Здравствуй, Кишинев

Yesterday, we had our final exam in class, which was (luckily) not as hard as I had expected it to be!  I hadn’t had much time to study the night before, but I was still able to understand pretty much everything (although our teacher did mention there would be some material that we hadn’t really learned much of, but was just to see what we could figure out) and my brain was functioning normally, which was very useful. We had an independent lunch, and since I still had some things I wanted to do, I walked down Pushkin and got myself some savory goods at a bakery, got almost the rest of my money exchanged, and then scoured the two nearby Librarius’ (a book store) for Mafia card decks...I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but they did have something pretty similar, which I bought since it was cheap: The cards look a bit different, but otherwise it seems to be the same thing. After that, I walked over to the bus stop and got on the #22 bus to go to the Botanical G

Wow...yesterday was quite the day. In class we went over the grammar and vocab that was going to be on our test and practiced talking about illnesses. We had a group lunch scheduled at Smokehouse , an American barbecue restaurant that is owned by a few former peace corps volunteers. There, we had an informal Q & A session with two of the owners, David (who is from Virginia), and Vlad (who is Moldovan, I believe). Their big focus is about encouraging locals to fight corruption and open corruption-free businesses, so they told us a lot about the process of opening the restaurant, the times they were persuaded to bribe someone, and just other examples of corruption in Moldova. One thing they told us was about the way the trolley bus system was kind of corrupt, because apparently many of the locals try to “help out” the ticket takers (who they think don’t make enough money) by returning their tickets after paying, so that they can be resold to another person. This means that the

Today was one of the busier remaining days this week, but still very laid back compared to the first few weeks. In class, we reviewed all the grammar we had learned so far in preparation for our test on Thursday. Since we had an independent lunch, about eight of us took a bus to the center and had lunch at Andy’s Restaurant (owned by the same people who run Andy’s Pizza), since it was close to the post office (where we were supposed to meet up at 2:30), and because it was fast. There was also a currency exchange spot just around the corner, so Elizabeth and I stopped in there so we would have enough money to eat. At 2:30, we met up outside the post office and split up into groups for the Market city quest we were going to do with our language partners. We got to walk down Stephan cel Mare blvd. for a while, and had to stop in several different stores and ask for the prices of different things, and one of them was a candy store: I will most definitely be going back t

This morning, unfortunately, did not start out all too well for me. First, I got out of bed about ten minutes later than I should have, which set me back by a lot and was just a little bit more stressful since there was more pressure on me to get to school on time. Next, my host mom gave me a HUGE breakfast: the remaining blinchki with jam, a plate full of boiled bean sprouts with vegetables, and a cup of tea. I also ate this a bit more quickly than I should have, which made me feel a little bit sick for the next hour. I managed to get to school early, albeit fifteen minutes later than usually. Then, all throughout the first two classes, I had an odd sort of pain in my right leg (?), and although I never figured out what it was, it did go away after that, which was fortunate. After class, we took a trolley bus to the restaurant, Пётр первый (Peter the 1st, a Russian king), which was accross from Stephan cel Mare park and just around the corner from the museum we would be visiting.

Sunday was (I think) the first day I have spent entirely at home. I woke up at about 10:00, at which point Vera had already left for church, and then made myself some breakfast. After that, I did my homework for class and corrected last week’s test, and then wrote some postcards. I also did a lot of summer reading stuff, which is important since I still have about two and a half more books to read as well as a bunch of other stuff for classes before the end of August...I guess I should get started on that as well. During the course of the day, I had the chance to text back and forth with some of my friends from the U.S., which was fortunate since usually I’m on excursions or doing work when they’re awake (D.C. is about 7 hours behind Moldovan time). I also listened to the entire soundtrack of Die Zauberflöte between 3-5 times, which I would highly recommend doing if you have the time. Vera came back from church at about 1:30, and then we had lunch together and watched a bit of a

Saturday’s excursion was to the Autonomous Region of Gagauzia , which was about a two-and-a-half hour drive from Chisinau. We met up at the American Councils building at 9:00 and left shortly after, and we saw some gorgeous scenery on the ride there: We arrived at about 11:30 in Comrat, the capital of Gagauzia which has a population of about 20,000 people (it is very small). We visited the monument to World War II and also a statue of Lenin in the center of the city. The World War II memorial. After that, we visited a library that had a lot of books in both Russian and Gagauz—a language similar to Turkish and also dying out as fewer in younger generations continue to learn it. At the library, they had a shelf of classic western books in Gagauz, so it was pretty cool to try and interpreted the titles and just see which books were considered so popular that they were owned in the middle of a small region in Moldova, of all places... They had about three copies of Oli

Friday was an amazing day. In class, we had our tests, and I actually did really well on mine (except for a few spelling mistakes), so that was fulfilling. For lunch, we went to Rozmarin (as always), and I had a sandwich and lemonade, and then stole some of Georgia’s cake, so I was definitely not hungry after that. In our weekly meeting, we went over our weekend excursion and what we would be doing next week and just gave some general feedback about the week’s activities. When that was done, a few of us (me, Renee, Amaya, Miette, Melina and Devin) took the bus to the center and looked around the souvenir market some more—I thought I had exhausted its contents, but I managed to find some more presents, so that was also fortunate. Next, we walked over to Gemeni, a sort of indoor market on Stephan cel Mare Street about a block away. Miette got some Moldova socks and then we looked around at one of the floors where there were a lot of people selling really nice dresses at good prices

In class on Thursday, we mostly just prepared for our test and reviewed all of the new things we had learned during the week, as well as some things from earlier in the program, since this week’s test was going to be more cumulative. Also, since it was the day before a test, we had an independent lunch and a free afternoon, which was very convenient. As soon as class was done, we took a bus into the center and I stopped by the post office to mail some postcards and letters, and then about nine or ten of us walked a few blocks to a Greek restaurant that Maggie’s host mom had recommended. I had some type of kebab with a bunch of condiments—I would have gotten something else, but the menu didn’t have many english translations, and those that it did have weren’t particularly descriptive, so to a certain degree, we all just ordered some random things. Since service was kind of slow (as it is in most Moldovan restaurants), we didn’t finish up until about 3:00, and we walked back to

On Wednesday, classes kept going as usual, and we also got to have an independent lunch! For lunch, all of us went to a little cluster of restaurants right by the university and got some pretty generic food, but our options were limited because our afternoon activity involved staying at the university, so it wasn’t worth the time to try and go to the center. That afternoon, we watched a soviet comedy from the sixties called “бриллиантовая рука” (briliantovaya ruka, which translates roughly to ‘the diamond arm’), based on a true story about some Swiss smugglers (I think?). It was much easier to understand than the last one, and all of us really enoyed the movie overall, and a lot of our host families were also excited that we had seen it, since it is apparently a very culturally appreciated movie. We finished the movie at about 5:00, and then a pretty big group of us decided to go into the center, look around the market and find a place there to do homework. We stayed there for a

On Tuesday, classes continued as usual, mostly reviewing grammar, especially all the different cases. For lunch, we went to a restaurant called “Propaganda”, which is apparently owned by some famous Moldovan journalist. Since we had to get there on our own from the university, it took us some time trying to find it, but in the end we all got there relatively unscathed. It turns out I got pasta for lunch (I must have been really hungry the day I ordered), so even though it wasn’t entirely what I ended up wanting in the moment, it was still a good lunch. My lunch. From there, we walked to the Enthnographic Museum, which was located in this really interesting building (it looked a lot like a mosque), and we had a tour there for about an hour. There were all sorts of different exhibits, like a dinosaur skeleton, traditional Moldovan clothes, and they also had a series of maps from different time periods showing for how long Moldova had been underwater, pre-human era, so I defini

Monday of this week was a good way to ease into the week, especially since some of us were feeling a little bit under the weather upon realizing that we’re already more than two thirds of the way through the program. We went to class as usual and went over last week’s test as well as learning about the fifth case, which is the last one we had left to learn. After school, we all walked a few blocks to Andy’s food market, where we had the lunch that we had ordered the last time we were there. I got potato были with sour cream and a lemon tart for desert (it was really good!). We hung around there for a little bit and waited for our language partners to show uo since we were doing another city quest that day to visit the dendrarium (a public garden with a lot of different flowers and small lakes). We walked around the dendrarium for a while, so it was really lucky that we were there on a day with good weather, if only a bit too hot for my taste. But we were still able to en

Sunday! I got to sleep in even more since my host mom was at church and I didn’t have to be anywhere until 4:00. I got up at about 10:00 and had some breakfast. Vera had left me a note again about what to do for food, and it was a pretty quiet morning. I did some more reading, made plans for what presents I still had to buy and took a shower, but my options were somewhat limited since the WiFi was being a bit unpredictable. After lunch, I got dressed and got ready to meet the others for volunteering with the ACCESS students. ACCESS is an English language program for students all over Moldova, and they were having a camp in Chisinau, so we visited them for a few hours and helped them with one of their activities. As it turns out, they were doing a “shark tank”-type project while we were there, so we joined their groups to help them present to the counselors. Each participant had to speak for a minute in English, but to give us an *extra challenge*, they made all of the NSLI-Yers spe

On Saturday, I got to sleep in until about 8:30-9:00, which was exactly what I needed after the exhaustion of the school week. I had breakfast with my host mom and then I did a good amount of summer reading and my weekend homework from class. I also organized the desk in my room and cleaned out all the things I had been too lazy to do during the week, which was productive and oddly satisfying. For lunch, one of Vera’s friends came over, so we ate together and talked for a bit. We had borscht for lunch (russian beet soup) that I had kind of been dreading, but it was actually really good! It’s not something I’ll be pining for when I leave, but I could see myself ordering it at a restaurant sometime. I wrote some letters in the afternoon, and in the evening Bepa and I went to a concert at the theater. It was probably my favorite concert so far: there was chamber music with two different sets of musicians who alternated, and I really enjoyed the whole thing, even though I wasn’t fami

Friday! In class, we had our grammar test as well as some graded oral work, and then we learned about the perfect vs. imperfect tenses. As always, we went to Rozmarin for lunch before our group meeting. This week, I got a roasted vegetable/mozzarella sandwich and a piece of hummingbird cake (which I can best describe as an upgraded carrot cake). My sandwich. The “hummingbird” cake.  We walked back to the university and managed to start our meeting about 15 minutes early, and we also finished much earlier than expected, at around 3:15 instead of 4:00, so a bunch of us took a bus to the center, and we walked over to the cafe we had gone to a few days before and got a start on our homework, since it was really hot so none of us wanted to walk around, but it felt too early to go home. I got myself a drink since I wasn’t feeling hungry, but some of the others got the crème brûlée again, which was (once again) pretty cool. (I forget what it was called) I got a better

Thursday’s classes were the same as usual: going over material for the test the next day. This was also one of the more academically intense days of the week, though, because in addition to doing all the review, we also learned a bunch of new things that were going to be on the test. We had an independent lunch that day, so a few of us (me, Miette, Amaya and Melina) took a trolley bus to the center and went to Robert’s Coffee to have a light lunch with the intention of staying there for a few hours and studying. I had brought my iPad with me that day, so I managed to look at some additional materials online take care of things that the WiFi at home wasn’t able to manage. We also got our homework done and tried to make some weekend blanks and gave recommendations for where to buy souvenirs, so that was pretty useful. Since we were there for a while, I convinced myself to buy a strawberry milkshake, which ended up being pretty good: During the course of the afternoon, Renee,

Wednesday was probably one of my favorite days from this week. We had class as usual, and then we got a takeout lunch from La Placinte to eat in the courtyard in the university, since we had to drive a good distance for our excursion that day. The food came in these cute little boxes, kind of the equivalent of pizza delivery in the U.S. There were three kinds of Placinte: potato, meat (I think it was chicken, but I couldn’t really tell), and apple. These were also more cylindrical as opposed to the round ones we had had before, which was nice because it meant that we each just got our own box without having to share. The boxes. My apple, meat and partially eaten potato Placinte,  since I didn’t think of taking a picture until after I started eating. After we finished eating, we got into two different vans and drove about an hour to Dolna, a small town in the Moldovan countryside where Pushkin stayed at a friend’s estate for a summer. When we got there, we had a few min