Not exactly a tourist hotspot, but a lot of fun anyway

Just got back, albeit a bit late, from a little getaway to Moldova.

My favorite gravestone

Yeah, it’s not exactly a place that most have heard of. But like a huge number of other places, it’s less than a two-hour, $200 flight from here. The hotel and flight combo came to $229, and then the only money I spent while there was the $90 I had in cash from my Marine Corps ball refund. In change at the airport, I had the equivalent of $1.50 remaining after my cab ride, and I spent all but .50 on a Coke and five cookies. And believe it or not, I made a big splurge while there: a $24 bracelet. I also nailed a super bargain when I happened upon a secondhand store: a cool shirt, just my color, for about $1.25, marked down from $2.50.

Normally, in Istanbul, I don’t eat out very often, but when I travel, I tend to go for Turkish food. My hotel had a nice breakfast so I really only ate out one meal a day, but on day One I had a kebab at a Turkish place and the following evening I happened upon this fantastic market and got something at a stall. It only cost something like .40, but you could offer me $400 to definitively identify it and I wouldn’t be able to do it. It was in a roll-ish type shell and the woman heated it up. I don’t think it was meat. That’s all I got, but it was tasty.

Cheap tourism is fairly easy when your plan is to essentially walk around and take photos. Well, at least in some destinations.  My upcoming travel – my first actual leave since June – is down for a place that’s way more pricey than I’m used to. The plan there is to pay hotel rooms, etc., in advance.

But that’s not til February 3. For the weekend before MLK day, I opted for Chisinau, which is the place I tried to go to in October but got canceled. It was a fun trip, but I can’t imagine spending two years there.

Arch of Triumph, Christmas tree, National Cathedral

That’s my thought with a lot of places I visit, but I’m sure with transportation options and knowledge of the places, they’d be fine for two years. So far, I’ve been extremely lucky in getting two posts that not only have a whole bunch to see and do, but are also easy to escape from so that I can see and do so much more.

But Chisinau was perfect – if a bit chilly – for a three-day weekend. I hoofed it, which is my preference, putting up 19.8 kilometers the first day and 15.8 the second. The third was mostly spent at the airport. I was due on a 9:45 a.m. flight back, with the thought of being back home by 2 p.m., but we wound up leaving at 2:30 p.m., which necessitated the Coke and five cookies.

Looks like a beach

Tourism is not a big thing in Moldova, at least at this point in time and definitely not in the winter. I saw a sum total of one tourist store, but it did have several booths in it. There was also a little street fair kind of thing, making up about half a city block, that had handicrafts and stuff aimed at tourists. That’s where I got the bracelet.

English is also not a big thing in Moldova, and in the same street market where I got the bracelet, there was a lady selling wooden 3D puzzles that came in the shapes of animals and Christmas stuff. I was trying to convey my interest and asking how much the stuff was. The lady, who was really nice, was able to tell me numbers but nothing else. I managed to figure out that the little street market would be open the following day, and when I got back, cash in hand, I could not find one of the specific designs I’d decided on.

Not knowing how to convey “seahorse” in any language other than English, or pantomime it, I just went through them as she kept pointing out the cool designs. All I could do was shake my head. She didn’t even try that much – she just grunted.

I never unearthed the seahorse, but the grunting happened later, too, when I was trying to communicate. It seemed really weird (as well as primal), but I guess really, when you have absolutely no clue what someone is trying to say, grunts work just as well as broken English or what have you.

But it's not

There were some people who spoke English fairly well, though, like the lady with the bracelets. She asked where I was from and I told her, and she said she had some American friends who lived there. They were, she told me, former Peace Corps volunteers. She was thrilled when I told her I’d served, but in Morocco. (We  grunted some there, too, but mostly made clicking noises.)

When I came back the next day to buy the bracelet, another lady, upon hearing me speak, immediately asked if I was Peace Corps. I got a kick out of that, really. There are a lot of RPCVs floating around in their countries of service. But I just float around everywhere.

Cathedrals were the thing to see in Moldova. The religion there is Orthodox, although I always thought that was an adjective, not a noun. I’m really not sure what “Orthodox,” as a standalone, means as a religion. Judging from the interior of the churches, my guess is some kind of strain of Catholicism. The interiors are very ornate, with everything painted gold and these really formal paintings and gorgeous stained glass windows. But the exteriors are very basic and functional, with the exception of the shiny domes. I guess that’s a Russian-ish thing. I had to cover my head when I went into the cathedrals, which was fine with me because I was wearing a knit hat all day long anyway.

Functional on the outside, gorgeous on the inside

The weather itself wasn’t frightful, exactly, but walking the streets was. Of the two days I wandered around, one was in the lower 40s and drizzly and the second was 33 or so and sunny. Honestly, this weather is OK by me unless there was old snow on the ground, which there was. I was absolutely terrified that I’d fall and break something but I got lucky.

There’s a big park in Chisinau – lots of them, really; it’s very green when it’s not snow-covered – and I enjoyed walking about a mile around this one lake, which was frozen. It was kind of like being at the beach, only not. Very much not. There was a little dock with a sign on the end. It was in Cyrillic, but I felt pretty sure it said something like “no diving,” which was funny because the water around it was frozen solid.

In the main square area, there was some kind of Christmas market/festival going on. (The holiday is celebrated later in the former Soviet states; I really don’t know when Christmas was, but there were a lot of lights, trees and nativity scenes around.) It wasn’t near as big as the markets in Kyiv or Frankfurt, but it was interesting to wander. They had some kids’ fair-type rides with some scary-looking Disney knockoffs.  I happened to be there right when they turned on the lights of the Christmas tree and landmark arch, so that was nice.

Really, it was a fairly fun getaway in a place that’s just not known as being a happening place. My hotel was in a fantastic location with great service, the city was walkable, affordable and gave me some really cool pictures. That’s all I ask in a destination.