Lavender Festival*

*Subtitle to this post: How to be alone**

**Sub-subtitle: AKA, Peace Corps

If you're living in your home country and there's an event that sounds cool but that you can't find anyone to go with, it's pretty easy to just go. You'll probably meet someone cool to talk to, or, if your life resembles a Hallmark movie, you'll maybe even meet your soulmate (I've been led to believe that the probability of meeting the love of my life at a Christmas tree lot is SO HIGH that I'm not sure I'll meet him anywhere other than there.. Is it even possible to meet someone during the summer?).

If you're living in another country (where you kind of speak the language) and there's an event that sounds cool but that you can't find anyone to go with, it's a little harder. But I decided that I wanted to go, with or without someone. Once I figured out that it would be without, I decided that I needed to make it an awesome day to myself (instead of an awkward day alone, or something). 

At the TED talks, there was a woman who talked about rebranding Moldova, and I thought she was super interesting. During her talk, she mentioned some upcoming festivals, including Festivalul Levănțicii, or Lavender Festival. That sounded great, and I mentioned it to a few people, but no one ended up being able to go.

So I went alone! It was in a little village in Anenii Noi, so I had to go to Chisinau first to get there. The event sponsored rutieras back and forth throughout the day, so all I had to do was get to the place they'd be starting from. Which I'd never been to.. But when I got off the bus and saw a dozen people standing on the side of the road wearing all white, I knew I'd found the right spot. There was a dress code: all white (ne îmbrăcăm neapărat în alb) - originally I'd thought this was just a suggestion, but almost everyone took it really seriously, so if I go next year I might have to go shopping ahead of time. I did go in a white t-shirt so don't worry, I fit in. 

It was way bigger than I'd thought! There were a bunch of food booths (but "no meat, no beer" - only healthy things like tons of sangria), an art competition, a huge stage with different performances throughout the day, booths where people were selling crafts, soaps, handmade pretty things, and LAVENDER. The fields of lavender were EVERYTHING. When you walked into what I'll just call the fairgrounds, to your left was lavender literally as far as you could see, and to the right was all the booths and places to sit in the fields and relax. 

I started my day with stuffed peppers and lavender lemonade, and then walked all around to look at everything. Bought myself some cute jewelry and some fun things for a friend who had sent me with money and directions to plan a romantic evening. There were professional photographers there to take your picture in the lavender fields, so I did that - hello, Moldova's Next Top Model, look no further. Then I set out a blanket and tried both kinds of sangria while listening to the performances and reading my book and enjoying the beautiful sunny day! I stayed as long as I wanted and when I decided it was time to go, I changed my mind to get a lavender massage, because obviously. After that I went back to Chisinau, relaxed and happy and smelling much better than normal. 

Would it have been fun with friends? For sure. But I had a great time without them - in case you've forgotten, I'm kind of a good time on my own. It meant I got to do what I wanted, when I wanted. It meant I had to be a little brave occasionally and talk to someone in Romanian to ask them to take my picture or to help me find the perfect bath salts or direct me somewhere. And it reminded me that if I don't go Christmas tree shopping anytime soon, I'll be just fine. 

Currently #9

Currently...

Reading The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan. This book was published after her death, which was just days after she graduated from Yale. She's a beautiful writer and it's a shame this is all we will get from her, because it's wonderful so far. I'm also listening to Killing Kennedy on tape, which is really interesting. 

Writing letters to strangers, as per usual. One to a boy in Spain who is collecting postage from different countries, and one to a girl I met online in a group on Facebook who wants a pen pal!

Listening to 8tracks. While I read, while I write, while I yoga.. Is yoga a verb? It is now.

Thinking about what a great week we had recently with friends visiting - that friend who convinced us to run in the marathon and who we got to explore Chisinau with and see cool places that I'd never seen before! 

Smelling plăcintă! Today she made it with brînza, which I can't remember her ever doing, but I'm excited about it because I love it with brînza (it's like homemade cheese). 

Wishing for the weekend! No, I know, it IS the weekend. But this upcoming weekend is TEDxChisinau, AKA TED talks, but in Chisinau! This sounds thrilling to me and I can't wait to go. 

Hoping I get a girl or two to come with me to Chisinau this weekend. There's an event called Girls In ICT and girls are invited to come and learn how to create presentations using different kinds of software. It's an international event to encourage young girls to consider a career in IT, and I'm really excited about it. I told my English class/club and one girl (one of the star students, of course) signed up immediately. A few others said they'd ask their parents, so I'm hoping that at least that one girl gets to go, and maybe one or two others! 

Wearing my pajamas, BUT today I'm calling them my yoga outfit, because. Well. 

Loving my mother on Mother's Dayyyyyy! 

Wanting my package from my mother to be here so I can start wearing my Jawbone and be motivated to get up and walk around, for crying out loud. Because if Olivia gets more steps in a day, that's just unacceptable. Competition will fuel me, guys. Remember when I tried to beat all the boys at all the standardized tests? (More importantly, remember how I CRUSHED them?) That was awesome. I need a challenge, here. 

Needing chocolate. Where's the chocolate in this place, jeeeeeez.

Feeling overwhelmed about everything that's going on this month. Almost all of it is stuff I'm looking forward to, like Girls in ICT and TEDxChisinau, language training, and other fun events with PCVs, but it feels like a lot at the moment and I don't know if I can schedule my life well enough! We're getting a lot of work done on the park, too, so I hope I can get everything in order for that - the other day I went to Chisinau with the mayor and we bought the playground equipment, benches, and fence.. So now I need to get all that correct and recorded on my budget.. Apparently it's hard to do nothing, but it's harder to do something! WEIRD. 

Clicking this artist who takes photos of fruit.. But it's not the still life you're thinking. This piece with 20 Unconventional Compliments to Brighten Anyone's Day - so give one to someone, already! And this TED talk about the power of body language - it's 20 minutes but worth a watch. 

And just to brighten your Sunday, here are some of our cute baby geese.

Ziua Raionului & Gradinita Christmas

It is currently Christmas Eve and I am patiently awaiting a phone call from my host mom. She is playing Santa at the kindergarten today and I get to go watch that happen, so that'll be entertaining, probably. 

Until then, I'll tell you all about Ziua Raionului, which my partner and the mayor took me to yesterday. 

The day before, multiple people informed me that I needed to be frumoasa, which I think was code for: step it up a little, Catea. You're going to see people besides us tomorrow. My host mom even came home and said, the mayor told me you guys are going to a fancy restaurant so you'd better wear your high heels. Um, okay. Would you like to pick out a dress for me, too? Just kidding, but really. That might have helped. 

I apparently did well, because when I got to work, everyone really liked that I looked nice (and were probably wondering why I don't put that much effort in on a daily basis - well I'll tell you, it's because I'm in a serious relationship with my snooze button.. I just can't quit it). 

After hanging out working for a while, 5 of us piled into the mayor's car, and we were off to Ștefan Vodă! When we got there, my partner asked where my friend was, and they told me my seat number multiple times before dropping me off to meet her while they went who-knows-where. So I found Kelsey in the Casa de Cultura, working hard with her Youth Fund kids. 

Then it was soon time to find my seat, and eventually the mayor and my partner showed up. It was about 3 hours of speeches, dances, songs, poems, skits.. And it was awesome. I mean, admittedly, it started out a lot more awesome than it ended.. I got tired, okay?! And ended up kind of tuning out with all the Romanian - it's very hard to have your active listening turned on for such an extended period of time. 

After the performance was over, they said it was time to go to the restaurant, so I thought it was just a special day and we were going out to eat, but we saw a big bus and my partner said, they're going to the restaurant too! So that was slightly confusing, until we got there and I figured it out. It was a big banquet hall (the mayor even told me his daughter's wedding reception had been there) and there were so many people. My partner kept pointing out important people - the wife of the raion president sat at our table, for example. 

My partner (the wife of the raion president is on the far right)

It was a very Posh Corps event. You know how you can tell you're at a fancy event by the number of forks you don't know how to use? Well, there was only one fork here, but there were three different glasses for each person. You had your wine glass, your champagne glass, and your glass for liquor. Priorities, people. The table was stocked with local wines from Purcari and Et Cetera wineries, plus others I didn't recognize, and of course, a bottle of cognac every few people (of which I did not partake). 

There was SO MUCH FOOD and I ate pretty much everything. It was the best and most I've eaten in probably 6 months. Which, if you recall, is about the whole time I've been here. I can't even tell you how great it was. There were tons of great vegetables, and there was meat, and there was the greatest smoked cheese I feel like I've ever eaten, and oh, the wine. We started out with servers, and they would politely say, ma'am, what would you like to drink, and the mayor would answer for me and we would always be trying the same wine (precious).. But eventually the men at the table got impatient and wanted to pour the wine for us on their own, so that happened. He wanted us to try basically every wine, so we had to do that. He would say, Catea, this is from Et Cetera, remember how we went to that winery together? Yes, Primar, in fact, I do. 

Then there was dancing! Suddenly the mayor stood up and offered me his hand, and we were dancing. Then we did the hora, and then I got a break while he danced with Kelsey's partner, and then we danced some more! 

Finally the night was over, though surprisingly I wasn't itching to go (sometimes I have to go to events and I get tired and secretly cranky, but not for this). My partner stole some candy for me, we got our coats, and we headed back home. It was a fun day! 

I've also now been to the kindergarten Christmas/New Year's program, which was adorable. The kids sang, danced, recited poetry, did skits.. And they were adorable. Everything one would hope for in a nursery school Christmas program. Crying and messing up and just being precious. It was great. And my host mom was Santa.. Kind of a scary Santa, but I guess it worked for her, as only one girl cried.

And I got to Skype with my family for Christmas and "open" some presents that will wait two years for me. Tomorrow I'll see my friends for Christmas Day and all will be well! 

Merry Christmas!! 

"Be brave."

On Monday, my grandpa died. I was there for it, strange as that sounds, through the wonders of technology, as I was FaceTiming the family as it happened. I feel like he was waiting to talk to me again (or hear me again, really) and it was sad, but also kind of special, in a weird way. 

The next day, the bells rang at the church. They had told me just the day before that they ring when a villager dies (they have rung three times this week - I'm not sure if that means three different people died or what), so I think this time they were for Grandpa. (I mean, they weren't, but I interpreted it like they were.) 

I wasn't really in the mood to do anything that day, but I was at work anyway, not doing much of anything (so, the usual) and the mayor asked me if I wanted to go somewhere with him. I said yes; he said 10 minutes; an hour later we hadn't left. Eventually we did, and I figured out that we were going to a winery across the road to get a bottle of wine for him to bring to Germany. The mayor is very passionate about this center he wants to establish for the village, for the elderly and disabled. He was going to Germany the next day to ask for funding, I believe, so he planned to bring a bottle of Moldovan wine! Always a good gift. 

I briefly mentioned before that Divergent has become kind of an important book to me. I really identify with the main character's struggles, and one of them is Dauntless initiation. Which I sometimes feel like I'm going through, too - it's really hard to be brave and "dauntless" all the time and occasionally you're not completely sure you're going to make it! Two weeks ago my partner gave me a book about the history of the village. I was reading the section about the village's name - it comes from the Turkish, and it means "tiger." So that's cool. But the village just across the main road was also listed in the same section and also got its name from Turkish - only its name, Crocmaz, means "dauntless." At first I thought I was inventing that, because how could that coincidence really happen. So I tried to translate it a slightly different way, and it literally means dauntless. I obviously felt it was fate and I didn't know if I would ever get to this village, but I sure wanted to. 

The winery we went to was in Crocmaz. On a day I probably needed some bravery, we went to Dauntless. 

It was a cute little winery called Et Cetera and the owner was very nice - he gave me a bottle of pink wine as a present (I really didn't think pink was very popular over here, since I hadn't had it yet!) and then the three of us sat down and shared a bottle of it with bread and spreads. 

We went to the raion center after that to do some more things the mayor needed to do, including getting a tire fixed.. While I was in the car. Nobody told me to get out! 

Then he said, we're going to Purcari! Which was confusing to me, because that's a winery too, and we'd already been to one winery that day! But we went there too! It was really pretty, and an old and big winery.. Much more of a tourist attraction than Et Cetera. The mayor said we'd come back sometime when we had more time, but he took my picture there and bought me a little bottle as a present.

We went back to Caplani and he took me to his greenhouses where he gave me a bunch of cucumbers (oh, we'd stopped on the way back and he'd gotten me a bunch of fruit, too - I think they're very concerned about my eating here) and took my picture with them again. 

It was a very eventful two days. 

Today we got a call from the mayor (I think he's still in Germany) who said (I think) that we got a bunch of funding for the center! So that's really exciting! Hopefully I'll get to work on this a bunch with them, because it seems very important to the mayor. 

So.. I'm doing okay. Moldova keeps having her Moments.