Buna!

We finally made it to Moldova. I had no idea it was going to be this rural, which is great. We are in the capital Chisinau (pronounced kee - she - now). I'm sitting in an internet cafe right now before we head to meet the U.S. Ambassador and start some language training. This internet cafe happens to be Russian (Moldova is bilingual with Russian and Romanian), so navigating my way through internet explorer and the blogger site made me feel like an idiot. When we arrived last night, the current Volunteers were there to cheer us on as we got off the plane. I wasn't expecting such a grand welcoming ceremony. The first thing I learned was that there is no such thing as standing in line . If you want to get somewhere or want something, you have to go for it. After a quick orientation, we had dinner and went out for drinks with the our mentors and a lot of other veteran Volunteers. They are showing us the ropes pretty quickly. A few things they have taught us: don't drink the tap water, don't flush the toilet paper, and the beer is always abundant and cheap. Most of the current volunteers have been here over a year, so it's interesting seeing how they have lost a little of their American qualities and have added a lot of Moldovan ones. We'll be meeting our host families tomorrow and will head out to start training in our village. I've made some good friends so far, so I'm not looking forward to having to separate from them once we get placed in our village. However, everyone in Moldova uses text messaging, so I'll be able to keep in touch and meet up with my friends once we get some time off. We are crazy busy for the next few weeks, but I will try my best to post some pics of the capital and my village. Thanks to everyone for all of the support before I left.