From: Don Collins, dcollins@warren-wilson.edu
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 17:11:10 -0400

Dear Ovidiu and Simona,

I'm so glad to hear that you had a good visit with Vicki late last week. I guess that she told you that we had a wonderful experience in Romania. Alin was a terrific help at showing us Bucharest and waiting for the six-hour late train. Consequently, we returned to Istanbul by airplane (50 minute flight). We really enjoyed meeting Valintin and the SARM camp, we were royally greeted upon our arrival with bread and salt and traditional folk dances by children and teenagers. That really made us feel welcome! It was also good to meet the students who attended the camp. Most could speak English very well (our Romanian consisted of a few isolated words and phrases). A student translated the colloquium for us, another student was our guide on the weekend tour which included Brasov and the Babele mountains. We met the mayor of Targoviste and made speeches, did a taped interview for the new TV station in Targoviste. We are certainly looking forward to next year's visit (Solar eclipse one year from today)!

We really appreciate your help in making the contacts in Romania and we sincerely thank you. We'll keep in touch getting next year's expedition set-up. The Dutch and French plan to lead expeditions as well.

Regards, Don

Note: Donald and Victoria Collins are teachers at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina and participated to Perseide 98. Together with some of their students they will be again with us at EuRo Eclipse 99.

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From: Marcel Vonk, M.L.Vonk@phys.uu.nl
Subject: Back from Romania!
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:26:50 +0200 (MET DST)

Dear Ovidiu,

Last sunday, Sikke and I returned from our trip to Romania. We are glad to tell you that we had a really great time! The country is as beautiful as you told us, and everybody was very friendly and hospitable. We made a lot of friends, and are certainly going back next year! In fact, I am even thinking about returning this winter to meet some of the friends I made.

We talked to Valentin, and set up some plans for our eclips camp next year. The way it looks now, there are no major problems, and with the help of SARM we will be able to organize a very nice camp next year!

We would like to thank you very much for introducing us to Romanian amateur astronomy, and helping to arrange our trip to Romania. We are sorry you were not there yourself, but we certainly look forward to meeting you next year!

Kind regards, also on behalf of Sikke and Maarten,

Marcel

Note: Marcel Vonk and Sikke Kingma are Dutch graduated students and members of Dutch Youth Association for Astronomy. They attended Perseide 98 and hope to be again with SARM at EuRo Eclipse 99, together with their group.