HI. Last weekend we went to Chisinau, Moldova for about 24 hours and it was pretty fun! To be honest, I went mainly for the really cheap souvenirs haha. Iasi is on the Eastern side of Romania, so it's really close to the border and only took us about 3-4 hours to get to the capitol. I love that I'm on this side of Europe and get to go to these cool places that I normally wouldn't go to. 

We left super early on Saturday to catch a maxi taxi. It's always a funny situation to go to the bus station and tell them how many are in our group (there are 12 of us) because they're taken off guard haha. After a really bumpy ride, we got there around 11 am and checked into our hostel, which was super nice. There was actually another girl staying in our room who was from Australia and 20 years old. She was all by herself, and after talking to her we found out that she's been traveling on her own since March and will be for a whole year. She's been to soo many places and plans on going to Peru to work in an orphanage for 6 months. I can't imagine doing something like that, especially at that age and all by myself. 

Like I said, myself and most others pretty much went to Chisinau for the cheap souvenirs. Their culture is a lot like Romania's, but their currency is worth less. It's about 18 Moldovan Lei for every one dollar. When we went out to lunch and dinner we would go to a sit down restaurant and got a drink, main course, and usually a dessert and only paid like $4-6. So nice! 

After eating lunch, we all went to a little park that had a bunch of vendors set up selling various things. One of the popular items people sold were Russian dolls. This one lady was selling them for really cheap, so we all pretty much went there. I probably went back like 3 or 4 times to get more because of how cheap they were and I'm pretty sure everyone else did too, so she probably loved us haha. We also went to this different and bigger marketplace. It was a little overwhelming and didn't have the traditional stuff that we were looking for. It was just a maze of vendors and little tents of people selling everything from shoes to lightbulbs. It was interesting. Also, while we were walking around, there was a church that had a long line forming outside of it. When we asked the sister missionaries what it was for, they told us that is what part of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Apparently a saint had died and they had cut off his arm and were preserving it inside the church and keeping it warm. The people were all lined up because they thought that if they kissed the arm they would be healed. Interesting! 

The next day was Sunday, so we all took a bus and went to church. The branch there was a little bigger than ours in Iasi and had more English speakers, so it was cool to be there. We left Chisinau at 1 pm, and it took us about 3 hours to get home. On our way home, our driver stopped about 1 mile before the border and asked if any of us had any cigarettes on us. Us, being all Mormon girls, kind of looked at each other, laughed, and said no. He then asked if he could give us each 2 packs of cigarettes to hold until we crossed the border, then give them back to him. Not really knowing what to do, we all agreed haha. He then ran into a little store and came back with a box of chocolates and proceeded to give us each a little piece to thank us haha. I think there's a limit on how many packs you can cross the border with, so that's why he needed our help haha. Definitely a funny situation. 

Overall, it was a fun little weekend and we all got some good stuff! 

There was a fun little park that had a bunch of exercise equipment haha

Some of the many Russian dolls. So pretty!

Kara