Week 5 Day 5
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, but I didn’t manage to find anything specific.
At that point, it was almost time for “Mormon night” (as we were referring to it), so we walked over to the nearest bus stop to get to the “church” (it’s really more of a house that they just use for services and events), where a few of the others were also waiting for us.
We went inside and sat down inside the main room, where they told us they were going to have a short service. It ended up being in Romanian and only about ten minutes long, so it wasn’t that bad.
After that we all walked over to a nearby park that had a large lake in it, and since we were all walking at different paces, Miette and I kind of split off from the group and got to the beach by the lake first of everyone in our group. A few minutes later, we got a call from them pretty much saying they were ditching us (it was really more their loss anyways), so it ended up being just me, Miette, and a bunch of Moldovan and Mormons...it was kind of awkward when they realized the rest of our group had left, but they just said “oh wow your American friends are lame” and left it there.
We put our stuff down by a bench and took our shoes off before going onto the sand to play some group games (like tug of war, where the rope snapped), and everyone was really nice and talkative and none of them ever even mentioned religion, so that was also pretty cool. They also gave us homemade cornbread with honey, which was really good (and I had actually kind of been missing cornbread, which makes no sense because I hardly ever have it, so this was very convenient).
It ended up being a really fun night—even though so many people DITCHED—and when it was time for us to head home they were very nice and asked us if we needed help getting home, etc. I was just really glad I went!
It did, however, finish later than I thought it would, so Miette and I just walked around the lake to the exit and then took the bus home, even though we had wanted to spend some more time inside the park.
But most importantly, Friday was not just “Mormon night” or a weekday, it was “Greg Day”! Since Greg always (or almost always) dresses in a striped t-shirt, khakis, and sandals, all of us had decided to dress like that too and see if he noticed. No one had all the right pieces to mimic his outfits, but I think everyone showed up wearing at least one of the three pieces. Since I didn’t have any striped shirts, I borrowed one from Blakely (thanks!) and wore it with a skirt and my regular shoes—the closes things I had to sandals were flip flops, which I (smartly) avoided wearing into the city. It was also really convenient because Elliott was coincidentally also wearing a striped shirt that day, so we had most of the group dressed up, and it ended up being a sort of fun-spirited prank.
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, but I didn’t manage to find anything specific.
At that point, it was almost time for “Mormon night” (as we were referring to it), so we walked over to the nearest bus stop to get to the “church” (it’s really more of a house that they just use for services and events), where a few of the others were also waiting for us.
We went inside and sat down inside the main room, where they told us they were going to have a short service. It ended up being in Romanian and only about ten minutes long, so it wasn’t that bad.
After that we all walked over to a nearby park that had a large lake in it, and since we were all walking at different paces, Miette and I kind of split off from the group and got to the beach by the lake first of everyone in our group. A few minutes later, we got a call from them pretty much saying they were ditching us (it was really more their loss anyways), so it ended up being just me, Miette, and a bunch of Moldovan and Mormons...it was kind of awkward when they realized the rest of our group had left, but they just said “oh wow your American friends are lame” and left it there.
The beach where we played games.
We put our stuff down by a bench and took our shoes off before going onto the sand to play some group games (like tug of war, where the rope snapped), and everyone was really nice and talkative and none of them ever even mentioned religion, so that was also pretty cool. They also gave us homemade cornbread with honey, which was really good (and I had actually kind of been missing cornbread, which makes no sense because I hardly ever have it, so this was very convenient).
It ended up being a really fun night—even though so many people DITCHED—and when it was time for us to head home they were very nice and asked us if we needed help getting home, etc. I was just really glad I went!
It did, however, finish later than I thought it would, so Miette and I just walked around the lake to the exit and then took the bus home, even though we had wanted to spend some more time inside the park.
But most importantly, Friday was not just “Mormon night” or a weekday, it was “Greg Day”! Since Greg always (or almost always) dresses in a striped t-shirt, khakis, and sandals, all of us had decided to dress like that too and see if he noticed. No one had all the right pieces to mimic his outfits, but I think everyone showed up wearing at least one of the three pieces. Since I didn’t have any striped shirts, I borrowed one from Blakely (thanks!) and wore it with a skirt and my regular shoes—the closes things I had to sandals were flip flops, which I (smartly) avoided wearing into the city. It was also really convenient because Elliott was coincidentally also wearing a striped shirt that day, so we had most of the group dressed up, and it ended up being a sort of fun-spirited prank.
The shirt Blakely let me borrow.
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