Where is Moldova, anyway?

Recently I have been the epitome of the absentee blogger.

Where have I been? Well, I’m glad you asked. Last week I went home for the wedding of my cousin Cathy (it was beautiful!). Seems simple enough – a trip to the States – not so.
I have to admit I am ready to STAY PUT after all of this traveling around… I think I am going to spend the last 5 weeks of my time in Moldova just being here, in my village, enjoying life in Moldova, instead of running around to “see all of the places I haven’t yet gotten to,” which is sometimes a common symptom of the last days of one’s Peace Corps Service.

Why am I fed up with traveling? See for yourself. Here is a basic play-by-play of how I got to said wedding, and back:


Moldova - NJ

1. 
   Call Moldovan friend with car to pick me up from my house and drive me out of our village to the main high way. (I normally walk to the edge of town, but it wasn’t possible with all my baggage)
2. Wait on the side of main high way for bus to come.
3. Bus stops but will not take me to Chisinau because my hiking backpack and rolling suitcase is “too much stuff” (despite the fact that some Moldovans get on the bus with crates of Chickens and pungas full of veggies/fruits/sour crème).
4. Argue with Bus Driver – say I will pay for the extra seats that my baggage takes up. He still refuses to take me, shaming capitalists everywhere.
5. Stand on the side of the high way pissed off. Watch it start getting dark outside. Imagine missing my flight the next morning.
6. Start flagging down random cars in a half-panic. (after not getting a bus to stop for 25 minutes)
7. Get picked up by a guy who is going to “just outside of Chisinau.” I’m desperate- decide it’s good enough for me – and that I will deal with my problems as they appear.
8. Guy drops me off 20 miles from the center of Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, somewhere I have never been, in the dark on a Saturday night.
9. Haul stuff 20 feet to bus stop (Moldovan roads are not made for rolly suit cases)
10. Flag down bus. Take bus to within 5 blocks of Peace Corps. Helpful bus driver tells me where to get off.
11. Negotiate with a taxi driver to take me to Peace Corps with my luggage – short taxi ride ends up costing just as much as 2 hour ride from my village to Chisinau.
12. Take taxi to Peace Corps, which although so close, requires navigating a series of one-way streets and open air markets, and takes a long time.
13. Arrive at Peace Corps. Do some email. Check on my flight.
14. Take a cab to where I will stay the night
15. Take a cab at 3:30 am to the airport
16. Have cab break down at 3:55 am, right outside of airport
17. Guy attempts to fix cab
18. Guy doesn’t fix cab
19. Guy hails down another cab, who drives me the last 3 minutes to airport
20. Fly to Budapest, transfer planes
21. Take nap in Budapest airport
22. Arrive in New York City
23. Cruise on into the 201 with the dad-mobile.

NJ to Moldova

1. 
   Dad drives me to airport, right to the door of the check in at JFK
2. Roll suitcases into line, 2.5 hours before the plane is scheduled to leave
3. Miss flight due to a number of circumstances, none of them my fault (traffic accident, mass chaos at the airport, ridiculousness of other passengers, badly trained Delta employees
4. Drag stuff over to the Delta ticketing office; get standby ticket for free – after very little convincing, and a lot of proof on my part, Delta agrees that my missed flight is indeed their fault.
5. Standby until the next day
6. Find a sympathetic employee who puts me on a flight to Paris, 25 hours after I was scheduled to leave NYC
7. Fly to Paris; nap in Paris
8. Fly to Istanbul – run to terminal of new flight just to have the terminal moved across the airport.
9. Argue with Turkish airlines about paying a “surcharge” on my ticket because I missed the original flight the day before (when my delta NYC flight was scheduled to get in)
10. Fly from Istanbul to Chisinau
11. Arrive in Chisinau – have the Halloween candy that I brought back to Moldova picked through by the security guards at airport (candy corn was especially suspicious looking). But the laptops I brought back for my village schools not even glanced at. So much for import taxes.
12. Get ripped off by cab driver from Airport to Peace Corps – don’t care at this point, I just want to get “home!”
13. Drop stuff I brought back for other volunteers at Peace Corps office; take cab from Peace Corps to Bus Station
14. Get on last bus towards the North of Moldova for the night (lucky timing! Karma paying me back…. And I avoid having to spend the night in Chisinau).
15. Get off by my village – call a friend and get a ride to my house.
16. Collapse in bed.
17. Don’t fall asleep until 4:30 am because I am still on American time.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 at 3:48 AM.