Second, and Last, First Bell.

09/03/2012

Usually the Moldovan school year begins on September first. This year it began on the third. The even was largely the same as it was last year, but I remembered a couple more of the details this time. For one, I noticed that during one part of the ceremony, the new 12th form students walked with the new first form students while ringing the bell. It was cute to watch. More importantly, though, this year I took pictures and video of the occasion. I figured since I didn't last year, I had to this year.

Students stood in a horseshoe, with the youngest students on the far right

Students walking to form the horseshoe

12th form students ringing a bell to signify the start of the school year

One of the older students sang a song, about Moldova I think.

12th form students walking with first form, I think

Like last year, the 1st graders read a poem collectively

I went to the back to see if I could get a better photo

After the speaking was some dancing, done by primary school students, I think

12th form students walking with 1st formers

They walked around in a circle ringing the bell.

 Here are some videos I took of the whole thing, mostly of the singing and dancing that took place. The last two videos are of the hora.

 After the dancing, it was time to go into the school. The students met with their class teachers and I took some photos of the different displays that the various classes had done.

The horde entering the school.

One of the many displays the students did

There were a few near the entrance

And more on the second floor

Many of them had sayings in Romanian, usually about the beginning of school or fall starting

Looks tasty, doesn't it?

After I had finished talking photos, I went to the teacher's room where the teachers who were not class teachers sat. After waiting for about an hour, there was a meeting. When it was finished, my partner teacher and I planned for Wednesday, when our first lessons of the year will be. I taught one lesson today, but the students did not have textbooks so I just asked them simple questions. This year, I actually have a free day, Tuesday. After school, I had tea and some food with the director and the school's piano teacher. Then it was time to go home and start planning.

Badiceni Hram

8/28/30: Hram In Badiceni

Hram day translates to village/town/city day. On this day, family members travel to the village/town/city whose Hram it is to see their relatives. There are also sometimes concerts in cities. My host mother's mother and brother live in Badiceni, a nearby village, so we traveled there to see them. We got up early in order to catch the 7am mini-bus from our village to a neighboring one. There we hopped on another mini-bus that was going to a village near our destination. When we got to that village, my host mother flagged down a car which drove us to Badiceni. The driver didn't take us very far into the village, so we had to walk a ways to my host mother's brother's house. We got there early so we hung around for a couple of hours waiting for the other guests to arrive. Then we sat down at the table to eat. There was sausage, small fish, homemade champagne, sarmale, fresh cheese, and other food. The sarmale was brought out after we had eaten the cold food that had been set out. When we had finished eating the sarmale, candy and cookies were placed on the table. After sitting at the table for a little while, the three of us, myself, and my host mother and sister, headed to my host mother's parent's house.

                              I relaxed in a chair after eating, but some people remained at the table

                                              A couple other people relaxing after eating
It was a short walk from the brother's place. When we arrived, I took advantage of some down time to take some pictures of the house.

                                           In the summer, they wash their hands outside

                        The kitchen was in that building which was partly obscured by grape vines.

A closeup of one of the vines

The main house was also obscured by them

While the houses were both fairly small, the property was not

There was a backyard where some animals were. Past the gate was a medium-sized garden

After looking around. I went into the smaller house to help move food from the kitchen into the dining room which was in the main house. While waiting for the food to be served, I was able to talk in English with my host mother's 22 year old cousin. She lives and goes to college in Chisinau, but was back in Badiceni because of Hram. Compared to most people I have met in Moldova, her English was pretty good. After talking with her, food was served. The spread was similar to what I had eaten earlier so I didn't eat that much. A pleasant addition was a chocolate cake for dessert. We ate and chatted for a while before it was time to leave. My host sister wanted to get somewhere, so we only stayed for a few hours. We walked to the edge of town to wait for a car to come. After a short while, we were able to catch a ride to a main road. We hitchhiked there too. This time, because we couldn't get a car to stop, we caught a ride in a caruța. A caruța is a horse-drawn cart. We took the cart to the next main road, and there waited for yet another car. This time one came. However, it was only going part of the way we wanted, so when we reached another main road we got out. It kept going in the opposite direction from where we wanted to go. Unfortunately, we had to wait at this intersection for 45 minutes before a mini-bus finally came and took us back to our village. My host sister just managed to catch the bus that would take her where we wanted to go. Overall, it was an eventful and somewhat exciting day.

8/29/2012: At school again.

School, having not started yet, was empty, so I took advantage of the opportunity to photograph my classroom. The most interesting find was probably a text book that was in Romanian, but not in the Latin alphabet.

The classroom, from the doorway

Some of the many grammar posters that hang on the walls

More of the grammar posters, and one about vowel sounds

The one bookshelf we have int the classroom along with the tables I use for my things

This book is in Romanian although it uses Cyrillic. It says in romanian "dezvolarea vorbiri la lecție de limbă franceza,," or in English "The development of speaking in French Lessons"

 

After photographing the room, I sat down to organize some of my papers from the past year. Then, I went home.
























                                   

                                                                                                    

From Vienna to Cotova

8/5/2012: Back to Moldova

We got up in time to have breakfast and take a taxi to the airport. Dad and Karen checked- in first at air lingus and then we went to a different terminal so that I could check in on Austrian Air, or rather an Air Moldova flight operated by Austrian Air. When I checked-in I was offered 250 euro to take a later flight. I accepted, but as it turned out I didn't qualify because I was not technically flying Austrian Air. Regardless, Dad, Karen, and I parted ways basically as soon as I had checked in. They went through security towards my gate and they went towards theirs. I had a long time before my flight so I just relaxed at my gate and enjoyed the free wifi. While I was there, I met some British people. They were a church group coming to Moldova to spend a week doing missionary work. On my way to my gate I won a 2 euro coupon by throwing a ball at a wall. On the wall were different monetary values ranging from 1 euro to 4. Shortly before my flight boarded, I bought a panini from a stand near my gate. It was very good, and probably the last one I will have for a while. Anyways, my flight to Moldova was fairly short, only a couple of hours. The plane was normal size though and I had no problem fitting my carry-on under the seat in front of me. Since my backpack is kind of large, I had trouble on the two small planes I was on heading to Hungary. When I arrived in Moldova I took a cab to the hostel. I got ripped off by about 30 lei because I didn't wait to ask for a cab until I was outside. Luckily, 30 lei is less than 3 dollars. I arrived at the hostel early in the day so I amused myself by talking to other people that were staying at the hostel.

8/6/2012: Back to Cotova
Already in Moldova, I was basically home. I took a shower but had some difficulty because the water ran out for part of the time. There hadn't been much rain all summer and I wonder if that had something to do with it. Either way, the lack of water made the shower less pleasant than I had hoped. Afterwards, I went to the mall for a quick lunch and a Dr. Pepper. Then I went to Peace Corps to relax for a bit before I took a cab to the Gara de Nord (the northern bus station). There I got on the rutiera (minibus) that would take me to the nearest town and to my village. Overall, I had a nice time with Dad and Karen and a very nice trip. 

Vienna

8/3/2012: Day 1 in Vienna

              Before we did anything else, we enjoyed a nice breakfast at the hotel. There was fruit, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, cheeses, salami, croissants, fresh bread, Nutella, a variety of juices, pickles, and complimentary tea, coffee and hot chocolate. I had a big breakfast consisted of a little bit of everything.
After we ate, we walked to the smaller of the two churches on the square. It had dead saints under some of the altars that the public could see. You could see their skeletons.
                                         
                                  The busy St. Stephen's Square that we walked through many times
                                         
                                                      The smaller church had a really nice organ
                                          
                                                           One of the many altars in the church.
                                          
                                     You could see the dead body that was under some of the altars
                                                      
                                                                The church was very beautiful
              After that, we walked to the cathedral. We couldn't see much of it because a service was going on. It was a very beautiful building. Outside there were lots of people dressed as Mozart trying to sell concert tickets. They were very annoying because if you stopped they would approach you.
                                           
                                                            St. Stephan's Square and Cathedral
              Our next stop was the opera house. There we took a tour that was about an hour long and included a view of the back stage area and the auditorium. I learned that once a year there is a ball in the opera house and they take out the seats and extend the stage to create a large dance floor. They also set up the backstage to look like the front of the auditorium. Tickets to the ball cost hundreds of euros.
                                           
                                       Inside the opera house, there were four columns  in each corner
                                           
                                                       Each with a cherub holding a different thing
                                           
                          The ceiling was very interesting and contained Greek features, namely the square waves
                                         
                                        The lobby, where we had to wait for the tour, was very nice
                                         
                                                           As were many of the other rooms
                                        
                                A bust of one of the important figures in the history of the opera house
                                       
                                                                        A meeting room
                                       
                                          A dining room of sorts, maybe used during intermission
                                       
                            This painting is of the backstage and dressing room areas of the building
                                       
                                                                        The box seats
               After the tour, we took the metro to the Schoenbrunn Palace. Its style reminded me a lot of Versailles. I think it was built at a time when a lot of nations were trying to imitate the French. After a quick snack at a cafe near the palace, we went on a tour of it. The palace was beautiful and the tour guide was very knowledgeable. It was interesting to learn that nobility would only bathe once or twice a year. They wore perfume to try to cover up the smell but it didn't work that well. The tour of the palace lasted about an hour. Afterwards, we took a carriage ride around the palace grounds and saw a fountain, some Roman ruins, and a greenhouse.
                                       
                                                                    The Front of the Palace
                                       
                                                                   The Back of the Palace

     

The main fountain on the grounds

               Then, we walked over to the marionette theater. We weren't sure if we wanted to go, so we went inside to take a look. The puppets were very elaborate and nice.  We then went back outside to discuss whether we wanted to go or not. Since the show was 2 and a half hours and Dad and Karen were hungry, we decided that I would go to the show and Dad and Karen would go have dinner. First they had a drink with me while I had a very quick dinner. I made it to the theater a couple minutes after it had begun so I missed the introduction. The performance was of Mozart's "The Magic Flute." The music was great but I didn't understand the words because it was in German. I only knew what was going on because I had read an English summary of it before it started. The marionettes were pretty small, but because of the size of the theater, designed to look like a miniature real theater, the marionettes looked like small people. After the show I went back stage and saw the puppets. One of the people there talked about how the actors moved the puppets and how the size of the stage affected how big the marionettes appeared. After I took a look backstage, I met Dad and Karen and we took the subway back to our hotel, but not before stopping for some gelato first. When we got back to our hotel, it was time for bed.
                                       
                                                         The Front of the Palace at Night
8/4/2012: Day 2 in Vienna
          Before heading out, we again enjoyed a nice breakfast at our hotel. Our first stop was the cathedral, but we still couldn't go in very far because there was a service going on again. Outside, like usual, there were people dressed as Mozart. They were outside the cathedral every day. Our next destination was the subway. Dad and Karen were going to the art museum and I was going to the natural history one. Since the subway line we wanted to take was under construction, we went to information to buy tickets and figure out how to get to each of the places that we wanted to go. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I left my camera on the counter in the information place. I didn't realize it until I was leaving the subway at the stop I was going to, so  I had to backtrack and pick it up. I was sort of worried that I had put it in my pocket and it had gotten stolen, but luckily that was not the case.
                                                         
                                                                      Another view of the cathedral
             Anyways, after that detour, I found my way to the museum. It would have been kind of confusing to find if there hadn't been a map since there were a lot of museums all in the same area. I took a picture of the outside and then went inside to buy my ticket. The grounds were very nice.
                                               
                                                                              The art museum
                                               
                                                           A view of the museum grounds
                                               
                                                                         A close-up of the fountain
                                               
                                                                       A Maria Theresa Statue
                                                         
                                           The natural history museum was wonderful outside as well as in.
                                               
                                         One of the four statues that surround the building, symbolizing Europe
                                              
                                                      The other one in the front, symbolizing America
                                                       
                                                        A bronze elephant stood guard at the door
It was an interesting museum filled with creative and informative exhibits, along with some art work including some unicorns. There were also many stuffed animals, including sharks, rays and other fishes. Apparently it is hard to taxidermy fish because they lose a lot of color after the fish dies. The taxidermy was very well done. I especially enjoyed the dinosaur exhibit. It was interesting because they had one display that was dedicated to showing how dinosaurs became birds and included a picture of one of the first feathered dinosaurs. I also liked the hands-on exhibits that they had including one talking about the evolution of horses and the movement of the tectonic plates. The tectonic plates one showed both how the plates split up to form the continents we have today and how they will recombine to form another super-continent in the future. I knew a lot of the information it provided already, but it was still interesting. The museum also had an exhibit about how water moves around and how a rise in water temperature causes the climate to get warmer in some areas, but colder in others. I spent a few hours touring the museum by myself before I was joined by my dad and Karen. When we first got there we took a break and had a snack at the cafe in the museum. We then went to a couple of the exhibits I had already seen before going to the ones that I had not. One of the exhibits I went to twice was the dinosaur hall. It was interesting enough that I enjoyed seeing it a second time. We spent an hour walking around before heading to the subway. We had some trouble coming up with the correct change to buy the ticket, but luckily I spotted a man selling magazines. We were able to get the correct change by buying one.

There were painting on the walls

And sculptures like this one in the middle

There were also unicorn skulls

We passed by the Volkstheater (People's Theater) on the way to the metro

                We then returned to St. Stephen's square to have dinner. Because it was our last night, I ordered wiener schnitzel since I had had it before, but not in Vienna. It was very tasty. After dinner we stopped by one of the drinking fountains that were set up in the city. After being in Moldova, it was nice to have free, clean water so readily available. We then went to go look for Mozart balls. I wanted to buy some for my host family and my dad wanted to buy some for his co-workers. We weren't able to buy any from the chocolate shops because they were all closed, but we did manage to find some at a souvenir shop that was still open. In addition, I bought a miniature building to add to my collection, along with some apple pie flavored Ben and Jerry's ice cream. We then made our way back to our hotel and to bed. The next morning we had to wake up earlier than we had been to have breakfast and get to the airport on time.