Week 2 Day 6
On Saturday, I slept in until about 8:30–I definitely would have stayed in bed for longer, but my host mom was already awake and I would have felt guilty if I got up any later.
After I had breakfast, she told me she was heading out somewhere (I wasn’t able to understand exactly where she was going) and left me some money to go buy water. I did that, and with the other program members on the group chat, we made plans to meet up in the afternoon to go see the Incredibles 2 in Russian.
When my host mom got back, around 11:30 or 12:00, she gave me permission to go and told me that she probably wouldn’t be home until late, since she was going to meet friends in the afternoon and to a concert in the evening.
At 1:30, 16 (out of 20!) of us met up at the Stephan cel Mare statue in Stephan cel Mare park on Stephan cel Mare boulevard...“Stephen the Great” is a big Moldovan hero (depicted on all of their currency) who was king of Moldova when it was at it’s largest...which was in the 1400-1500s, so I guess that says a lot about the current state of the country.
From there, we decided to head out to a huge outdoor market further along the street, where we split off into a few different groups. Some of us wanted to see the movie in Riscani (one of the neighborhoods with an upscale movie theater), but that wouldn’t leave us much time at the market, so some of us decided to go back to Malldova, where the movie was playing 45 minutes later. This left us more time to look around the market, and a lot of us found some nice headscarves, which was just in time for our excursion the next day! I bought two for a total of just over $6, which I thought was a pretty good deal.
We got to Malldova and bought the movie tickets, which turned out to be much more difficult than we had assumed, because we got to choose our seats...but the entire chart of the theater was in Russian. At least this means that even though we weren’t doing the most cultural activity, we still got to apply the things we were learning about!
We had some time to kill, so we stopped by the Tucano on the first floor since not everyone had had lunch, and Maggie and I decided to split an Oreo cheesecake (they are delicious but dangerously addictive). While we were in line, a kid behind us heard us speaking in English and started talking to us. It turns out that his parents work for the U.N., and he goes to the international school in Chisinau. It struck me as kind of ironic, since my parents worked as Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) for the U.S. State Department up until a few years ago, and at one point we were going to move to Chisinau, so it made me wonder what my life would have been like if I had grown up here for a bit instead of Belgium...
We got back to the movie theater in time for the animated short before the film, and we all loved the movie! Because of the nature of the movie and the style of the animation, I was able to understand most of the dialogue and plot, except for some of the villain’s motivations. Hands down the highlight of the movie, however, was having a RUSSIAN EDNA MODE. Imagine normal, American Edna Mode (an icon). Now imagine Edna Mode but a million times more amazing, hilarious, and everything else. It was better than that.
After the movie, we headed down towards where the busses were and went home on our own routes. I got home shortly before 7:00, and did some homework, chatted with some of my friends, wrote some postcards, and and got my stuff ready for the next day’s excursion.
Even though it was a weekend day and we didn’t do anything particularly Moldovan, it was still a really fun day, and I got to do something I was sad about missing in the U.S. with my new friends, so I would consider it a success!
After I had breakfast, she told me she was heading out somewhere (I wasn’t able to understand exactly where she was going) and left me some money to go buy water. I did that, and with the other program members on the group chat, we made plans to meet up in the afternoon to go see the Incredibles 2 in Russian.
When my host mom got back, around 11:30 or 12:00, she gave me permission to go and told me that she probably wouldn’t be home until late, since she was going to meet friends in the afternoon and to a concert in the evening.
At 1:30, 16 (out of 20!) of us met up at the Stephan cel Mare statue in Stephan cel Mare park on Stephan cel Mare boulevard...“Stephen the Great” is a big Moldovan hero (depicted on all of their currency) who was king of Moldova when it was at it’s largest...which was in the 1400-1500s, so I guess that says a lot about the current state of the country.
From there, we decided to head out to a huge outdoor market further along the street, where we split off into a few different groups. Some of us wanted to see the movie in Riscani (one of the neighborhoods with an upscale movie theater), but that wouldn’t leave us much time at the market, so some of us decided to go back to Malldova, where the movie was playing 45 minutes later. This left us more time to look around the market, and a lot of us found some nice headscarves, which was just in time for our excursion the next day! I bought two for a total of just over $6, which I thought was a pretty good deal.
We got to Malldova and bought the movie tickets, which turned out to be much more difficult than we had assumed, because we got to choose our seats...but the entire chart of the theater was in Russian. At least this means that even though we weren’t doing the most cultural activity, we still got to apply the things we were learning about!
My movie ticket.
We had some time to kill, so we stopped by the Tucano on the first floor since not everyone had had lunch, and Maggie and I decided to split an Oreo cheesecake (they are delicious but dangerously addictive). While we were in line, a kid behind us heard us speaking in English and started talking to us. It turns out that his parents work for the U.N., and he goes to the international school in Chisinau. It struck me as kind of ironic, since my parents worked as Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) for the U.S. State Department up until a few years ago, and at one point we were going to move to Chisinau, so it made me wonder what my life would have been like if I had grown up here for a bit instead of Belgium...
We got back to the movie theater in time for the animated short before the film, and we all loved the movie! Because of the nature of the movie and the style of the animation, I was able to understand most of the dialogue and plot, except for some of the villain’s motivations. Hands down the highlight of the movie, however, was having a RUSSIAN EDNA MODE. Imagine normal, American Edna Mode (an icon). Now imagine Edna Mode but a million times more amazing, hilarious, and everything else. It was better than that.
After the movie, we headed down towards where the busses were and went home on our own routes. I got home shortly before 7:00, and did some homework, chatted with some of my friends, wrote some postcards, and and got my stuff ready for the next day’s excursion.
Even though it was a weekend day and we didn’t do anything particularly Moldovan, it was still a really fun day, and I got to do something I was sad about missing in the U.S. with my new friends, so I would consider it a success!
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