Week 3 Day 2

This morning was relatively uneventful: taking the bus, classes, and heading out to lunch.

We had a group lunch at La Placinte (the restaurant we ditched last week) and although we did not eat Placinte, we had a really good lunch. We had kompot (a berry drink), bread, soup, different vegetables, potato vareniky (a kind of dumpling) and pilmyeni (meat dumplings).

The pilmyeni.

Since I had gone to the library yesterday, I had a free afternoon, so Sara and I left the restaurant and went to the post office so I could mail my postcards and then to the Central Park, where we sat on a bench and got the bulk of our homework done. Since there was a church in the middle of the park that Sara hadn’t been inside yet, we looked around there for a few minutes.

After that, we walked down Pushkin street to Tucano, since I had plans to meet up with Miette after she was done with the city quest, but there was still time to kill. I got a piece of Oreo cheesecake...definitely a guilty pleasure I need to regulate while I’m here.

The Oreo cheesecake.

While we were there, several other program members walked in, so we consolidated tables and some did homework together, while I tried to do some more of my summer reading (I didn’t get too far).

One of my summer reading books.

Once Miette was done, I met her in Stephan cel Mare park, and we walked over to a moldovan shopping center on the Main Street where she had bought some really cute (and cheap!) clothes. Although I didn’t buy anything today, I’ll definitely go back there some afternoon once I’ve decided what I’m looking for.

Since it was still relatively early, I went back to the park, where about ten of us had decided to play mafia (using a Russian deck of cards), which turned out to be really fun, even though I got killed pretty early on in each round.

However the highlight of my day was definitely (and for the first time since arriving) seeing all the Mormons! I must have seen about eight of them during the course of the afternoon, starting when I was doing homework in the park to when I went shopping with Miette, and some more passed us when we were playing mafia. I remember that at orientation, a lot of the alumni mentioned that they really enjoyed talking to the Mormons (about non-religious things), and that they’re all super nice and open. Starting now, my goal is to engage in a non-awkward way with one of them, but I get really excited seeing them just walking around the city—although, granted, most of my knowledge about Mormonism comes from the musical, which is not exactly *church-approved*. Anyhow, it just strikes me as funny that I’ll probably learn more here about something American than I would in America...

До свидания! 


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