Chisinau!

Yesterday was quite the adventure. I gave my last December final as quickly as possible, calculated grades at the speed of light, and then hightailed out of the university in order to catch a minibus to Chisinau. It had been snowing for four straight days, so I decided time was of the essence. There was no way I was going to let myself get snowed in and miss my flight.

The bus station was abuzz with people trying to figure out when buses were going to leave, as all the routes were on limited schedules. Me and my big red suitcase got rejected from one minibus, only to be accepted on board about five minutes later as they realized they needed more passengers. I like to think my dour, helpless expression helped to get me on the bus. Our two-hour ride over the snowy roads to Chisinau was surprisingly uneventful. The drivers here know how to manage without snow tires, apparently. On the way, I spent about 45 minutes talking with a friendly Bulgarian lady from Taraclia. She told me many entertaining stories, like how there were so many people at her son's wedding that they had to put chairs and tables on the stage of the House of Culture they were holding it in. Moldova is such a friendly country!

I lugged my suitcase (weighed down by approximately 6 liters of wine from my host family) on to another minibus from the South Bus Station into the center of Chisinau, where Amy, my lovely hostess for this weekend, found me and took me to her apartment. Her nice "Euro-remont" (European-remodelled) apartment is a good waystation between Comrat and America. We made a delicious meat spaghetti sauce with ingredients from the western-style grocery store downstairs from her apartment. Robin, a Peace Corps Volunteer who lives in the same building, joined us for dinner. We shared homestay horror stories; it was highly entertaining.

Today I went on a shopping extravaganza (read: I spent $50). It was nice and sunny, which made the snow glisten quite prettily. I bought a hairdryer (apparently the word diffuser is the same in Russian—score!), some Russian cartoons on DVD, more DDT music, and The Reader in Russian. I'm quite looking forward to reading The Reader on the plane. It was written in German originally, so I figure reading it in Russian is no more weird than reading it in English.

I also confirmed with the staff at an Air Moldova office that my flight to Frankfurt is indeed scheduled to leave tomorrow. This is good. About 12 hours until I have to leave for the airport. Yay!