It has been over a month since I last blogged: I have been to Prague and back. I am about to experience a second Christmas and a second New Year’s Eve. I have visited other far away lands such as Leova and Comrat. Who said being a Peace Corps Volunteer was going to be easy?
Let’s go back to December 8th when my friend and fellow PCV Melissa and I started our journey out of Moldova and to Prague. This mythical land that held promise of Starbucks, hot showers, shopping and English speaking movie theaters. I am proud to say that we only indulged in these modern conveniences the whole entire time that we were there, how could we not?!? We had to take advantage of these wonderful things as long as we could. In between the showering everyday and eating hot recognizable food, we acted like tourists and saw all the sights of the beautiful city of Prague. Despite the cold, wet weather the city was still breathe taking and full of life. Thanks to Melissa’s research we hit many of the city’s amazing sights, such as Prague Castle, the Jewish Quarter and Old Town Square, which housed a Christmas Market. Which I have to confess was one of the main reasons to visit Prague this time of year. I have fond memories of hitting the Christkindlmarket in Germany with my gal pal Sheri and drinking as much gluhwein as we could to keep warm. Well, Melissa and I were able to recreate the past and we had a great time.
After 4 glorious days in Prague it was time to return to Moldova. We were looking forward to being back at site, but not looking forward to the 23-hour bus ride we had in front of us. But little did we know that there was a snowstorm headed towards Moldova and that the bus was taking a different route home, which lead us through Poland and Ukraine. Ukraine, at the time, was a country we were supposed to stay out of due to the flu outbreak. But when we realized at 3am that we had been in Poland for the last few hours and were about to enter into Ukraine, we really had no choice but to go along with the bus. The daunting 23 hours trip ended up being a 30 hours trip, which would have been no biggie, but because the bus was late I missed my only way back to my village. I ended up staying with a fellow PCV who lives near the capital, what a lifesaver she is!
The snowstorm grew worse over the next two- three days and pretty much closed down the whole country. But, I had no idea at the time when I started heading back to site the next day after I returned from Prague. My normal 2 ½ hour bus ride turned into a 10 + hour trip that entailed getting stuck in the snow three times and waiting for the only tracker with a snow plow in our raion (county) to come a dig us out each time. It was amazing that we were only about 30 Km (19 miles give or take) from my village and it took us nearly 6 hours to go that far. I guess some people thought that it was a reasonable distance and actually got out of the bus and started walking. Mind you I would have done the same thing, but we were in the middle of a blizzard, really strong winds and it was totally dark! Here are some pictures of the snow that got dumped that day.
Lucky the 10 hour ordeal did not get me too sick, but I did need a day or too to warm up. Later the next week was December 25th, Christmas, it was funny because it never really felt like Christmas. The Moldovan holiday is actually tomorrow, January 7th. So they don’t start gearing up for the holiday stuff until after the 25th.
I spent the Christmas holiday and weekend with some fellow volunteers doing some of the familiar holiday things: cooking, eating way too much, sleeping, watching movies, eating again, knitting, surfing the net, eating again and yes sleeping some more. I have to say that it really felt like Christmas then, with the exception of the obvious that I was not with my family.
The next week I spent gallivanting around Moldova and seeing other PCVs sites. I spent a few days in Leova and in Comrat, on the far west side of Moldova. It is really cool to see what other sites the volunteers live in and see what their host families and projects are like. I finally had to make it back to my site after being gone for a week. I returned a few days ago and now have to basically have to do the same thing all over again! Tomorrow is the Eastern Orthodox Church’s Christmas and on New Year’s is on the 14th. Let the festivities begin! More to report on that in my next blog.
If anyone of you is interested in seeing my pictures from Prague here are the links:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=144225&id=569816376&l=d5a48f1906
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=144518&id=569816376&l=62e44f2e6b
Hope you all had a great holiday!
Jen
