Huge boost in quality of life

I am so glad I made the decision to move in with a host family. I'm kind of a loner and could be perfectly content living by myself all year without getting depressed or bored, but I want to get as much out of my time in Moldova as I possibly can and I can already tell that this is the way to do it. It's also nice that their house is just as great as my apartment was and maybe even in a bit of a better location. I'm still in the city center but on the other end of Stefan cel Mare, about a 2 minute walk from the National Opera and all the main government buildings.

I already met Raisa's other daughter, Corina, via Skype and they talk to her just about every night. She's living in Germany and just moved into a new apartment with her boyfriend. Last night Raisa's cousin and her cousin's husband came over for dinner. They're just visiting for a few days and have been living in Italy for 3 years now. They are incredibly nice people. We got to know each other speaking Russian but we also talked about how pretty soon I should start speaking to Raisa only in English and she should speak to me in Romanian so we can both get practice with our new languages. Then around New Year's, we'll have a Skype date with her cousin and Raisa will speak in English and I'll speak in Romanian. We'll see how far we'll actually get with that. Anyway it was a nice visit and Raisa made some delicious chicken as well as placinta which is a Moldovan specialty that's like a pastry or bread baked with cheese (tvorog for those of you know Russian food). It tastes kind of like Georgian khachapuri.

On a different note, I'm not going to work today because it's a holiday; City Day or Den Goroda in Russian. Tonight there's going to be a big concert on the main square, which is very close to our place. I was really excited when I found out that Dan Balan is going to be there. You might know him from the band O-Zone that produced the Numa Numa song, actually called Dragostea din tei which means "love from the linden trees." Dan moved out to California to start a solo career as "Crazy Loop." Check him out. Hottie.