Sunday in Chisinau

This past Sunday, all the volunteers met in Chisinau for the Mentor's to show us around the capital. All of the Mentors are M24s (meaning they came to Moldova last summer, I am an M25) so they have been in the country for almost a year and seem to know there way around. To get to Chisinau, we traveled by rutiera from our village to Chisinau. We had to transfer to another rutiera at the central station and then walk a ways to the Peace Corps Head Quarters.

Once we met with our mentor, my group went to the park in the central Chisinau. There is a giant statue of Stephen Cel Mare there, which I failed to take a picture of. There was an interesting array of activities going on the park. There was a bounce house set up and charging 15 lei (a little over a dollar) for 10 minutes of bouncing. There was a booth set up to take old-fashioned dress up pictures. A few other people were selling rides on Hot Wheels to children. And lastly, there was a man with a paint pony selling pony rides. I am sure there was a whole lot more going on, but that is just what I can remember.

After our walk through the park, we had pizza for lunch. I have heard bad things about pizza in Moldova, but both times I have had pizza, it has been delicious. After lunch, we headed to the Central Piata (pronounced Piatza). The Central Piata has virtually everything imaginable: fruits, vegetables, clothes, shoes, meat, animals, deodorant, razors, backpacks, etc. I bought some rain boots for 80 lei. I failed with my bargaining skills, “E prea scump, dati-mi ieftin. (It's too expensive, give me cheaper).”

When we finished at the Piata, we headed to a grocery store called Number 1. This was really similar to an American grocery store. I didn't buy anything exciting, only a bottle of water. We then met back up with the rest of the ARBDs and headed back to the village. We took a rutiera to the central station, where the rutiera back to our village was ready to leave. Only about 10 of our group could fit on the rutiera, so I stayed behind with a few others to wait for the next rutiera. After about 45 minutes or so the next rutiera left for the village and I went home for the evening.

And then I found 20 lei....