Gagauzia, kittens, and nightlife

This weekend I ventured out of Chisinau first time to visit my fellow Fulbrighter, Liz, in the autonomous republic of Gagauzia. Unlike in Chisinau, all of the street signs in Comrat (the capital) are in Russian and you don't really hear Romanian at all on the street. People also speak Gagauzian, which is similar to Turkish.

So the adventure started with the bus ride from Chisinau. I met up with Melissa, another Fulbrighter, and we caught the bus from the south station. We were cutting it a little close time-wise, so when we got on this big bus we had to stand in the aisle. A guy came by and checked everyone's tickets, then a few minutes later the back door of the bus opened up and a bunch of people crowded on. I think this is probably the standard protocol of getting a ride for free. We had to stand for about an hour and a half and then a few people got off at one of the stops and we could sit down for the last half hour or so. The roads weren't really as bad as I expected to it was fine. On the way back though we were able to get a ride with people from Winrock who were in Comrat on Saturday for a conference so it was nice to be in a car and able to see the countryside a lot better; it's very beautiful.

Liz and Rebecca, another Fulbright ETA, met us at the bus stop when we arrived and we went back to Liz's place for dinner. She lives in a really cute house with a host family and everyone seemed very nice so she has a good set-up there. They also have two incredibly adorable kittens that entertained us to no end while we were there. After dinner, we headed to the city center. I felt like kind of a snob from the big city when I asked where the main street was and Liz was like "Oh...yeah this is it." The place isn't quite as hopping as Chisinau at night to say the least. We met up with a few peace corps volunteers and then went to the one night club in Comrat. We got there around 11 and it was pretty empty but it got busier as the night went on and we had a good time. The next day we got up decently early to the sound of roosters crowing and had the whole day to see the city in daylight. After a couple of near-death encounters with cars and seeing some people making wine, Liz showed us the university she teaches at and I was really impressed. It was pretty nice and modern and she took us to a spot in the university where you can get a really pretty view of the city. Later on we went out to a late lunch/dinner and had some really good food. Everything is less expensive outside of Chisinau so we definitely appreciated that.

Melissa and I got back to Chisinau early Saturday evening and had my signature speciality (spaghetti) for dinner. Then we went to a concert at one of the underground bars that Liz and I found out about on the tour we took a couple weekends ago. It's called "neskuchnii dvor," which translated means "fun-filled courtyard" or something like that. Sounds better in Russian. The atmosphere was really great, and they had the perfect amount of people there so it wasn't too crowded. The band played covers of songs that were pretty much all in English; one was "Californication" and there was some jazz too. The singer had a nice voice and it was a good time overall.

After the concert, we decided to check out Bier Platz, this German restaurant that we had been wanting to go to. It was really cute inside. The waiters and waitresses dress up in German costume and there were some guys playing accordian and trombone and stuff. Behind the stage the wall is painted so it looks like they're performing in a German village. They also have a pretty good selection of German beers. Turns out it's a very popular place for tourists and ex-pats. I saw this guy on the other side of the restaurant and could tell right away that he had to be American. I guess because he was wearing a button-down shirt. Not very Moldovan. I mentioned it to Melissa and she couldn't see that guy but she said the one sitting across from him definitely looked American. We ended up talking to them and sure enough they both work at the embassy and said that this is the place to go if you want to run into foreigners.

This upcoming week is definitely going to fly by with work, a soccer game on Friday, and the big wine festival this weekend.