New train

My commute to Chisinau is about to become a whole lot easier and way more comfortable. All because of this... Primul tren renovat in Romania va circula de saptamana viitoare


Yes, that's right. Moldova has a new train and it will start running next week. And not only will it take me to Chisinau quicker but it will also supposedly have access to the internet as well as televisions, though I assume that will be in a higher class train car...yes, that's right, it will have different class train cars. But of course with a newer train comes higher prices and the article mentions an increase of 30% over the current prices. Which if this is to be believed would bring my current fare of 17 lei to about 22 lei with the new train. However, this still far cheaper than taking a bus which cost about 50 lei. (12 lei=1 dollar)


Unfortunately, even though it appears that it should start running by next week they still haven't worked out the new schedule. Hopefully everything has been worked out by next Thursday which is the next time I plan on heading to Chisinau and while I look forward to riding the new train I am looking forward a lot more to what awaits me in Chisinau.... a bus to take me to Ukraine. I have sent in all of my paperwork and I have set time and date for my departure and barring anything tragic I should be enjoying myself in the Ukraine this time next week and will be there for the next three weeks working with a summer camp with Moldovan students. Things seem to be going pretty well for the moment.

I got to meet the new train in person in June while I was waiting on my quite older train to take me to Bucharest so I could start my amazing France/UK vacation.

Celebrating the Fourth and an unwelcome visitor

For me the Fourth of July passed by rather quietly and I might not have noticed at all if my host mother hadn't mentioned it to me in passing that it was America's Independence day. It is always weird for me to have holidays that I always celebrate every year just pass by unnoticed while I am here in Moldova. But don't worry. Even though I might have missed celebrating the Fourth of July on the fourth. I did get around to celebrating it on Saturday. The same party as was organized last year with lots of Americans, food, music, and games. Made for a great excuse to not only get out of my village but to meet up with lots of volunteers, including a lot of the newbies that I haven't gotten to meet yet. This year the party was a lot more fun because I wasn't recovering from food poisoning, however, I guess as a sort of irony this year I got my food poisoning immediately after the party was over. As I headed out with a friend back to the hostel for the night I could feel my body ready to commit mutiny and it took all the will power I had to hold it off until after the trolley ride. 

This now being my second year in country I can now count this as my first sickness of my second year of service and it came about almost a year to the day from my first sickness. I hope it isn't a sign of things to come because if so this is my fourth illness overall meaning I could be looking forward to another two more bouts of sickness before I finally make it back to America. Let's hope thats not the case.

Of course hope is pretty much all I can do seeing as how I seem to be unable to avoid catching food poisoning no matter how careful I am. And no matter how many times I catch it it never gets any easier.  Nothing but misery as long as it last and not much helps to take your mind away from it even though I've tried. 

But anyway, speaking of illness, people always ask me in Moldova do I miss America. And my answer is always "not really." Which is usually not the answer they were expecting. But its the truth. Out of sight, out of mind. And at this point I have grown accustomed to Moldova and have hardly had any homesickness for America...hardly any...other than the times I am sick. And when Im sick almost all of my thoughts revolve around America and more specifically me hopping on the next plane out of Moldova and coming back to America. I guess deep down no matter how much I feel at home in Moldova, there really is no place like "home."

Learning Russian?