April 15-17th

Salut! (Hi in Romanian)

I hope all is well with everyone in the States! I miss it! Ok, not really, lol. I'm having a wonderful time here and doing well besides the jetlag, lol. Sorry I haven't been able to start my blog till now, my converter has been in my missing luggage that arrived today, yay. So anyway, here's a run down of what I've been doing so far:

April 15th-16th, Tuesday- Wednesday

-Flew out of home sweet home at 6pm, arrived in Washington DC 2 hrs later, small layover & we were off on our 8 hr flight to Frankfurt, Germany on a really big really nice plane :), small layover till we boarded our last plane, arrived a few hours later in beautiful Chisinau, Moldova!

-Melody, Phillip Cameron's daughter, and two of the girls (Costanza and Irena) were there to greet us. After messing with our lost piece of luggage deal we went to Stella's House to meet the girls. They are all so very sweet! Greeting us with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, I love them already! We had dinner with the girls, mac and cheese and chicken, yum, and were later brought to our apartment in the city.

-We were a little nervous at first until we found we were in the wrong apt building, that one was a little sketchy, lol. but relaxed when we saw our very nice apartment! Leah and I are living with two American girls. Shauna, a 23 year old who's already been here for 8 months. She's here as a teacher for an American family's children, she is very sweet and helpful to us newby's. And another girl, Sara will be arriving tomorrow.

-So Wednesday night we unpacked, settled in, and SLEPT!!!! Thank you Jesus! We were so tired! I slept almost till 1! lol, but it was well needed. I'm gonna sleep really well tonight that's for sure!

April 17th, Thursday

-Thursday they picked us up bout 2pm to run errands. Exchanged money, went to the store for groceries, picked up our luggage, not bad only losing one 1 out of 4 though, lol. Someone had grabbed ours thinking it was theirs and brought it back this morning, yay.

-Went to Stella's House, hung out with the girls and house parents, Anitol and Nina. They don't speak much English but are very nice and helpful! They have two young sons, the youngest I've already fallen in love with! & the smallest, oddest, but cutest little dog named Coa Coa

-Had dinner with the girls, played cards, they taught us some more Romanian words, we're gonna learn 5 a day, hopefully, lol. and they took us back to our apartment.

Driving around today in the day light and flying in yesterday, I've seen how beautiful Moldova is! It's very flat, but very green and peaceful in the countryside. In the city you can see the poverty and age of Chisinau, it was founded in 1436! Wow! But the streets in the city are poorly paved, lots of litter in some areas, apartment buildings with rust and broken windows, etc. But then right next door to that will be a brand new ritzy looking building. So it really just depends.

Driving in the city sure is interesting! They don't have lanes so cars are just whipping and jerking around, honking, when opposing traffic isn't coming, the cars will just spread out, lol! it's a little scary but very funny and entertaining! lol. The police don't stay in cars but you will occasionally see them standing in the street and will flag you down to get a ticket, lol. City buses are everywhere and very cheap, Leah and I will be using those daily once we get into the routine of things.

Although it's a poor country the people are very stylish, walking the streets in the cute dressy clothes, wearing stilettoes, nice hair, lol. I feel really underdressed when I'm in the city, lol. Oh well :)

The weather has been really nice, cool spring, they have 4 seasons just like we do, just more extreme. The winters are colder and the summers are hotter. But this really is the perfect time of y ear since air conditioning is not common.

Exchange rate: $1 is bout 10 Leu's, prices are about the same as the states, bread is like 30 cent, the government made that happen so everyone can afford bread, and it's really good too! Some things are more expensive, clothes I've heard are very pricey, but food and resaurant's are fairly cheap. so that's good.

I can't think of any other random facts, but I'm sure will have more for ya soon.Well it's about 1:30am here (8 hours later than Central time) so I'm getting to bed, I'll be posting pics soon. Tomorrow we're going to the orphanage in Cupcui, I'm sooooo excited and i know will have stories to tell! till then!