Dec. 7: Arrival in Chisinau, Moldova
The flights to D.C., Vienna, and Chisinau were fine. Grigore (the father in the family I had rented a house from when I taught in Moldova) and his daughter Lena were supposed to meet me at the airport, but when I got out of the airport I couldn’t find them anywhere. I ended up calling the house to ask where they were. I thought perhaps there had been some confusion about my arrival. What a miracle it seemed to me that I could bring a cell phone from the States and use it to call with no problems (other than the high cost per minute). Anyway, Lena answered the phone and said her father was at the airport already. Sure enough, after I got off the phone and turned around, I saw him facing the exit for arriving passengers. I called out to him and he gave me a big bear hug. Then he and his driver, Boris, took me back to the house with a stop to pick up Lena and Sandu (Lena’s little brother) at Sandu’s school. I picked up two more hugs there as well.
Diana (the mother in the family) greeted me at their house with yet another big hug. Instantly I felt at home. Diana also spoke English in paragraphs, a very nice change for both us from the time I lived in Moldova. Diana had prepared a feast for my arrival—farshovnaya riba (ground fish). It’s a lot of work to prepare. Even now I’m not sure how they grind the fish and then stuff it back into the skin and arrange it so it looks like a whole fish again. It was delicious. She also prepared markov pa-koresky (Korean style carrots, shredded carrots with spices and vinegar). The family laughed when I told them that I never saw Korean-style carrots in Korea.
I presented the family with some of their favorite American treats as I remembered them: Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime tea; maple syrup; seasoning for fajitas; and a box of See’s Chocolates. The box of chocolates was wrapped up in holiday wrapping paper. Sandu saw it and wanted to open it, but Diana said “after dinner”. Sandu replied in Romanian, “ah, bomboane” (ah, it’s candy). This was only the beginning of the signs of how clever and impish Sandu could be. Later in the evening when Diana complained that he’d eaten 6 pieces, Sandu said, “No! It was 7!”
Tags: Chisinau, Eastern Europe, Food, Moldova, Soviet Union, Travel
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