Monday, January 31, 2011

It was a draft, errrrrg

I found the long post and have put it up, apparently it saved as a draft, and did not really disappear.  Errrrgggg and yeah all at the same time.

I wrote a long post and it disappeared

I wrote a long beautiful post about how my holidays were, the start of the new year, the wonderful things I got see and how great Orthodox Christmas and New Year's were, then it disappeared.  I then wrote a second post to describe what happened and it too disappeared.  Then I did a test post, you can see it, it posted, I am leaving it there for all the world to see.  I will at some future point come back to finish that wonderful beautiful post full of sentiment and the wonders of the world but not right now, right now I am not happy with the whole process.  So much for getting an informative post knocked off the list.

Test

Test post

Spain and Second Semester Fun

Well, winter vacation came, and it went.  So sad.  But I did get to go to Barcelona, see amazing things, speak a little Spanish, visit Bucharest in Romania and ride on a train.  Plus once I got back to Moldova I still had a couple of laze about days and some really neat Moldovan holidays to experience.  

But first, Spain.  I went with a couple of volunteers and we spent about 7 days in Barcelona with a side trip to the monastery Montserrat.  Barcelona is a wonderful city, clean, free of street dogs, and some incredible architecture.  I absolutely love Gaudi and anyone of a like mind should make it one of their life goals to see Barcelona.  Sagrada Familia is.... words do not quiet describe it, or at least I am not talented enough to describe it in the terms that it should be described.  And I love Gaudi's work in general.  Its colorful, sinuous, natural and exotic.  Sometimes you can't believe that one person had all of that in one brain.  I saw many many Gaudi buildings and I could have seen more.  Plus Barcelona has managed to hold on to a lot of its history in general so everywhere you look there seems to be one more really neat building to gaze at.  In addition to Gaudi I went to a museum that was once a palace, a fort with some really big world war era guns, a sea walk, the gothic quarter with tiny winding streets, and an incredible cathedral.   The monastery was like a scene out of a legend.  It is set up high on a plateau/mountain thing where the mist never really seems to go away.  We took the train for an hour to get to the site and from there we rode a cable car up the mountain.  Then, at one of the other girl's insistence we walked up like 40 billion stairs that went further up the mountain.  Well, to be fair it wasn't 40 billion but we weren't really dressed or prepared to go for a hike, which is what it would have been.  But the whole area is also a national park.  So you get an incredible view, wildlife, and a centuries old monastery, the whole package deal.

After Barcelona we spent New Year's Eve/part of the Day in Milan airport, which was not very exciting at all and then went on our way to Bucharest.  Bucharest is somewhere in between Moldova and Barcelona in terms of development.  But what Bucharest has is its old city and a ruin of one of Vlad Tepes' castle, the man better known as the inspiration for Dracula.  We walked around the old city with one of the girl's friend who lives in Bucharest.  She knew tons about Bucharest and Romania and was just all around spectacular.  She let us stay with her and entertained us, let us rest from our journey and told us tales of a Romania that has a hidden past. Needless to say I really want to go back to Romania and of course visit some of the amazing things she told us about.  We also got to see a Christmas market and go ice skating.  The Christmas market really reminded me of home, it had little wood cottages for booths and they were wreathed with pine boughs.  Ah, home!  And a bonus was that I got to buy a gingerbread treat.  I love gingerbread.

After that it was back to Moldova just in time to experience a second Christmas on January 7th, orthodox Christmas.  Around Christmas children go door to door and sing Christmas carols or chants.  In return people give them candy, cookies and a little bit of money, sort of like getting a quarter.  We stayed up til 11 or 12 I think before we locked the gate.  Towards the end some really interesting groups came by but I was already in my room at that point.  I do remember hearing an accordion and a tambourine.

Then we went back to school but the first week was all over the place because that Friday was Orthodox New Year's or Old New Year's.  The night before we again had 'carolers' but this time it was only boys and they came to the door and threw seeds at you.  Then they would get candy, money, ceremonial round bread, and cookies.  My host mom told me that the day before New Year's only boys come and then on New Year's girls come.  This was fun, we stayed up and waited for groups to come, then on Friday i went to school like all was normal.  But... all the students brought seeds to throw and I  spent the day getting wished health, happiness, money and pelted with rice, corn, some other seed and sunflower seeds.  It was great and next year I know it is coming so I will come to school prepared with candy and money.

Other than that it has finally gotten 'cold' but it is still about 0 F, and I am perfectly okay with this. :)  January has flown by and now we have sun from 7-5 instead of 7:30-4, still not complaining.  The only down side is that the English classroom is about the coldest classroom in the whole school.  Sigh.  But if those are the least of my worries, well then I'm doing just fine.  Plus I finally got WIFI at home and a printer.  I am a printing fiend and I recommend printers to every single PCV.  I love my printer and having worksheets and its all around usefulness.  Yeah for printer!!!  Of course, love to all those back home reading this long post and I hope everyone had a great holiday season!