Chinese trainer, presents to us, or just generally talking to each other about whatever’s on our minds. Sometimes we just need to vent about something that happened with our group of kids or something else that happened during the day.
Conflicts
That brings me to the next thing: I don’t know that drama is the right word to refer to it so I’ll call it conflicts.
Some of the trainers have had issues with overdrinking. It’s not always the same people, but it’s happened a few times.
This often happens late at night, and causes other arguments or conflicts to start. Then people start yelling or screaming and waking up other people.
I’ve only been kept awake or woken up once, but I’m a pretty deep sleeper and hadn’t actually fallen asleep yet that time.
Others are lighter sleepers so it’s a lot more of a disturbance for them.
There’s also been some small issues with people not getting along while sharing rooms, but none of it’s happened with my roommates.
None of it is a huge deal, but it starts to add up when it happens so often.
Places
In Predeal, we are staying at the Eden Grand Resort. It’s one among many different resorts in the town, which gets a lot of skiers in the winter.
The intention with the Eden Grand Resort was always to use it as a summer camp in the off-season, so it has ziplines, a soccer field, arcade machines, and a big military-style obstacle course on its grounds.
It’s a 3-star resort, and generally very nice. Some things break on occasion, but that’s bound to happen with hundreds of kids here.
We get 3 free meals a day, free cocktails every night, rooms with the other trainers, and many breaks throughout the day. I’ve already mentioned a lot of this in other posts, so I won’t dwell on it.
Several days ago, our boss left to go to a different camp she’s running at another location, and took the Australian trainer with her. But two nights before that we all had a special farewell dinner together with traditional Romanian food.
For that dinner, we had sarmale and mici with papanasi for dessert. I’m gonna try to make some of these foods at home. They’re too good to leave behind!
Day Trips
In between camp sessions, we get to go on day trips to various locations around Romania.
We’ve been to Brasov, Sighisoara, Sinaia, Bran, Busteni, and an adventure park a little ways out of Predeal.
I enjoyed every trip, but I think Sinaia was my favorite. It was a really cozy town with a beautiful park, monastery, and castle! We visited the monastery on Sunday during church service, so it felt disrespectful to take pictures.
I got a ton of pictures of Peles Castle, though!
Predeal
Predeal is by no means a big town. It’s bigger than it looks at first glance, but feels practically abandoned without all the skiers and tourists that come here in the winter.
Many buildings, like a big parking structure we see on our weekly hikes, lay completely empty during the summer, inhabited only by a couple dogs.
Still, it’s located way up in the beautiful Bucegi Mountains and the shops are still open! We’ve taken a few small trips into town to get snacks and drinks.
The Eden Grand is uphill from the town center and near the edge of town, so it’s a pretty long walk, especially on the way back.
But I think it’s a great place for a summer camp! It’s out amongst the mountains and the trees and, other than the occasional bear sighting, I have few complaints!
Conclusion
As I’m writing this, we’re now in our 5th and final week at the camp. At the end of the week, we’ll be saying our farewells and departing for other adventures. I’m going to Moldova and Dubai with two other trainers before I head home, but many of the other trainers are going on their own trips as well!
I like to evaluate my journeys based on whether or not I want to go back.
Maybe in a couple months, I’ll look back and decide I don’t want to. For now, though, I have very few complaints about the whole endeavor and would love to come back!
(Edit 12/2025): I’ve been invited back to work at the camp again, and I’m considering taking that offer! There’s a second camp location which I’d love to visit to experience another part of Romania, but it was a great experience either way! I think about it every single day!
