Family Time

The past week consisted of a lot of quality time with my surrogate families here in Moldova. On Wednesday, my host mom became a grandma. Corina, who lives in Germany, gave birth to Darius in Frankfurt and he was automatically given German, Moldovan, and Romanian citizenship. Pretty good deal little guy. I got to see him live via Skype and they also showed us his birth announcement in the German newspaper that had a nice picture of the mother and son.

The next day was my host mom’s birthday but we didn’t do any celebrating until Friday. On Friday she brought in a bunch of food and an extremely delicious cake to the office and we celebrated there. In the evening, she had a friend over and we all sat around and drank wine. There was a nice moment when the guy asked what I am to them, like what they would call me (a tenant or renter or something like that) and my host mom said that I’m her third daughter and they consider me part of the family and went on and on about how much she loves me. She was a little tipsy. Then he asked Mihaela what she would call me and she said “I’d call her my sister.” Aw.

On Saturday night we had the real deal birthday party at home. Ten or so people came over (including Melissa) and we had tons of food and cognac and wine on the table. I got to give a toast to my host mom in Romanian and she was very pleased with that. She also made me get out my violin and play for everyone. The four-year-old that was there danced and when I played the one Moldovan melody I’ve memorized one of the men there sang along so that was cool. When the party was winding down and the guests were a little bit loosened up the little girl demanded that we put on music and dance. She partnered me up with the one man there that was pretty drunk who at one point picked up a knife from the table and held it in his teeth like it were a rose or whatever so we thought things were escalating a little too much and shut down the dance party.

After that Melissa and I decided to try our luck getting into this club that’s pretty close to my house. Last time we went the bouncer said that there wasn’t room for us and when we asked if we could wait for a little bit then go in when people came out he said “yeah you can get in tomorrow.” We left. This time we had no problem getting in. This could either be due to the fact that we looked amazing or that there were a grand total of about 5 people in the club when we got there. At any rate more people came after midnight and we had a good time. It was a lot different to go out just the two of us than with a bunch of Americans because we blended in much easier and talked to lots of Moldovans.

On Sunday we spent time with our Fulbright surrogate family. We went over to Bob and Beth’s for an amazing dinner of Paella, a Spanish dish. Rod and I also brought our instruments and practiced some Moldovan tunes for an hour or so before dinner. Their apartment is really nice and was super warm and cozy so it was a very nice evening.

In other news, I’m going to Madrid with Melissa and Rebecca at the end of next week and soon after that Joe Biden is coming to Moldova.