Thoughts and Miscillanea

Below is the Briceni flag. We have it posted in our school along with information about this area, the poet the school was named for, and other decorative items.


Below you'll find some other random images. I'll try to add more stories as I remember.

 Coming back from Chisinau we decided we needed shots of ourselves in our awesome gear. Jaime and Chad sent us some camping equipment including sleeping bags, hammocks, a tent, and some neat camping chairs. We are excited to use them and are looking into where we can go. Romania has some mountains close by and we've planned a little Christmas vacation to check it out.

 This was my birthday lunch, and a great one it was. Shelbi made all kinds of awesome food in the Mexican style. I'm sure I ate half a dozen burritos!! And we taught our host family the 45 degree taco munch.

 Briceni has few wildlife besides the dogs. The birds are the biggest wild animals around. They can be seen daily flocking together and we are reminded of a few things. The thought of Dustin's shirts always makes us smile, but Hitchcock's images make us cringe.

 Shelbi surprised my partner and I by taking photos of one of our classes.

 Don't know?? An interesting take on head mannequins.

 This is a very Americanized coffee shop that we enjoyed while in Chisinau. They even served pancakes and a very amazing omelet!

Great story: while we were here, at this amazingly English and American-ized coffee shop, some other volunteers were here also because we had a seminar that day. Our friend, Jana, was here. Shelbi went downstairs to use the restroom. There was a sign on the door, but it was in Russian and she didn't think much of it. While she was using the toilet, the lights went off. She thought that was very strange and got a little freaked out, but she thought it was a motion-detection light (very popular here in Moldova). She began waving her arms (while on the toilet), but to no avail. She waved them frantically, but nothing happened. Finally, she found the light on her phone and finished up. When she tried to leave the bathroom, though, she realized what the sign must have been about. There was no handle. There was no doorknob. She tried to open the door, but couldn't. She was a little scared, what with the light out and being locked in a bathroom in a basement and all, so she tried to call me (John), but of course, my phone was out of battery. So, Shelbi called Nicole, a PCV, who called Tim, who called Jana. All the while this calling chain was occurring, Shelbi was verbally calling out and pounding on the door. To her relief, a barista showed up, knob in hand, and let the somewhat disheveled Shelbi out of the bathroom. Shelbi thanks her savior, and returns upstairs, somehow missing Jana who has received the call from Tim. Jana dashes downstairs and begins yelling at the bathroom door, "Shelbi, I'm here." She calls Shelbi and anxiously says, "Push the thingy to the left," possibly implying the latch?? Jana pushes on the door and tries to open it, but something is caught. On the phone, Shelbi answers calmly, "Jana, I got out of the bathroom," to which Jana replies, "Then who's in the bathroom I'm trying to get out?" Jana returns upstairs quickly, and we all laugh at the timing as we watch the stairs to later see a guy return from the bathroom.

 A couple pictures to really traumatize you. I'm sorry for the nightmares, but we had to show you what I tried to do. Unfortunately, my clippers (from America) stopped working in the middle of this haircut. I tried to make them work and got tired of the guards in the way. Well, here is the effect. Shelbi had to ask our host family if they had clippers (I was pretty sure they did because our host mom had buzzed our host dad's hair a few weeks earlier). Our host mom laughed and said, "No." She and Shelbi let me sweat for five minutes and then pulled out their clippers, and we got this all straightened out.