Week 1 Day 6

Once again, I didn’t have time to write yesterday, so I’m a little behind.

One of the best things about yesterday was that the temperature finally came down! The high yesterday was 66 degrees Fahrenheit, more than 20 degrees lower than the past few days. There was also a lot of wind, which made it seem even colder than it was.

Our excursion was to Old Orhei and Curchi, two of around 50 historic monasteries in Moldova. Elliott had told us the day before that we should be sure to wear pretty modest clothing, and that girls had to have headscarves if we wanted to go inside.

I had read on the group chat that several host families were insisting that the girls wear skirts (even though we were told there would be a good deal of walking), but I had not yet encountered this issue. As it happens, once I was dressed in long pants and a shirt, my host mom asked if I had a skirt. I showed her the one I brought with me, which she glanced at and said “нет” (no) to. She then returned with a Very Long Skirt (down to my ankles at least) and asked if I wanted to borrow it. I said no as politely as I possibly could, but she still gave me a somewhat disapproving look. She did lend me a headscarf, however. Thankfully, I also remembered to take a cardigan with me. Unfortunately, I did not realize until I was on the bus that I had forgotten to bring my rain jacket. 😕

Old Orhei was about an hour’s drive from the American Councils building, so we had a lot of time to talk with the people around us. This was great because even though I knew everyone a little bit, I got to know them a lot better. Georgia, the girl whose birthday we had celebrated, was sitting next to me, and she started guessing our blood types...out of the people near us who knew their blood types, she guessed everyone’s correctly!

Along the way, we stopped at a lookout place where we could see the entire valley around the monastery.

The view from the overlook.

It was pretty windy. 

From left to right: Renee, Amaya, Cameron,

Georgia, me, Sara and Melina.

From there, we drove down to the ruins of old bath houses that were on the way to the monastery.

Left to right: Georgia, Sara, me, Cameron.

(The guys on the right who got in our picture were Whitson, Greg and Alex)

From there we drove into the valley, where there was a small museum about the site, so we looked around there for a little bit. After that we began our (small) hike up to the monastery. Along the way, there was another photogenic space.

Then, we walked into the smaller of the two buildings (far right on the picture above), which was pretty much a cave. There was one small-ish room for worship, and a door leading to the outside of the cliff (for lack of a better word), where there was a small place to stand and observe the surroundings.

The view from the cliff.

There were small hole/slot-shaped spaces on the surfaces of the stones making up the cliff, and many of them were filled with coins, kind of like the American habit of throwing coins into wells or fountains.

The walls of the cliff from the outside. 

The old monk’s cells (rooms) were also in the cave, so we took the chance to look at those, too.

The view from one of the cells. 

We then walked up to the actual church building, located at the top of the cliff.

 

The gate leading into the church grounds. 

We also got to go inside the church, but unfortunately, pictures were not allowed.

(I tried to get a good picture without anyone in it, but this is the closest I got.)

There were also two Very Cute Dogs running around outside the church, but Elliott forbade us to pet them. It was a struggle.

One of the Very Cute Dogs.

We then walked down the other side of the cliff to a restaurant, where we all had lunch. At this point, it felt like it was freezing, and I was so happy that I had not worn the skirt my host mom suggested. It was also drizzling a little bit, but not enough to make me seriously regret forgetting my rain jacket, which was lucky. By the end of lunch, all of us were shivering a bit and we had huddled together to try and conserve body heat. This was slightly a amusing considering it never dipped below 60 degrees.

For lunch, we had chicken soup with bread and sour cream, grilled chicken, and some type of food made of fried dough (I did not catch the name of it). It reminded me of langos, a Hungarian dish, but one was filled with potatoes, and the other was filled with cooked fruits, cinnamon, and had powdered sugar on top (reminded me a bit of apple pie). I mentioned this, and Greg (who is Hungarian) and I talked about langos and Budapest for a little bit, which was nice. We also talked about how the day before, he had bought a boxed set of all the Harry Potter books in Russian(?!).

After lunch, we were all feeling very cold.

Left to Right: Sara, Georgia, Melina’s back, Maggie and me.

(Credit to Cameron)

We walked back down to the bus and from there drove about half an hour to Curchi, where there were two churches on one compound.

The gate to Curchi (from the inside). 

First we went into the red church, where we looked around for a little bit and admired a lot of the art on the walls. Once again, no photography was allowed inside.

The red church from various different angles.

Then, we went into the white church (which was separated from the red only by a small garden. Inside, we were able to watch part of a baptism being performed, which was interesting—I’m not sure if baptism is different depending on the branch of Christianity, since I’d never been to one before.

The white church.

After that we had a few minutes to walk around the gardens and take pictures. I ended up popping into the gift store for a few minutes, where there was a coffee vending-type machine. I got some hot chocolate that cost 5 lei (about 20 cents), and was really warm, thank goodness!

Me, wearing my headscarf. 

(credit to Elizabeth)

After that, we headed back to the bus and drove back to the American Councils building. From there, I called my host mom to let her know I was coming home on the trolley bus, and this time we got on the right one. 🙃

When I got home, we had some noodles and vegetables for dinner, as well as some of the remaining блинчики (mini pancakes) that we had made the night before.

Overall, it was a really long day but well worth it!