So I don't have the time nor the patience to fix the pictures in my blog right now. I'm using a laptop and am paying by the minute. So: The cat is named Timache. Those are my host families chickens--just had some eggs this morning. The picture with the backpack and flowers is me struggling to figure out how to say hi in Russian right before I got to my host families' house. The picture with the grocery carts is from Istanbul's airport with my travel buddy. Also, there are pictures of my kitchen and room.

Well I haven’t been shot as some fortunately predicted wrong, but I have met some incredibly kind people and a few hilarious Peace Corps volunteers (pretty sure you develop a good sense of humor being here). The initial few days were amazing albeit tiring. I finally caught up on sleep last night. Each night since I arrived in Philly I have gotten 5 hours of sleep max. This lack is the result from a combination of hectic agendas, jet lag, and acclimatingJ. Last night I believe it was 11 hours—I feel good.

To get to the hotel in Chisanau from Philly it took a total of 31 hours I believe. The sleep I got was about 5 songs worth on my 10.5 hour flight to Istanbul. I am really bad at sleeping on airplanes. I slept another hour in the Istanbul airport only to wake up in a panic to the Peace Corps volunteers I was with being around the corner getting food. I was sure that I had missed my plane but it was not the case.

So the biggest surprise so far is that I now have to learn Russian rather than Romanian, well to be more accurate I’m learning Russian primarily but learning supplemental Romanian in addition. Russian is very difficult, but I have very good teachers so I’m picking it up slowly but surely. Essentially everyone in the country knows a good deal of both languages. There are only a few areas or people that know exclusively one or the other. So I would type some Russian into this post but it takes a lot longer to do it on my computer rather than the internet café computers that have both symbols on their keyboards. I’m happy to be learning Russian because of the long terms benefits from it but the short term is definitely hard (learning the Cyrillic alphabet adds a whole new dimension to language learning), especially when I have been practicing Romanian for the last 2 months.

Last night I ventured to my first house in Ialoveni (Yell-o-ven). I live with Vladimir, Ekaterina (Katya) and Eurena. They are incredibly sweet and giving people who I am very happy to live with. Eurena is the daughter and she speaks a pretty impressive amount of English in addition to Romanian, Russian, and a little bit of Spanish and French. Last night I got to have dinner with my new family and got to sample my first Vin de Casa, homemade wine that most Moldovans grow and love. You can see the grape vines on the path up to the front door in the picture going up to the house. Last night Katya and Eulena helped me practice a whole bunch of Russian for which I am very grateful. I will live here for the next 8 weeks and then be forced on to the next area where my job will be. While at this house I will only be doing training comprised of language lessons, cultural classes and technical trainings.

Well that is all for now.

Love,

Aaron