its 2008

Me rockin out on new years. man i am cool.

MASA!

1.6.08 10:40

Week wrap up. Party Chisinau for New Years. Visited old host family. Went to Balţi. Went through a quick bout of depression. Finished a book, purchased Harry Potter in Romanian. Begun listening to the Economist by Podcasts. Taking time off until next week.

Aşa, Monday was a fun time. I took the 7 am bus to Chisinau. Once again I learned my lesson that I should not take the 7 am bus because in fact it just pretends to be the 7am bus and actually doesn’t begin to meander until after 8 am. The ride went by fairly quickly as any 4 hour ride could go. I had a seat the entire time and did not have to stand with my neck kinked to one side always making the hours pass by ever so more quickly. Found my way to headquarters, met up with a bunch of people I had not seen in months and caught up around pizza. After that I spent the remainder of my day walking around the city with no objective other then pass the time until the party started later that night and do my best not to spend money.

I ended up walking around with phil and Andrew who were on a mission to find Andrew a new pair of Moldovan shoes and on a whim a fake armony belt. I was content just to hang out with people and follow around not buying anything because the urge to purchase pointy black shoes has yet conquered my will to resist. But I did have to do all I could to resist the urge to buy some gigantic belt buckles I saw in the piaţa containing either huge American flags, british flags, a face of chuck Norris, 2 pac for life belts…elvis… you name some obscure belt that you never thought would be made in moldova and I would challenge you not to find it there.

From there we went to dinner after dropping our stuff off at the hotel. It was a nice dinner, though I am really cheap when it comes to spending money I spend the equivalent of $13 in a really nice resutrant but ordering the club sandwich and gorging myself on complementary bread. Many a person who went did not get out for cheaper then $30. From there we hit up the local grocery store bought some refreshments for the hotel and had a fun time. We waited until closer to twelve before heading out into the artic tundra that is moldova as of now. We went to the center where a mass of people were gathered around a chrismas tree and music stage. Any picture taken because it was dark except for the lights in the distance on the tree or the stage came out blurry. I was a good time all in all. I spent the night on the floor of the hotel because we had like 18 people for three rooms or 6 beds. And after my last experience in a hotel I refuse to lay on the beds anyway.

Tuesday I hung around a bit with my friends, went to peace corps headquarters for a while watched some football on their satellite tv and for some reason reminnesed about old shoes such as full house, saved by the bell, and how a majority of us had seen every episode of both shows… but I digress. From there I headed out to visit my old host family. I had a great time. Had most of the extended family come over for a masa where we enjoyed great food some wine and good conversation.

I purchased a frame and developed some pictures of my with my host family as a gift for new years. i showed them the pictures and the frame after my mom opened it. They all said it was really nice and enjoyed it and packed it up and gave it back to me. I asked them what they were doing and laughed, I said it was for them! They didn’t understand that I was giving it to them and we all laughed. I bought the frame and pictures to replace a small picture that was used to be used as my visa picture for moldova where they realized later they didn’t need it so I gave it to my host mom as my only picture I had of myself that she wanted. It had been sitting above the television and looked like a tiny shrine.. it was embarrassing so I was happy to replace it.

Also that night after everyone left the table I stayed to watch my mom do the dishes and keep her company. I had a great in depth conversation with my host mom there. And after reflection my first indepth conversation where I was contributing the content just as much as she that I have had for a good month or so. The wine aided my tongue of course but I was happy I was given the practice. Of course conversations with my host mom normally revolved around relationships, so once again we talked about old girlfriends I had, and her thoughts on her daughters current boyfriend and when I was getting married, what type of girl she thought I should be with… all that kind of fun stuff. That was just the starter for our conversation but I can’t for the life of me remember the other topics. Enough said it was a good time.

I lazed around the house with the family. I introduced the game risk to them. That’s right Risk. The game of world domination . The game itself as I always understood it was a difficult game to teach. Well I accomplished this task with ease in a language I am horrible at. The players in the game you are wondering? My host mom, veronica, and tudor. 20 mins into the game tudor was ready to quit as he had some horrible luck with the dice and got absolutely stomped on by his mom. The game went smoothly, and despite my advise to take it easy and build your armies veronica and tudor thought the best strategy was to attack till you could not attack any more thinning themselves out. The mom followed my example and was the second most powerful behind me until I had to drop the knife and conquer her taking her cards that eventually would seal the game for me.

The game took nearly 4 hours and after it we ate lunch and then sat around some more. From here we went to my host grandmothers house and had another masa not more then an hour and a half after I had eaten lunch. I was force fed more food and refreshments for the next 4 hours. My I guess host cousins were there as well with their little girl Mihiella who is adorable as all heck. I spent most of the time attaching my watch to her leg and watching her shake her leg laughing as she tried to get it off. Or fed her rice and tiny pieces of meat.

I made my way home, hitched a ride back part of the way on this big tourist bus where as luck had it I was able to sit the whole way. Then a quick pit stop for a bus change in Balţi where I waited an hour before finding a bus that went to my town and as able to sit the whole way home! I went home ate some great food my current host mom made and crashed. I had to wake up early and run to catch my bus that arrived early to meet up with some friends who weren’t at the new years party in chisnau. It was freezing outside. Really cold easily in the negative degrees. I shuffled around frozen to the bone most of time, ate some pizza the best I have had thus far since coming to moldova and just talking it up. Lucky for me I was able to catch a ride back with my host dad who was on his way back from Chisinau and made the pit stop for me and picked me up on his way home.

Saturday I just lazed around didn’t do much, ate well, layed around. Walked around my town, metup with some more friends for a bit then come home. About 9 o’clock I had a little bout of depression I cringe to mention because I don’t really want to get a lot of questions from my mom tonight when I talk to her on the phone about it but it hit me kinda hard. I am not sure what it was about. I never really thought about it too much but I had conversations with some friends who were going through little bouts of depression here and I looked at them like I didn’t understand what they were talking about. I have been to busy to be depressed I guess. I dunno, well it hit me last night but I survived. I did my laundry last night and hung up my clothes on the clothes line freezing them instantly out there. I plan on going out there and bringing them inside to fully dry in a couple of minutes. I really want to go running today and do some pull ups on the bar to get some energy out but its below zero out there… last time I was doing pushups my fingerless gloves were freezing to the ground when I was doing knuckle pushups. Im afraid when doing pull-ups on the bar with the sweat on my hands I could rip the skin off my fingers the same as putting my tounge on a metal pole. Well see where the day takes me though.

Work starts up again the 9th and tommorw the 7th is Christmas here though it is not that big of a deal like it is in America. New Years is the big one, but I dunno I haven’t experienced Christmas yet. Stay warm :)