Some Moldovan Culture and German Beer

This past weekend, my BiFFle, Matt Black, and I went to several museums in Chisinau. We met at the Peace Corps office and then headed out to the National Archeology and History Museum, the National Library and the National Museum of Fine Arts. Here are some pics from the National Archeology and History Museum:






The National Library (Check out those card catalogues):




The National Museum of Fine Arts:




Upon reflection I think that the exhibition of Military hats at the first museum we visited, the National Archeology and History Museum, was my favorite. There were hats from a variety of different Eastern European Countries and a whole bunch of hats from Moldova’s USSR days. (Really the only way this exhibit could have been better is if it was a shoe exhibition.) There were even a few military uniforms. I have to admit that it was nice to have Matt at a few of the museums because he was able to explain some of the rocks and bones and stuff that I would normally find completely uninteresting. Additionally, I hope all of you appreciate these pictures because we had to pay an extra 15 lei at each museum in order to take pictures!!! And if for some reason someone from Lonely Planet is reading my blog, you should really add information about that 15 lei photo charge to your guidebook. And here are some of the hats:






On Sunday, We wanted to start at the Puskin Museum, but I accidently directed us to the Open Air Army Museum instead. After a quick walk through of the Army Museum, we decided it made more sense to go the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History next. We followed the Map in the guidebook and ended up taking a lovely walk on some out of the way streets on the way to the Ethnographic Museum. The Ethnography Museum had some awesome stuff like dinosaurs and a giant relief map of Moldova. Unfortunately, the battery in my camera died half way though that museum, but some of the pics I did take are below.




After a yummy lunch at Andy’s Pizza (possibly the most American restaurant in Moldova), we finally made it to the Puskin Museum. The Puskin Museum is located at the cottage where Puskin spent several months in exile from Russia. We had a tour of the cottage in Romanian. I think I only understood about 30% of what was said, but the museum was interesting nonetheless.

Overall, the weekend was tiring and I have the blisters on my feet as proof of the insane amount of walking that we did. The museums were interesting and I had the most delicious German beer on Saturday night, which really made the whole trip worthwhile!