MallDova

I just got back from the biggest shopping mall in Moldova (and yes the real name is MallDova, very cute). Wow. I was blown away. This place is huge. 5 stories, and the first store I saw when I walked in was Swarovksi. There's a "Robert's Coffee" that looks just like a Starbucks and the menu on the board is in English. There are also German, Greek, and Japanese restaurants across from a food court that has Sbarro, McDonald's, KFC, and some Russian fast food places. I ate at a place that is just like Kroshka Kartoshka in Russia. There were also a few fresh juice stands and sushi places as well as a big grocery store on the bottom floor. This place is way bigger and nicer than the new shopping centers in Vladimir or even in Sofia, Bulgaria.

I was able to do some people watching today because there were a lot of people at the mall. Is that surprising considering this is the poorest country in Europe? Life in the capital is clearly very different from life in the villages. You definitely don't sense the crushing poverty of this country while hanging out in MallDova, the same way you can't understand how people live in Russia if you spend all your time in Moscow at clubs where you have to pay $2,000 to reserve a table. Still, I was pretty surprised to see how extravagant this place is.

Something else I noticed while people watching is how attractive the Moldovans were. The women I saw were pretty, but not in the Russian way. From what I've heard and read about Chisinau I expected all the women to be walking around in stiletto heels, short skirts, and wearing tons of makeup, but that's not what I saw today at all on the streets or in the mall. Granted, it's a Tuesday afternoon and pouring rain, but Russian women would still be dressed like they were going to an exclusive club. Also, almost all the women I saw had brown hair and darker skin than most Russians. The men were of that same coloring. I couldn't even believe how good looking the guys were that I saw! I mean in Russia, whenever you see a couple walking down the street the girl is almost always at least 50x more attractive than the man, who you can expect will be quite overweight, wearing a mesh shirt, smoking a cigarette, and looking kind of sweaty.

Well this was quite a superficial post but those are my observations for today.

Red Sox in Russian

Well this trip was surprisingly easy. All of my flights were on time and I didn't have any problems at all. The Chisinau airport is wayyyy smaller than the one in Portland. It took me all of 10 minutes to get off the plane, go through customs, get my luggage, exchange my money, and get in a taxi. There were only 3 other planes hanging out at the airport when we arrived. Two were Air Moldova and one was Turkish Airlines. Having read about sex trafficking from Moldova to Turkey and how many Turkish men come to Chisinau for Moldovan prostitutes, the presence of Turkish Air and the hundreds of signs I saw on the way to the city center for travel to Turkey (and the absence of any advertisements for tourism to other countries) struck me a little bit.

Anyway, my initial impression of Chisinau on the drive from the airport was that this place feels very, very familiar. It reminds me a lot of Vladimir or any other cities of the former Soviet Union. It's already apparent though that it is a pretty green city, just like I'd been told. Even flying into the airport we could see lots of bodies of water and vast expanses of forests and fields. I'm looking forward to checking out all the parks.

I got to my apartment about half an hour earlier than I expected, so I sat outside on a bench to wait for the lady to show up to give me my keys and everything. I could tell right away that I'm in a really safe place. There were a bunch of 8-10 year olds hanging out nearby and I was happy to hear them speaking Russian. I wasn't really sure what language I would hear more in Chisinau. Moldovan (basically the same as Romanian) and Russian are both official languages and I know that most people are fluent in both, but I thought that the majority would speak Romanian all the time with the exception of the ethnic Russians who don't speak any Romanian. So I expected to be able to get by with just my knowledge of Russian, but was worried that if I hung out with Moldovans my age they would always talk to each other in Romanian and have to switch for my sake or something like that and have it be an inconvenience. I don't think that's the case. Every single person I saw around the apartment during that time was speaking Russian, and to my eyes anyway they didn't look like ethnic Russians. Also, I would say that about half the signs I saw were written in Russian, and on cable TV the vast majority of the channels are in Russian rather than Romanian.

Speaking of cable tv, I checked out all the 70 or so channels I have and 2 of them were broadcasting some Red Sox game. That really surprised me. None of the channels are in English, but they do have quite a few American broadcasts dubbed in Russian.

Oh also, I saw some of the stray dogs that are supposedly all over the city but these ones at least definitely looked completely harmless and not quite as mangy as the dogs in Moscow.

That's all I have to report for now. Here are a few pictures of my apartment. Just like my apartment in Vladimir this kitchen has one of those gas stoves that you have to light with a match and that kind of terrifies me but other than that everything looks good and the place is in great condition. It even comes with 4 coffee mugs that are decorated with American flags and say "God Bless America." So yeah, I feel right at home.

The Beginning

As I write this, I am on the first leg of my journey to Moldova. I forgot how incredibly small the Portland, Maine airport is. I usually get to airports about 4 hours ahead of time for some reason but I got here just an hour early and was able to check my bag and get through security in about 5 minutes. So now I will fly from Portland to DC, then DC to Munich, then Munich to Chisinau. The people at the check-in counter weren't sure if my luggage would go all the way through to Moldova so I might have to re-check it in Germany. Also, they could only give me my first 2 tickets so I guess I have to go to a Lufthansa counter and get my ticket to Chisinau at some other point.

Hopefully my flights will all be on time because my layovers are pretty short. I wouldn't even care about getting to Chisinau on time except for that there is going to be someone waiting for me at my apartment to give me the keys and sign some papers at 1:15 Monday afternoon. I'm renting this apartment for a week so far, but if I really like it and the company gives me a good deal for the 10 months then I might just stay there. I'll try to upload some pictures once I arrive.

Anyway, I am every excited! I only had 2 weeks at home after coming back from Russia and it was very busy but I'm glad I got to see so many friends and make a couple trips to Boston. I'm really going to miss everyone but I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of new people over the next 10 months and hopefully doing some very interesting work. Next time I post I will be in Chisinau!