It's Always Sunny in Chisinau

The weather this week has been absolutely unbelievable. Mid-60s and sunny every day. Perfection. A few weeks ago it was freezing cold and rainy all the time and it seemed like winter was coming early so it's been awesome to have the warmth again to sit in the park and enjoy strolling around the city.

This weekend has been fun so far. On Friday night I met up with Corrin and went to a birthday party of a Bulgarian lady who is married to a guy who works at the embassy and I saw a bunch of people I met at the Labor Day party. Last night I went to see the Marriage of Figaro with my co-worker (Aliona) and some Peace Corps volunteers. The costumes were gorgeous and it was nice to hear music that I recognized since the Tsar's Bride wasn't familiar to me at all. It was also a bit easier to understand because there were subtitles in Romanian. There weren't subtitles at the Tsar's Bride because it was in Russian and everyone speaks Russian. I think it would be difficult to get what was being sung in an opera even if it were in English though. So subtitles were a plus. I expected there to be a lot more people there this time since it's a more well-known opera, but the theater was pretty empty. No wonder Turandot was canceled last week; they probably would have been performing for an audience of 10 people. Oh well.

After the show we went to Riscani, one of the nicer areas of Chisinau. I had never been over there before and I was pretty impressed. It's like another big downtown area. We went to this German restaurant/bar called the Flying Pig that I've been hearing a lot about. We wanted to see this band perform but we could there just when they had finished playing. There were a bunch of other Peace Corps volunteers there too. After a while we went to a Russian karaoke bar down the street, which was quite a different scene. There was a very sullen looking man singing Russian karaoke songs in the corner when we got there. The presence of the Americans livened the place up quite a bit. Only one of them sang karaoke, but she made a good choice with "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi, which I know from past experience Russians/Eastern Europeans really love. The Moldovans were all singing along and got a big kick out of it I would say. She gave a very good performance and has a great voice. Here's an action shot:


And here's a photo of Aliona who was having fun and dancing along:

Tonight I'm going to a play about domestic violence that the OSCE is putting on. I'm pretty sure it's going to be all in Romanian but I know it will be interesting to check out anyway and I'll take some video. Conveniently enough it is happening at this center that is pretty much right next to my house. Other than that I'm just going to be relaxing and enjoying the gorgeous fall weather.