Escape from Moldova!

Sunday March 7, 2010

Escape from Moldova
Diana and Oleg (our driver) came to get us from the apartments at 5:15am to go to the airport. We knew with 6 inches of snow on the ground it would be a challenge so Diana wanted to be ready extra early. And it was a wise decision! The van was stuck in the snow and couldn’t make it up the hill to our apartment. So we grabbed our luggage and met at the bottom of the hill. And then solidified our ability to work as a team when we spend 20 minutes in the freezing cold getting the van unstuck! Elise and I both hit the ground once :-D It was worth it thou! We were back on the road and headed to the airport to go home. We made it in plenty of time.

A 3 hour flight from Moldova to Moscow. Elise slept through breakfast and the Romanian-speaking flight attendants were not happy to go back and give her food, but they did. She scarfed it down in four minutes flat. We were already to run thru the Moscow airport for an hour trying to finding our gate, but luckily there was someone waiting to take us there. But going through security was a little different. They literally stopped the line to questions the Americans—What kind of electronics do you have? Why were you in Moldova and for how long? Have your bags been with you the whole time? It was a little ridiculous, but it just proves their general distrust of Americans. Even after the inquisition, Olga (the security guard…no really) was actually pretty nice to us. We even got a smile!

The 11 hour flight to Washington was long, but it ended up working out because I had an entire row to myself. I rescued Elise shortly into the flight from the over-cologned Russian ‘ambasssador’ she was seated next too. She’s a sweetie—she definetly drew little pictures of fruit and cows to help him fill out his US Customs form. Patrick was asleep in the back of the plane—on the shoulder of the man seated next to him. We got a good laugh out of that!

I was so happy to finally be back in the States! As we were going through passport control, I told the man he was the first Black person I’d see in 10 days. He smiled, gave me a high-five, and told me to get some barbeque. We met up Dr. Horwitz and Caroline and we all caught a quick 40 minute flight back to RDU.

There’s no place like Home!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Dr. Garland and Vannessa were suppose to leave but missed their flight because they weren’t 90 minutes early (apparently they are very strict about that here).
While Diana sorted through that glitch, Elise, Patrick and I spent a very lazy morning in our apartments. Around noon, we met at the Hotel Nobil cigar bar (one of our favorite lounge spots). We decided it was time to get an international taste of McDonalds! Dr. Horwitz, Caroline, Radu, Oxsana, Elise, Patrick and I reacquainted ourselves with an American favorites. The food was good—just like home! Did you know they sell beer in McDonald’s outside the US? I thought that was funny! Since Patrick didn’t get to do any site-seeing before we put him to work, we decided to take a stroll down Blvd. Stefan cel Mare (the main street in Chisinau). Oksana was our guide this time. There was plenty of snow on the ground from the night and there’s nothing like a good snow ball fight while walking to the cathedral and ‘central park’ to see the Stefan cel Mare statue. Oxsana won! Patrick lost!

We spent Saturday evening at Beer Mania! I know the name doesn’t fit, but its actually a very classy restaurant with German food. We enjoyed great conversation and food and pride over the success of this trip. When the night was over we said our goodbyes to good friends!

Friday March 5, 2010

Elise and Patrick covered the most important points of Friday—tea with the ambassador, souvenir shopping, and the winery. I must have caught a 24 hour stomach bug because I was sick for most of it so I wasn’t much company. This was one day of the trip I’d like to forget!