When she first came to Romania in 2006 she didn\u2019t find the country attractive. Her children were very small and when they visited Bucharest\u2019s Old Town they discovered it looked like a construction site. Her husband works for the Petrom company and she had to come to Romania quite frequently. When her older daughter went to college, the family decided they could move to Romania, with their younger, 15-year-old daughter having to change school. How did they find the idea of moving to Romania?<\/p>\n
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Joyce Easton: \u201cWe weren\u2019t too worried because we\u2019d visited many times before, so it was a new experience and I think that over the years things had begun to develop a lot, so we were quite excited. We weren\u2019t worried about coming because we knew where we were coming to, and perhaps for my daughter, a new school maybe was the challenge and I worked as a physiotherapist in Scotland so I wasn\u2019t going to be working so that was a bit difficult for me as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
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But Joyce has adapted and shared with us what she did to occupy her time:<\/p>\n
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Joyce Easton: \u201c I have a little dog, when I was by the park, so I enjoy walking him in the park, I have tried to get involved with a few charities, I haven\u2019t recently but before Christmas I was doing volunteering one or two days a week for Casa Sperantei and working with a physiotherapist there, and I tried to be involved a little in the school, if there\u2019s anything happening was the school, my Romanian license..[laughs] I know many words but making sentences of them was a little bit more of a challenge, but my daughter Ioana is trying very hard and I am going to continue until I leave Romania\u201d.<\/p>\n
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We asked Joyce about her favourite activity in Romania:<\/p>\n
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Joyce Easton: \u201cMmm, eating, I love all the restaurants, a big variety, and I also like doing and finding out about the local culture, so I like to go to the markets and once a week to do some shopping for vegetables and things, and also I like to do some cultural things, obviously if there\u2019s an opera, because it\u2019s very affordable here, and in the UK it\u2019s very expensive, and some music things that again, I find Romanians are very cultured people\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Next Joyce will tell us what she would recommend to a potential visitor to Romania:<\/p>\n
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Joyce Easton: \u201cI think the countryside is beautiful I haven\u2019t traveled very far north but I\u2019ve been to other places Sinaia, Sibiu, we\u2019ve been skiing in Poiana Brasov, and it\u2019s very different to the city, so it\u2019s a beautiful countryside. There are things that people don\u2019t known if they don\u2019t come to Romania, like the very thriving wine industry which we had an interest in before, so we like to eat out and as I said the culture and historical buildings are great to visit and ballet, opera, music and all things I was interested at home but it was quite expensive, so there\u2019s lots to do for someone visiting.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Joyce\u2019s daughter has adapted to living in Romania and has found the right activities to dedicate her time to:<\/p>\n
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Joyce Easton: \u201cShe loves the shops, she likes fashion. It\u2019s similar but there\u2019s slightly different things because there\u2019s many developing Romanian designers, things are a little bit more affordable, so she\u2019s quite interested in looking at different small boutique shops that designers are trying to do. And she also enjoys going out with her friends. I think it\u2019s a safe environment for a teenager, I feel, compared to back in the UK, so they have quite a lot of freedom. So she, at 15, 16 is beginning to maybe go out in the evening with her friends until a little bit later, and things. The old city, I think, is a great environment, you see an old lady with her dog sitting having a coffee, there will be young people out, teenagers, families. There never seems to be any trouble. I tend not to go in the city much after 1 or 2 in the morning, but I don\u2019t feel threatened in any way, I use the underground, you know, I am happy to walk around on my own, whereas (I\u2019m from Scotland) I wouldn\u2019t want to be out in the city after maybe ten or eleven o\u2019clock\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Joyce also referred to several other differences between the Romanian and Scottish cultures.<\/p>\n
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Joyce Easton: \u201cAs an expat I don\u2019t feel threatened at all and I think the other thing when we visited, when the children were younger, at the beginning, simple things like they seem to have quite a lot of respect for older people, there seems to be that culture, people would get up and give up their seat on the underground, which never happened at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Is she were to mention something that she dislikes in Romania, Joyce would say car parking and driving which are real challenges. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joyce Easton is a physical therapist who came to Romania with her husband, who works for Petrom company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":175526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46047],"tags":[19114,46077],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-175525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-expat-in-romania-en","tag-expat-in-romania","tag-joyce-easton-of-scotland"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n