Week 2 Day 5

Still...behind...must...catch...up!

Friday was a pretty uneventful day. We got to class as usual, took our tests, and spent the rest of the day learning new grammar and vocabulary. After class, we went to Rozmarin (we go there every Friday before our group meetings) and had our lunch. I had a vegetarian sandwich (that was actually really good except that it had eggplant, which I don’t really like) and a piece of “hummingbird cake” that was pretty much just carrot cake with more stuff in it.

When we were done eating, we walked back to the university and got started early on our meeting. We scheduled individual meetings with Elliott for the next week, that are mandatory check-ups to see how we’re adjusting, and we also got into smaller groups for the next week’s activities. The rest of the time we mostly gave feedback about our excursions and talked about our experiences so far.

A few people mentioned cat calling and racial slurs, which we had been warned about in advance, but it was still somewhat startling to hear about them in relation to people I knew. Of course, these are not unique to Moldova, as they so frequently happen in the U.S. as well, but the main difference here is that we are told not to respond to them in any way, which can be really challenging. We also talked a bit more about the current political situation (due to all of the recent protests) and went over a few security procedures again.

As soon as the meeting was finished, we split off into smaller groups, and a few of us decided to go to a large shopping mall a bit outside from the city center since the weather wasn’t great, and there
wasn’t much else we could do. The mall was called Malldova (Devin especially appreciated the pun since he is notorious for constantly making his own puns) and it was pretty similiar to malls in America, only with different stores. It also wasn’t noticeably air conditioned, but maybe I just didn’t feel it since I’m used to feeling freezing as soon as I go inside a mall in the U.S.

MALLdova!

Devin, Greg and Elizabeth split off to go look at the top floor, which left me, Cameron, Georgia, Sara and Maggie to aimlessly wander around. At some point, we decided to get Cameron and Georgia matching outfits, but their standards were too high to make that a reality. Georgia deemed that all the men’s button down shirts weren’t soft enough, and for some reason, Cameron didn’t love the idea of wearing a crop top and booty shorts...

I did, however, find a really great shirt (unfortunately, I did not acquire it):

It perfectly describes me.

I thought of getting it for my mom (who collects shirts with bad English on them), but I know she doesn’t wear tank tops and she values practicality...@MOM: if you do want it, let me know and I will see what I can do. ❤️

After that we just walked around for a bit until we ran into the others, and we headed home on the bus (it was still raining, quite heavily at this point).

I got home, had a bit of dinner, and was reading up on the news and mostly relaxing when I got a call from Elliott saying that our excursion for Saturday was being postponed to Sunday, because the people in D.C. were requiring us to be out of the city on Sunday because of a big planned protest, and also because the weather would most likely be better.

I let my host mom know and then read a bit before falling asleep.

Comments

  1. MiaJuly 11, 2018 at 1:09 PM

    Bad ingrish on T-shirt?! Absolutely DA! Shop around now and bring home only the best. I mean worst. Spacibo!

    ReplyDelete

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