Well, that went by quickly.
Arrived in Moldova, started work. Flew home two weeks later. Picked up Claudia and kids. Drove across Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, and Romania to Moldova. That was... about a month ago.
-- The drive? Not too bad, considering. We bought one of those pod things that go on top of the car. The boys watched a lot of videos. Stayed the first night outside of Budapest (Hungary) the second outside of Brasov (Romania). Leah threw an utter shrieking tantrum for an hour or so on the morning of Day Three: enough! of this driving! I want OUT!! -- but we got through it.
We found a house. It's fifteen minutes walk from work, in a quiet residential neighborhood. It looks kind of like a castle and has a huge attic and a yard. The boys like it, which is good.
Claudia is home schooling the boys, which is hard, especially since we don't have a baby sitter just now. It's all kids, all day long for her. We're hoping to get some help in next month. Meanwhile, she's going at it with the two older boys: spelling, writing, math, you name it.
I'm running the project. We're doing stuff. We got a law passed last week. By "we" I mean here my predecessor and our component manager, who worked on it for the last fifteen months; I had very little to do with it. Still: law on protecting investors! Being a minority shareholder in Moldova is no longer a very very bad idea. (Whether it's yet a good idea remains to be seen.) Oh, and we got audited, and passed. Again, not much to do with me, but hey.
More seriously, we're trying to sprint for the finish line. The project will end sometime in October, so that's just six months away. Lots to do.
And then today we took our first trip outside of Chisinau. We went to Orheiul Vecchei (or-HAY-ul VEK-ay), which is sort of like a miniature Grand Canyon carved by a Mississippi oxbow. Seriously: you have a river that flows through two hairpin curves back to back, making a long flat S-curve, while eroding down through a couple of hundred feet of soft limestone. So there are some pretty impressive cliffs, and then in between the hairpins are two parallel ridges -- penninsulas pointing in opposite directions, yeah? These have eroded down some, so they're not as high as the cliffs around them, but they're still quite something; long narrow spits of land with cliffs dropping down to the water. It's a natural defensive spot, so -- unsurprisingly -- there are archeological finds going back to the Neolithic. Monastery, castle, the Golden Horde had a small palace up there for a while at one point. These days there's a small village and a church. It's pretty neat.
Anyway: it was a nice drive. The road was pretty dire, but so what -- we're in Moldova. Warm spring weather, after a week of rain.
That was a long hiatus! Do I still want to blog? Let's see.
I hope you do continue to blog; you're an engaging and informative writer, and I've been enjoying your work for years now. But if you haven't got the time or energy, I wouldn't be surprised. Your life sounds very demanding.
Posted by: King-Walters | April 18, 2011 at 02:03 AM
What they said! I love following your blog and Claudia's. You are both interesting writers.
Posted by: Christine | April 18, 2011 at 05:08 PM
We're still reading... this is a fun and informative blog about interesting. Please keep posting.
Posted by: Tony Zbaraschuk | April 19, 2011 at 09:07 PM
"Being a minority shareholder in Moldova is no longer a very very bad idea. (Whether it's yet a good idea remains to be seen.)"
LOL! It's usually not a good idea, regardless. Sometimes not even if you're transacting via the NYSE.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero | April 21, 2011 at 01:57 AM
"Orheiul Vecchei (or-HAY-ul VEK-ay)"
Isn't it "Orheiul vechi" (or-HAY-ul VEK-) meaning "The Old Orhei" ?
http://orhei.dnt.md/en.html
Posted by: seinean | April 29, 2011 at 12:21 AM
The language issue strikes! I guessed the meaning of vecchei/vechi immediately, what with it being a Romance language and all. But which language is it? :^)
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero | April 30, 2011 at 12:07 AM
Oh, just a Romance language called ( how else but ... ) Romanian :)
Posted by: seinean | April 30, 2011 at 12:18 AM
That was fun reading! Hope to see more of Moldova soon.
Posted by: Miss Footloose | May 02, 2011 at 07:00 PM
Seinean,
You'd think so, but there's politics involved.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero | May 02, 2011 at 10:15 PM
Bernard,
I should know : it's my mothertongue and I am neither Moldovan nor Moldavian.
I once knew a person that claimed to have three mothertongues : Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. Go figure - he had like three mothers... It would be funny if it would not be sad.
Posted by: seinean | May 03, 2011 at 03:56 PM
I'm happy I found it though, ill be checking back soon to see what other articles you have.
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