Eu nu vorbesc romana....

Right now i am sitting in an internet cafe, in Chisinau, Moldova. Alone. Things aren't so bad really- there is a lot of interest among Moldovan students for LCC, I just heard an amazing band of Moldovan folk music, and ate a really good meal of traditional Moldovan food. Yet I guess the phrase that describes how i feel best right now is "stretched too thin"... I think i have seen and experienced too much in too short of a time, and for one of the few times in my life, I am hit right now by an intense longing for a home. Where would that be? Yanji kind of, but i think i would be lonely there too this time of year. Klaipeda? The closest I have, and in fact it was hard to be ripped away after only a week in Lithuania and after such a warm reception to move on to Romania so quickly. Am glad i have a couple more weeks there! Lansing? Also many people I love there, but all are busy with their own lives, and were I there, i would also be a perpetual 'guest'. Traverse City? I love my parents and the countryside there, but i also don't have a life there. I guess maybe the best we Christians ever are on this earth are 'guests' and 'pilgrims'. a recurring theme on this blog i know....

Romania

Being in Bucuresti, it was a bit hard to believe that it entered the EU already. Seems a bit rushed, but just from outer appearances. The city is pretty haphazard, and i guess it reminded me more of Yerevan than anything else, except without the cafes or the mountains, but replete with many monumental buildings made of a kind of golden stone, thanks to Caecescu and a long tradition before him. I remember always hearing, from way back, stories from Nick and Carissa Minaar about Romania, and it is interesting to have finally seen it. Yes Caecescu's Casa Popului is gigantic, impressive, and a little bit sad when one considers how much it cost the Romanian peasant to build, and also the architechture that was destroyed to make way for the monster. Bulevardul Unirii may have been impressive in communist days, but now with the fountains dry, streets choked with crazy drivers, and random neon signs and billboards of every size and color, there is no word for it but ugly...

Driving across Wallachia, i was amazed at how visible Romanian geography is. there are three main parts, Wallachia, Transylvania and Moldavia. Wallachia is flat as a pancake and has no trees. So you can basically see all of it at once :) Then to the north are the snow capped tree covered mountains of transylvania. the border couldnt be more obvious. Moldavia (as opposed to Moldova) is made of long parallel valleys, still treeless. Romanian cities look much different than any other communist or eastern european cities i have seen. it is so fascinating how the elements are all the same, yet each former communist country has its own twist.

Entering the Moldovan Republic, after a relatively easy border crossing, the change was noticable, primarily in road quality, but Moldova, even in the dark, was incredibly hilly and covered with alternating thick forests and vineyards. Am very sad i wasn't able to see the countryside during the day! More to come about this trip later.


P.S. if only Korean were as easy to learn as Romanian- a fascinating Romance language with a huge slavic lexical influence (eu citesc = 'I read' treba = 'need'), postpositions borrowed from Turkish (studentul = 'of the student', studentilor = 'of the students'), and interesting high vowels. Also there is a crazy sound correspondence whereby what are velar consonants in most romance languages become labials in Romanian! {lakte(Lat.)=lapte(Rom.), okto(Lat.)=oapte(Rom.)}