Travel Time

I went to Russia. It was awesome. My sister Anne came to Chisinau a couple of days early, and after touring around there and hanging out with other volunteers for a bit, we hopped on a plane to Moscow. My brother John arrived an hour later, from Chicago. We met up with a former Peace Corps Moldova volunteer who is now working in Russia, and he got us into the center, showed us how to get cards for the metro, took us to the apartment, helped me buy a phone card, and then took us to Red Square. Without him, all of that would have probably taken the entire four days that we had available to us!

We spent our days in Moscow mostly around the Red Square area, shopping and hiding from the rain. St. Basil’s Cathedral (the multi-colored, multi-onion-domed church that you always see in pictures) is really quite impressive, and Lenin’s masoleum is a hoot. It’s all dark in there, and he’s just laying there illuminated and stuffed, and if you pause for even a split-second while encircling his body, the Russia guards grunt at you to move along. The Kremlin is also quite impressive. I didn’t realize that it is actually a large fortress – a government compound encircled by huge red walls. We’re pretty sure we saw Medvedev or Putin race into the Kremlin in one of their sleek black cars with police escort and blocked-off roads. Inside the Kremlin walls is the world’s largest cannon that’s never been shot and the world’s largest bell that’s never been rung. Hmmm. That’s about all we saw before the skies opened up and we were forced to seek shelter.

During our walks throughout the city, I taught Anne how to read ‘the Code,’ aka, Cyrillic. It seems really complicated when you look at it, but once you know what sounds the letters make, you can sound out anything. So I would scan the buildings for words that are the same or similar in English and Russian, such as ‘Internet’ ‘Bancomat’ ‘Cosmetica’ ‘Baskin Robbins’ ‘Pizza Hut’ ‘Stop’ and ‘Sport.’ She said that once she figured it out, she didn’t feel so lost, and it is kind of like a game. After getting over his jet-lag from the first few days, John caught on too.

While we were there, Moscow was hosting the hugely popular ‘Eurovision’ song-contest, which meant there were extra tourists and Eurovision-related stuff all over. 25 European countries send an entry to the contest, which is a huge spectacle, somewhat akin to American idol. Russia won last year, so they hosted this year. This year Norway won, with some guy playing a fiddle and singing about a fairytale. While we were out and about in Moscow, we came across the entry from Denmark singing in the park outside the Kremlin. We thought they were pretty good, and happened to seem them compete in the finals on tv later in the week. They took 13th place. Moldova took 14th.

After wandering about Moscow, we took a night-train to St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg is a city like none I have ever seen before! It has canals somewhat like those in Venice or Amsterdam, and huge palace-like buildings that you might see in Paris or Vienna. It is a relatively young city, being founded by Peter I in the early 1700s. We visited the fortress out on an island which was the built to defend the land from the Swedes. (St. Petersburg is located in the western most part of Russia, across the bay from Finland). Their main street is ginormous, and lined with huge buildings and multiple cathedrals. One of the palaces belonged to the Stroganovs, where beef stroganoff was ‘invented.’ There is also the world-famous Hermitage art museum, housed in the former palace of Catherine the Great. It is truly magnificent. We also went to see a Russian ballet – the Nutcracker. The best part of the trip was probably the last evening, when we took a boat ride through the canals and out to the river. By evening, I mean night. We started out at 1:00 am (about two hours after sunset – it is on the same latitutde as Anchorage, so the long days were starting already!). Around 1:30 the four bridges across the river open up to let the tall-masted ships through. For about a mile all of the buildings along the river are illuminated, and there are crazy flashing lights on the bridges, making it a truly an incredible sight.

Overall it was a great trip, but we had a few ‘interesting’ moments. Anne was stopped by the police once for taking a picture of a street sign. She was forced to delete it. The address we were given for the place where we had to register our visas was wrong, and we were met with blank stares from non-english-speaking uniformed men. Luckily one of them recognized the name of the travel company, and explained to me how to get to the place. My limited Russian allowed me to understand ‘white door’ ’50 meters ahead’ and ‘second floor.’ I was actually quite impressed with how much I was able to get by on my Russian. I was able to buy us the ballet tickets, easily navigate the metro, negotiate with a few street vendors, ask directions for finding an atm, and chat with a random guy on the boat ride. However, my abilities didn’t do me any good with the angry babas (old women) at the hermitage museum. It was cold, so everyone had coats. But you aren’t allowed to enter with your coats, so you have to leave them at the coat check. But the coat check was full. Baba after baba just yelled ‘nyet’ and told me to go to someone else. The group check lady was empty but she wouldn’t take them because we weren’t a group. There were cupboards, but those are only for bags. Dozens of people were running around trying to find a place to leave their coats, and the babas just yelled and didn’t do anything to find a solution. After running around for 15 minutes, I started to get upset. We paid for our tickets, the musem was going to close in less then two hours, and these cranky babas wouldn’t take our dang coats. Well, John and Anne and I were standing in a tight circle, and I didn’t think anyone was paying attention to us, so I said ‘fine, I’ll leave our coats here!’ and threw them down in the middle of the floor. Well, a nice baba somehow saw it and came barging in the circle and picked them up and brushed them off and kept saying ‘nyet, nyet, nyet.’ Then she took them behind a counter and somehow found a free hook for them. Well, now I know that in Russia I just have to throw a tantrum to get something done. Later, when John went to get the jackets while Anne and I were in the bathroom, he didn’t recognize mine and Anne’s jackets and tried to tell her that these weren’t ours. But she insisted, and then re-enacted my tantrum, throwing the jackets down on the counter. Then John was like, oh, yup, those are ours.

So that was Russia. Anne and I said goodbye to John, and went our way back to Moldova, where she stayed with me for two weeks. She happened to pick two great weeks, for there was a lot of stuff going on in my village. She came with me to work most days, but it was more socializing and eating than working. There was a big party outside the town hall to celebrate 650 years since the state of Moldova was formed. There was also St. Nicholai day, so we went to a friend’s house for a dinner because her dad is named Nicholai. There were two big birthday parties, a welcome dinner for Anne, a big concert in the woods at which I sang, and a graduation/last day of school ceremony at the school. We also were invited over for dinner at a couple different places, and made a few trips to see the sights in Soroca. One day, the group that I sing with made some music videos. A crew came from the regional TV station to film us all over the village – while singing about a tractor, there was a big tractor in the back, while singing about sheep and shepherds we stood out on the hill where all the sheep are out to pasture, you get the idea. The transportation between these sites was done by one car, three trips each time. There were 24 of us, plus the driver. The car has 4 seats plus the driver. You do the math. (Ok, it’s 9 people per trip, including the driver.) We ended in the forest and had a picnic afterward. When the director/host of the show on which these videos are to air found out that I am an American, she had to have an interview, and asked me about how our folklore and their folklore differ. She was like my best friend after that. It was fun, and funny.

Everyone in my village really took to my sister. She loved the fact that no one ever thought that she looked her age (she’s quite a bit older than I). My new host family especially loved her, and we spent a lot of evenings teaching American card games to the two girls (Moldovan card games were too confusing for us). We made them a pancake breakfast one morning and a taco dinner the last evening. When the time came for her to leave, they joked about stealing her passport so that she couldn’t. The youngest girl even woke up at 5 am and came running out in her nightgown to say goodbye the morning the we left for Chisinau. I thought that two weeks was going to be a long time for her to stay in the village, but it ended up being not enough!

We spent some time with other volunteers in Chisinau before catching our bus to Brasov, Romania. Wow, I’ve been in a lot of crazy mini-bus rides, but this one takes the cake. This guy had some serious road rage, and even the Moldovans were telling him to drive a little more calmly. But fortunately we arrived in one piece nine hours later, and even managed to enjoy the scenery a bit. The border crossing was less than pleasant, since we kept getting yelled at for trying to go to the bathroom while they were checking passports and baggage and stuff. They wouldn’t let us go at all on the Moldovan side, and then on the Romanian side they were like, you should have gone in Moldova. What is this, the international no-pee zone? The bathrooms are just there to taunt us?

Anyways, we arrived in Brasov around 9pm and checked into the little guesthouse where I had stayed when I was there in September. I got to know the woman who runs it quite well, and we had been emailing each other, so I was looking forward to seeing her. We spent the next two days running all over Transylvania, hitting up all of the best Dracula/Vlad the Impaler sites. We went to a medieval walled city, Sighisoara, and saw the house where he was born. We hired a car and drove three hours into the foothills of the Fagaras mountains, where his fortress is and climbed up the 1500 steps to reach it. And we went to the tourist attraction castle at Bran, which is said to be where he lives but he actually didn’t. But it’s still a really cool castle and I would want to live there. In the evenings we explored Brasov, which I would have to say is my second-favorite city in Europe, after Vienna.

The last morning we said goodbye to the guesthouse woman, who is so awesome and gave us one night for free. She said that if I can take two years of my life to volunteer, the least she can do is give me a free night. I really appreciated that. At the train station we were hounded by a taxi driver who wanted to take us all the way to the airport in Bucuresti, which is about 80 miles away. At first we resisted, but then we added up the cost of the train tickets, and the taxi ride from the train station to the airport, and the inconvenience and wasted time, so we decided to go with him, on the conditions that he didn’t raise the price when we got to the airport, that he didn’t steal our bags, and that he didn’t drive like a maniac. He agreed to all conditions, and it ended up being awesome. We stopped in another mountain town, Sinaia, and visited the most magnificent palace I have ever seen, Peles. I liked it even better than, say, Versailles or Schonbrunn. Instead of expansive gardens, there are lush green mountains, and while it is lavish, it doesn’t go overboard. Absolutely loved it. And you can take a two-day hike over the mountains and the Bran Castle is on the other side! Anyways, our driver had special privileges and drove right up to the front, past where all the other cars had to stop. He knew everyone, and even got us into the bathroom at the restaurant that was only for customers, haha. Further along the way to the airport, he pulled over at an awesome restaurant so that Anne could eat ‘mici’ (meech), a traditional Romanian food made of meat. We chatted the whole time, and after he dropped us off at the airport, he gave us each a hug! So nice! He didn’t raise the price, but we did!

As if all this wasn’t enough, I had another visiter last week – one of my two American roommates from when I was studying in Vienna, Mandy. We went to Odessa, Ukraine, where we severely burned ourselves while laying on the beaches near the Black Sea. Odessa turned out to have a very beautiful center area, which we frequented in the evenings after having spent the days at the beach. After that Mandy spent a few days in my village as well. Needless to say, the past month and a half has absolutely flown by! I realize that I am so lucky and blessed to have the opportunity and ability to travel, to see and experience these things. I thank the Lord every day for it!