Today was my first day in Chisinau, Moldova, and I am writing this update at night vs. the usual morning time. If you remember, a few months back-I wrote about Prague-how it was a beautiful city-but very touristy. Lots of tourists and very little authenticity-almost no sign of locals. Chisinau is almost the anti-Prague. Not an ugly city-but no bridges, rivers, etc. Nice buildings to be sure-but just about nobody speaks fluent English. I wanted to find out about walking tours and tours to Transnistria, which is supposed to be a Russian-occupied territory, but the guy who worked at the hostel spoke very broken English. I had to repeat everything I said, and some things we're still not answered correctly. For example, I asked how long the tour to Transinistria would take, and he interpreted as what would be the distance from here to Transinistria. But as bad as his English was, it was better then almost anyone else I Talked to.
To start with, I did the usual work with my computer here in the Retro Hostel, which is located in a communist block building. I took a shower, and was looking to go to the bathroom, but the toilet didn't flush. Oh-did I mention the number of bathrooms here in the hostel-one (for about 16 people) That's right. One bathroom. So if the toilet doesn't work-you can either hold it, or go to Andy's Pizza which roughly 4 blocks away. I held it for 15 minutes and the toilet worked ok. (just ok).
It was a beautiful, warm, fall day, so I walked to the Museum of National History to see if I can learn about the country, and while I don't love museums, this one didn't suck. First of all, there we're no interactive displays, IPAD's, etc to interfere with the experience. And I learned a little about the history: It was an independent country until 1538 when the country went to the Ottoman Empire. In 1812 half went to Russia. Half then was taken over by Romania in 1918(the half still Russian became the Autonomous sate of the USSR, or something like)-and then to Russian in 1940 (all of it the communist days). In 1991, Moldova became an independent country. The museum even had a beautiful war display, and the price for the permanent exposition was something like $.50.
After that, I went to the hostel to take a nap (I was still tired after last night). An employee I haven't met came to the hostel as well-a 20 something woman who spoke very good English-better then anyone else I met here-so I picked her brain. I learned people we're protesting the government because of corruption (Corrupt individuals stole almost 25% of the Moldovan GDP!, and people we're camping out by the capital). She also recommended an authentic Moldovan restaurant to eat at, which although good, was a branch of the same restaurant chain I ate in Romania. I then came back and went to bed.
