Living in the 'nău

If there was something I wasn’t expecting, it was the city of Chișinău. I was expecting a city, yes, and I was expecting it to be named Chișinău, I’ll grant that, but I was not expecting it to exist in the capacity in which it did in April of 2010 and presumably still does—that is, thriving. While I can’t say it was necessarily bumpin’ (a term I reserve exclusively for cities that bump seriously hard), it was a well-planned, vibrant, and beautiful city. My initial ride into Moldova indicated to me that Chișinău would be a bleak outpost, a greyish village with a couple of socialist-realist administrative buildings. Instead I found parks and amenities and all the fine accoutrements of modern Western living, like electric buses and a McDonalds I was able to stand outside of and siphon free WiFi. What more, pray tell, does a capital city need?

If I may be perfectly honest, I was only in Moldova for two things.  One is, quite obviously, for the long, rectangular, orange stamp. The other will become readily apparent in subsequent posts. This is how Chișinău caught me off guard and charmed me into submission.  The only hostel in Chișinău (voted “Moldova’s Best Hostel 2009” though I’m willing to wager it’s Moldova’s only hostel) was located behind a shopping centre named—ready for this?—Mall Dova.  Mall.  Dova. Do you have any idea how much I want to work for international development firms coming up with catchy, sassy names for shopping centres? It’s not even important that I don’t like or approve of malls or that they have no place in eastern Europe. Mall Dova clearly offsets any negative social or environmental impact.

When I reached one of the main boulevards leading into the city, I became aware that I was being followed by—how to make this as PC as possible?—a “free-spirited” and “alternative” young “gold dust woman.” When I would stop, she would stop. When I would start, she would start. I would sit, she would pass, loop around, and come back and sit three benches down from me. I had been robbed enough times in Costa Rica (once) to know what was going on. I passed a bank and paused to think about using the ATM. When I looked up, I could see her reflection right behind me. I walked faster and faster and tried to lose her, but she kept on my tail. I stopped to check my iTouch, she stopped to smoke a cigarette a few paces behind. She was one of the creepiest people I have ever encountered on my trip. I sat in the boulevard and pulled out my book to read and let her pass, which she did. Two minutes later, I put down my book and turned to my left to find her sitting right next to me.

“Away, vile harpie! Do your evil bidding elsewhere!” I wanted to scream, but she spoke first and asked if I was from Serbia. I was caught unawares by the absurdity of the question. Granted, I was looking at a map of Serbia and accompanying text from the Sally Rosa Guide to Europe, but absurd because why would I, as a Serbian, miss Mother Serbia so much in Moldova that I would be reading about travelling through Serbia? Rather than catch her in my web of logic I instead answered, “No.” She spoke accented English, carried an old backpack, but there was something hard to place about her. Feral, perhaps. Yes, feral most probably. She mentioned she needed to find a place to sleep and implied that it would be outdoors. While I’m sure she was a nice person, my only feedback for her self-improvement would be to be less off-putting and less defying of the laws of physics. While perhaps this was needlessly harsh of me, she was a smoker so I feel absolutely zero guilt and will continue to laud my own grace under fire.