Back in the USSR!

After four hours of fun train ride, I ended up at the wrong station in a town called Iasi (pronounced: yash). I had to walk to the next one and when I found it, it was also the wrong one. I got yelled at for walking over a red carpet in the station that had been rolled out, but apparently not for me. After giving my best lost-looks, I finally found where I needed to be to cross the border into Moldova.

I flirted my way through the Romanian customs line and got onto a small slow train that shuttles people across the border. On the train, there were a bunch of old babas smuggling not cigarettes, but colorful bathroom towels and baby toys into Moldova. I found it very funny, and later saw a large collection of these towels for sale at a local market. The Moldova border guard didn't know what to do with my passport. She kept holding it up to the light to see if it was real. She finally let me through, but customs didn't know what to do with me either. The guy sat me down and had me fill out some documents and told me to list all the currency and financial assets I had. I listed some Euro that I now keep as backup. He looked at the form, looked at me, and said, "Present".

I'm terrified of being asked for bribes, and my normal paranoia about spending money influenced me to hear, "Present?" I was slightly panicked, as there was no one else around, and if some customs guard wanted to take advantage of me, what rights did I have?

I looked at him like, 'Are you kidding me?' and waited for his response. It happened as "Present!" with the stress on the first syllable, as in 'show me'! haha!

It was raining and I was in a tiny, tiny border town, but I managed to find an ATM for some local currency. I conquered the bus system (stood around till someone offered to help me) and then took a bus to Balti. At the final stop the bus driver turned to me and said the name of the town. I got off and got my stuff out of the back, proud that I had finally made it here! I looked up at the driver who looked at me as if to say - 'Now what are you gonna do, kid?' so I smiled and showed him the address of my next host.

There were some university students standing near and offered to help with their English skills. I told them where I wanted to go and the driver motioned for me to get back in his little mini-bus. The two students came along and translated a conversation. The driver was hugely excited to be driving around an American! I don't think he'd ever met one before. He said something and I asked for a translation. The university student said, "He wants to know if you have any chewing gum." I felt like I was back in WW2 or something! It was hilarious!Welcome to Moldova!