June Notes

Notes from a Small Country

(with continued apologies to Bill Bryson)

It’s been an eventful couple of months, my friends.  The year started off in a bit of an unusual manner, including some alone time over Christmas and a little travel to Italy and Germany.  Happily, the travel pattern continued off and on throughout the spring, and two rather major events punctuated a similarly eventful season.

Travels But Not Travails

It’s certainly proving to be much easier to visit some cool places from our little corner of Europe.  From the US, a long weekend in Europe would be downright crazy under most circumstances, but from here we can be in any number of countries in just a few hours, and for about $300 per person round-trip.  Totally makes it worth leaving on a Thursday after work if you can be in Vienna two-and-a-half hours later, which is exactly what my best friend and I did back in March for a long weekend.  Because, why not??

I try, really I do.  Most of the time it works out in my favor, but sometimes I’m not as good at being secretive as I would like.  My attempted ruse didn’t quite work out as I planned as we pulled up to the famous old Hotel Sacher, right in the center of Vienna; she knew all along that’s what I had done, even though she had no hard evidence of my plans.  But no matter.  I suppose nearly 30 years together will do that.

We spent our days walking the city, tiring ourselves out by window shopping along the beautiful, clean streets. We had three full days, and we packed in quite a lot, visiting the Imperial Treasury (home of the Habsburg crown jewels, among much else) and the beautiful palace and gardens at Schönbrunn, a short train ride outside the city.  Little hidden wine bars, an Australian pub serving Victoria Bitter, and nice Italian restaurants (and one dinner of an über delicious Weiner schnitzel as big as your head) characterized our evenings.  One cool, rainy day we hopped a train and visited Bratislava, Slovakia, because it was only about an hour away, and if you have a little extra time, why wouldn’t you add another country and city to the list?  Originally, we were going to take a boat ride on the Danube to Bratislava, but it was a few weeks too early in the season for that.  We enjoyed a damp, chilly walk through this nice little city on the Danube, had a light lunch and a wonderful coffee and tort, and then hit the rails back to Vienna on the afternoon train.  The fantastic and lush Hotel Sacher provided us with a really relaxing, and convenient, spot to rest our weary selves each afternoon after a busy day of touristing, and was a welcome place to return to each night as we prepared for another quiet, enjoyable day in this beautiful European capital.  I imagine it’s even more beautiful once everything is in bloom and the city turns green for the summer.  We’ll definitely be back.

Cultural Learnings of the Capitalists for Making Benefit the Glorious ATU of Gagauia

One April weekend, a small busload of us from the Embassy ventured out to visit the ever popular Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, a couple hours south of Chisinau.  So what, exactly, is Gagauzia, you ask?  Well, odds are pretty high that the two of you have never heard of it before (although you probably hadn’t heard of Moldova before, either), but I’ve been told that, at just over 700 square miles, Gagauzia is one of the smallest autonomous governmental units in the world.  (Most certainly that clarifies things, right?)  It amounts to several small patches of land in south-central Moldova, and its inhabitants (the Gagauz people) are descendants of either Bulgars or Turks, or maybe both, it’s still not really that clear to me.  The major city and nominal capital is called Comrat (“black horse” in the Turkic language of most of the 150,000 or so people who live there), and outside of a few municipalities, it’s largely agricultural territory, like the rest of Moldova.  They grow a lot of wine there, which can’t be a bad thing.  J

They are autonomous since the Moldovan constitution guarantees them autonomy, meaning they control their own education system and local development, and if there is a conflict between Gagauzian and Moldovan law, they have the right of appeal to the Moldovan Supreme Court.  Likely most importantly, if Moldova were ever to attempt a reunification with Romania, the Gagauz people retain the right to self-determination.   Much of this was explained to us by very helpful attendants in the little museum we toured outside of Comrat, where we were most probably one of the only tour groups to visit in months.  They were very grateful we made the effort to stop by, or so our tour guide told us.  (Her word perhaps comes with a grain of salt, as she had earlier explained to us how wonderful life was for her as a young Communist in Moldova under not-yet-ordained Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, Communist Party leader of Moldova in the early 50s.)  But I believe her; she is dating an Aussie bloke, after all.

Given that they retain their own local authority, within Gaguzuia lives the last remaining “kol-khoz” in the country.  A колхоз is a form of collective farm, a holdover from Soviet times, and in fact the word itself is a contraction of the words for “collective ownership.”  (The other major form of collective farm in the USSR was called a “совхоз / sov-khoz,” a contraction of “soviet ownership,” which were state-owned farms.)

We drove into Copceac, the small town where the main building and headquarters for the kolkhoz is located.  There we were greeted by the leader of the kolkhoz, who gave out the most firm handshake I’ve ever felt.  He was quite gregarious for an old/current Communist (he even has a portrait of Uncle Lenin in his office), and very helpfully described the benefits of life for the workers in the kolkhoz and their adaptations into a form of capitalism, selling their agricultural products on the world market (meaning, to Russia).   He held court for our group of American diplomats for about half-an-hour or so, even explaining how the collective has elections.  I might have been a bit distracted by the Lenin quote on the wall just over his head, or perhaps by the juxtaposition of the cheap print of the Last Supper on the wall opposite, so it’s quite possible I missed some critical details about the glorious life on the collective farm.

We were then treated to a very nice and quite bountiful lunch at the canteen where the actual farm workers are offered several meals each day, all homemade by the actual kolkhoz kitchen workers themselves.  It really was quite a feast, with soup, lamb, bread, plates of fresh vegetables and fruits, and of course juice and wine.  Perhaps a throwback to the halcyon days of the kolkhoz in Soviet times or maybe just a show for the Americans, either way it’s safe to say no one left hungry.

The Real Italian Dish

Sophie spent the last semester of her junior year suffering through four months in the small medieval town of Perugia, Italy, and as her devoted father I felt it my obligation to go there and provide moral support.  It was a tough job, but after all, that’s what fathers do. 

The long May Day weekend was spent with my girl trudging laboriously around the narrow, cobbled streets of the town, lugging the camera and a full stomach after several small, strong coffees and Italian croissants (called cornettos), finding the "Secret Bakery," and taking in the obligatory beautiful sights that of course one must see when in Italy. 

Awful tasting hand-tossed pizzas and bitter, sour house red wines for dinner in little hole-in-the-wall joints; walking the ancient aqueduct through the oldest part of town en route to the serene, beautiful, terribly boring Convento San Francesco del Monte which we essentially had to ourselves; taking in the historical record at the dusty old National Archeological Museum of Umbria; and being forced to “train it” to visit the even smaller medieval town of Assisi to see where St. Francis and St. Clare were born.  All of these things simply had to be done, and so that is precisely what we did.  It was a real hardship, let me tell you.

The Prague-idal Daughter

After Sophie and I parted ways at the Rome airport (and after a completely unexpected chance meeting with some friends who were in Haiti with us), I returned to Moldova to retrieve the retriever and, you know, work and stuff.  Sophie proceeded on to Prague where she spent a couple of days seeing some cool sights and meeting up with a buddy from Perugia, and then she popped on over to Budapest to meet up with Kate, who was in training there for the week.  They spent a very pleasant few days together seeing the sights and generally marauding around the old streets of Buda and Pest, enjoying some much needed mother-daughter time.  And then it was off to Moldova, which led to the first major event of the spring:  Sophie will spend the summer with us and RTWD, working as a summer intern in the Public Affairs Section at the Embassy.  It’s certainly nice to have her back, and ¾ of the Team in one country and under one roof for the summer is great progress, but of course that, too, will only last a few months.  I remain, however, very grateful for the time we do have together.

Dave and Nelson’s Nuclear Adventure Through the Red Window

While Kate and Sophie spent a few days wandering the streets of beautiful and vibrant European cities, my colleague and friend Nelson and I spent a day wandering the deserted and overgrown streets of the former town of Pripyat, in the shadow of reactor #4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in north-central Ukraine, about 60 miles from Kiev. 

Wow.

We left the Embassy in Chisinau on a Friday afternoon, and drove directly to Kiev, crossing the narrow disputed territory of Transnistria (in and of itself a worthy accomplishment) and the Dniester River in the process.  Shortly after passing the border into Ukraine, we drove along a bumpy and pot-hole-filled highway, bypassing the small Ukrainian village called Красні Окни in Ukrainian (Красное Окно in Russian, or Red Window in English), perhaps a fitting name for our soon-to-be adventure back into the Soviet past, 30 years distant.

We spent Friday evening in Kiev, enjoying live music and Guinness on tap at an Irish pub, and then met near the railroad station at 0730 the next morning for the start of our Nuclear Adventure, a full-day tour into the Exclusion Zone, a 30 kilometer buffer around the nuclear power plant.

Two young, good humored, twenty-something English speaking guides led our tour.  The comfortable coach bus was filled with maybe 60 or 70 tourists from all over Europe.  Another Russian language coach departed at roughly the same time, and about an hour later we arrived at the Exclusion Zone checkpoint.  Ukrainian authorities (or someone, anyway) have created two zones, the 30 kilometer outer zone, which serves as a buffer around the more contaminated 10 kilometer zone, which directly surrounds the power plant itself, along with the now abandoned town of Pripyat, among much else of interest.

In April 1986, a systems safety test of an emergency core cooling feature was to be conducted at the power plant during a maintenance shutdown of reactor #4.  Because another power plant in the region had gone off-line earlier in the day, the start of the test was delayed, and would be in mid-performance when the night crew would be on.  Due to the delay, the night crew – which would have only needed to maintain the test already underway if it had started on time – now had to carry out elements of the test instead, and they had limited time to prepare themselves.  Around 130 am, a sudden surge in power caused the team to attempt a shutdown, however another, much larger surge occurred, ultimately leading to a catastrophic increase, which caused a chain reaction of steam explosions which further led to an explosion within the core of reactor #4.  Within seconds, the graphite moderator within the reactor was exposed to air, causing it to instantly ignite, and this fire sent radioactive materials high into the atmosphere, which later spread all across Europe on the wind.  It is possible, maybe even likely, that the graphite and remaining core materials still smolder today, three decades later.

Neither plant nor Soviet authorities notified residents of the town of Pripyat (a purpose-built town for the plant workers, and just a few miles away) of the explosion, so consequently many of the residents were exposed to extremely high levels of radiation.  Once the government acknowledged the scope of the problem (36 hours later, and internally within the USSR only), the entire town of nearly 50,000 was evacuated in a matter of hours.  In fact, the government hadn’t notified anyone outside the USSR of the accident, and it wasn’t until three days later, when Swedish nuclear plant workers discovered unexpected traces of the fallout on their clothes, that any kind of problem was understood to have occurred, and was then acknowledged by the Soviet government.

Operator error is often seen as a direct cause of the accident, but the reality, as is often the case, seems to be a bit more complex.  Mistakes were made, and may have contributed to the accident, but in the end the IAEA’s report from 1992 suggests design flaws in the type of reactor played a larger role than simply human error.  Nonetheless, the release of radiation was something like 400 times the levels released after the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.

Radiation is measured in several different ways, one of which is in units called microsieverts, or one millionth of a sievert.  Evidently, exposure to one full sievert by the human body means a 5.5% risk of eventually developing cancer, and half of all people exposed to 5 sieverts will die within a week.  We are all exposed to radiation daily, as it is all around us.  80% of it comes in natural forms, including the sun, the air and the Earth itself.  Americans are exposed to about 3600 microsieverts per year, just by existing.  (3600 microsieverts is equal to 0.0036 full sieverts.)

Most of the radiation present in 1986 consisted of short-lived isotopes which decayed quickly after the accident, and while radiation certainly still exists in the region, we were exposed to 0.003 microsieverts during our several hours within the Exclusion Zone.  Of course, this was according to our young tour guides who presented us with nifty certificates at the end of the day with that statistic prominently displayed.  I’m not entirely confident they are as accurate in their assessment as, you know, real nuclear scientists might be, but I am the proud owner of a cool certificate, so that makes it all worth it.

We drove through the checkpoint and into the Exclusion Zone, proceeding to the small village of Chernobyl, still about 20 kms from the power plant.  This is still an inhabited village, albeit only in shifts for most everyone.  Aside from about 700 permanent residents, the other people who “live” there can only stay for short periods before they must cycle out.  These people are the workers who administer the Exclusion Zone (controlling access, patrolling the 2500 square kilometers, enforcing rules and laws regarding scavenging and looting, etc.), and others who are actively working on the power plant clean-up process and the construction of a waste disposal facility in the shadow of reactor #4.  Some of the workers building the new confinement dome over the reactor and the original sarcophagus can safely work no more than five hours per day, and then they must depart the Zone for fifteen days before they can return.

We visited several areas that day.  Our first stop was to a kindergarten outside the village of Chernobyl and the town center featuring a scary monument and an interesting memorial to the 96 abandoned villages in Ukraine.  Then we proceeded directly to the power plant site, stopping near reactor #4 and to see the new confinement dome and the remains of the plant itself, including the two additional reactors which were under construction at the time of the disaster but never completed, and the canteen in the shadow of reactor #4 where we were served an “ecologically friendly” lunch.  The abandoned town of Pripyat followed, which was probably a highlight for everyone.  The police station headquarters, a school, a grocery store and the amusement park were our stops.  After 30 years of neglect, each was of course being reclaimed by nature and had suffered quite a bit of random destruction and removal of what was left behind.  In many cases, the intense cleanup effort after the disaster caused a lot of the internal damage, but looters, vandals and tourists have added their two cents over the decades, creating a very otherworldly and spooky environment.

Our final stop before departing the Zone altogether was at a previously secret Soviet military site located within the 30 km zone in a “town” called Chernobyl-2, which had the not-so-unique quality of having appeared on Soviet maps as a summer camp for kids (so sayeth our young guides).  In reality, it was the site of an over-the-horizon radar installation used as part of the anti-ballistic missile early warning network, of course designed to detect incoming nukes from the US.

It’s called “Duga-1” (Дуга-1), which means arc or curve.  It was also evacuated after the power plant disaster, yet like the power plant itself continued operating for several years after until it was finally abandoned.  This thing is massive, more than 100 meters high and almost 400 meters long, yet is nearly invisible from the road into the village of Chernobyl due to sitting low in a slight bowl and being surrounded by pine forest planted strategically to keep away prying eyes of the locals.  A small town/village was built around it to house the soldiers and their families and support staff, all of which has been abandoned.  When in operation (from the mid-70s until it was shuttered in December 1989), it broadcast on shortwave radio bands and produced a sharp “tap-tap-tap” sound, earning it the nickname “the Russian Woodpecker.”

We wandered around the base of this enormous structure, posing for the requisite selfies, wondering about Cold War and its impact on so many millions and how it has led us to where we are now.  Well, at least I wondered about these things, although perhaps I was just muttering to myself, I can’t be quite sure.

Anyway, we hopped back on the bus to Kiev, arriving late in the evening in a downpour, which luckily had avoided us during the day.  Had a late, huge steak and a few whiskies at a nice spot not far from our rental apartment, and recounted our day.  It was quite a thing, it was.

The next day we wandered along the main drag in Kiev, found a nice spot for a late breakfast, and stopped by to see Rodina-Mat (Родина-мать, literally the ‘motherland mother’ or ‘homeland mother’ but referred to as the Motherland Monument).  It was May 9^th after all, and around the old Soviet empire this day is commemorated as Victory Day, marking the end of the Great Patriotic War.  She’s quite something, standing over 200 feet tall and with a museum to World War II in her pedestal.  There was a ceremony about to be held on the lower level honoring women heroes, so it was closed to hoi polloi such as us.  We walked around the grounds a bit, weaving in and out of the crowds, snapping a few photos and taking in the scene, and then hit the road back toward the Moldova.

But then we hit the border back into Transnistria.  May 9 is not only Victory Day, but this year it was also Memorial or Parents Day.  Moldovans either visit their parents, or their graves in memory of them.  Either way, and especially near the border, many Moldovans have parents still in Ukraine.  And this day, every single one of them was lined up at the border with Transnistria in order to return to Moldova.  Seriously, there had to have been 200 cars lined up, and it was obvious that many had been there for a long time.  Like hours.  People were out talking in groups alongside the road, and some were sitting along the tree line on blankets picnicking.  I think I even saw people setting up a dining table, complete with candlesticks and tablecloths. Clearly the border crossing was hours away.

As diplomats, however, we have a neat little thing called “CD plates.”  The license plates of accredited diplomats all start with the letters CD (Corps Diplomatique, from French), and allows the drivers certain, um, privileges.  Happily for Nelson and I, one of those benefits includes the ability to jump to the head of the line at the border, and so we creeped slowly past all the people setting up camp – and staring at us quite intently – along the road toward the crossing.  I believe the news reported recently that some of them are still there…

The CCC (Co-CLO Coordinator)

The other major event of the spring, besides Sophie’s arrival, was that Kate started work again at the Embassy.  She arrived at Post in October and was offered the job that same month, but the security clearance process being the way it is, she didn’t start until four or five months later.  (Sophie finds herself in a somewhat similar situation at the moment, unfortunately.)  But start she did, and is now working half-time in the Community Liaison Office with a job-share partner and an assistant.  Her job is critical to the Mission, for the CLO is responsible for providing important support services to the Embassy community.  She is an education, community and employment liaison, and provides guidance and referral services as well as crisis management and support services.  In addition, the CLO is one of the very first points of contact for newly assigned or arriving employees and families, and is charged with building community spirit and enhancing morale at Post.  In other words, she gets to know everyone (local and American staff alike) pretty well, and is a strong advocate for employees and family members, advises Post management on quality of life issues, and recommends solutions and family-friendly Post policies.  She’s kind of a big deal. J

She’s a very welcome addition to Post, and without a doubt one of the most popular members of the community.  Of course it certainly doesn’t hurt when she brings in warm cinnamon rolls or various other treats to share with everyone, but I can’t be sure.  However, after sending that warm-cinnamon-roll-email, there is a line at her office door almost as long as the one at the Transnistrian border, so I think that is a pretty strong, clear statement.

Спасибо за ваша время!  Thanks for your time!

Well, if you made it this far, you’ve gone and wasted another perfectly good half-hour again.  Much appreciated!

Sophie has been at Post about a month already, has made some friends and hopefully will start her job soon before heading back for her senior year (!!!!) at Gustavus in the fall.  She’s thinking she might go to grad school, look for fellowships or internships after graduating, or maybe she’ll just follow us around the world as we continue on this crazy journey, which would be quite alright with her old dad.  (That last one might actually just be my idea.)

Tommy recently arrived in Pensacola, FL for his next stage of training in the Navy, where he’s studying CTM (cryptologic technician – maintenance), and where he’ll be for at least the next few months.  He flew back to Minnesota for a week back in May, theoretically to pick up one of the cars for the trip down south, but he may have had an ulterior motive (conveniently named Jenna) for that little break before the long drive toward his next stage in training.

Our NSA-like doggie continues his data collection around the neighborhood, and is generally enjoying his nice big yard and the kindness of various old ladies and children, who are the most likely to shower him with their attention as we ever-so-slowly walk the streets.  (Men tend to avoid him for whatever reason.)

As you can tell, spring has been filled with some interesting travel opportunities and adventures, which we hope to continue throughout our time here.  Lots of other interesting places not far away from here, and if you decide to join us in the area, I would recommend avoiding Air Moldova if at all possible.  Safe, sure, but on time?  That’s an open question.  But I’ll leave that for another day.

And speaking of another day, tune in then for more tantalizing tales about handshakes and air-kisses, talkin’ Turkey, being patiently impatient, winning the lottery, an American in Nettuno, and why the breeze might very well kill you in Moldova.  In addition, perhaps there’ll be a full explanation of this photo:

Thank you again, my friends, for humoring me once more.  Life for us is good, and we hope you can say the same.

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Additional photos can be found at: www.nyij.blogspot.com.

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The opinions expressed above are my own and not those of the U.S. Government. Please do not disseminate widely without permission.

November Notes...

Notes from a Small Country

(with apologies to Bill Bryson)

Entering Chisinau from the south, not far from our home.

И снова здравствуйте!  Hello again!

And welcome back to another edition of Notes from a Small Country; I’m glad the two of you are here.

Transitions

I’ve been ruminating about transitions of late.  Not necessarily the kind of major, life-altering transitions (although those have occupied my mind as well, what with the start of this new tour and Number One Son running off to join the Navy), but rather along the lines of more pedestrian transitions, like learning or re-learning daily life and work routines.  Or packing up and moving.  Or getting to and from work.  Like that.

And so it turns out that this new life (small aside:  can I keep calling it our “new life,” even after more than four years in the Foreign Service?) is filled with learning and re-learning lots of simple tasks that we previously took oh-so-for-granted.

It all starts with the preparations for a big move, which of course we do every couple of years in this job.

In our most recent Foreign Service transition, we actually started the process for our fall 2015 move to Moldova in about October or November of 2014 as we prepared to depart from Haiti.  We had never been to Moldova before, and although we had been to the region and knew people from Moldova, we had never lived there.  So there we were, in the hot and sunny Caribbean with essentially one season, preparing to make a series of rather major moves over the nine months or so before actually arriving in Moldova, a mid-continental, four-season country in Eastern Europe where we would pass the time during eight changes of seasons.  Sounds fairly straightforward, right?

The first move was simply from Haiti back to Minnesota; however shortly thereafter I was scheduled for six months of training in Washington where I would need clothes and personal items to outfit my temporary apartment.  So what from Haiti should go to Minnesota, and what should go to Washington?  Kate was going to join me for two months of language as well, so we had to decide whether some of her things should go straight to DC or to Minnesota first.  In addition, some of our household goods in Haiti were going to be packed up and shipped directly to Moldova by surface shipping, and in an added wrinkle we were allowed to ship about 700 pounds direct to Moldova by air so as to get it sooner once we arrived at post.

What should go in which box and to which destination?  And when eight Haitian men descend on your house to start disassembling things, wrapping them up and putting them in boxes, in which crate will they end up?  Supervising all the movers at once is not entirely feasible, so it takes a lot of advance thinking and planning to coordinate such a complex move:  The second bedroom will have only items going to DC by air and the office will only have things going to Minnesota; once they arrive we’ll unpack it all and rearrange it to prepare for the pack-out from Minnesota and the move to Moldova.  The living and dining rooms will have only items destined to go straight to Moldova, but the area near the window will be designated for items that go to Moldova by air.  Wait, will we need the vacuum in Washington, or should it go to Moldova?  But then they use 220 volt electricity in Europe, don’t they?  So it should just go to Minnesota, right?  What about winter clothes?  Will the surface shipment arrive before snow flies, or should we put winter clothes in the air shipment?  What clothes will I need for work, and for how long, after arrival in Moldova?  Will I really need my Caribbean wardrobe in Eastern Europe, or should that just stay in Minnesota?  What if they send our things to Monrovia instead of Moldova?  Then what??  Such was our life in the fall of 2014, and no one had even moved yet.

Kate left Haiti in early December (move #1), and I departed about three weeks later (#2).  After two weeks in Minnesota for the holidays, I moved to Washington for language training (#3).  Kate moved to Washington in mid-February to join me, and brought along a new wrinkle named Riley the Wonder Dog (#4).  She and RTWD then moved back to Minnesota in late April (#5).  Sophie moved to Washington in May for her summer internship at the National Archives (#6).  She and I moved back to Minnesota at the end of July (#7) in order to do the final prep for our next move later that fall.  I moved to Moldova the last weekend of August (#8), and Kate flew to Moldova (well, to Bucharest, Romania really, but more on that later) with RTWD in October (#9).  None of this included getting Sophie back to school or getting Tommy off to basic training in the Navy.

And that was just the moving part.  Then when all your stuff arrives, you have to unpack it all and decide where it should go.  In a new house with which you are also unfamiliar and which may not have the same electrical supply, storage space, or amenities you had at home.  Or at your last post, where you essentially did the same thing just a couple of years ago.

Once we arrived in Moldova, all old/new routines had to be worked out.  Where to buy groceries?  And how does one ask where the shoe polish is in Russian, anyway?  (где находится крем для обуви?, that’s how.)  Did I buy canned tuna, or is it really pickled pig’s feet?  (The jury is still out on that one.) Does that label say dishwasher detergent or just dish soap?  (Turns out it was dish soap.  At least my kitchen floor was nice and clean after running the dishwasher.)  How does the heating system work?  And this alarm system, is it really necessary?  How does anyone bake things in this tiny little oven?  And how does 350 degrees Fahrenheit convert to Celsius, again?  What do those instructions say (in Russian only) on the washing machine that holds about one pair of pants?  Can I use my credit card when buying gas, and is it safe to do so?  (Yes, and mostly.)  And when the station attendant starts yammering away at you in Romanian about who-knows-what, then what do you do?  (If he’s young maybe reply in English or Russian, if old stick with Russian.  Alternatively, just leave and try another station.)  How do I get to work when I don’t have my car yet?  (Use the Embassy motorpool for a few weeks or ride the bus.)  How do I take possession of the car I bought sight-unseen back in July and which has been sitting here the past three months?  (Wait for Moldovan authorities to accredit you as an honest-to-God diplomat, then wait for the motor vehicle authorities to issue diplomatic plates, then once you have plates you can buy third-party insurance, then once that’s done you can get the mandatory safety check, and after that you can get the keys, but if you want to drive to other countries you will need a special border crossing card.) 

And then you can start working out the cultural norms and legalities of driving on actual roads with actual other people, which is a whole new learning experience.  Can I really turn left from the middle lane?  What does that sign mean?  Wait, there are lane lines?  Oops, is this really a one-way street?   Whoa, those pedestrians can just pop out of nowhere!  (You really have to be on the ball when driving here, especially at night under mostly dim street lights; any lack of attention puts many people at risk.  My lifetime of left-footed braking sure comes in handy here!)

All the activities one usually pays little or no attention to suddenly need rather sustained, focused attention, or you might wind up creating a diplomatic incident or worse, driving the wrong way down a bus-only lane only to find yourself facing an irate busload of Moldovans who wonder who the hell you think you are.  Not that I know anything about this, mind you.  (I don’t, really.  But I have nightmares about it happening.)

If learning new things helps forge new pathways in the brain, then my brain must be about ready to explode.  It is most definitely an #expatlife.

30A Anton Ablov.

Our very own orchard!

The strawberry bed and a small barbecue area.

Great place to make шашлык!

View of the house from the garden.

Modes of Transport

When we in the diplomatic corps attend language training at the Foreign Service Institute, it seems that many of the language lessons are focused on topics like global warming, raising children, health care systems, forms of government, and modes of transportation, among other scintillating subjects.  In reality, getting around the city is kind of an interesting process.

In Haiti, we were not allowed to take Tap Taps, the local form of quasi-public transportation, so we relied either on personal cars or Embassy shuttles, and walking the streets in Port-au-Prince, while not exactly prohibited, certainly wasn’t encouraged.  Here in Moldova, none of those restrictions exist.  Normal caution is suggested, of course, but we are free to ride city buses (mostly powered by overhead electric wires and called trolleybuses), taxis, and minibuses (a minibus is called a маршрутка / marshrutka, and they hold maybe 10-25 people).  Walking in the city, while not always pleasant because of the sparsely lighted streets and uneven sidewalks, is certainly possible and typically is pretty safe, particularly in the city center.

While waiting to take possession of my car (which, perhaps not surprisingly, we have nicknamed Ivan), I started using the local #10 bus to get to work.  Other than the fact that most riders tended to look as if someone had just run over their cat, it was not an unpleasant experience, even when riding the creaky old Soviet-era model.  (I do know which of my fillings are loose now, though.)

I would walk about five minutes from the house to the bus stop where the trolleybus came by every 3-4 minutes during the morning rush.  Once there all I had to do was hop on and wait a bit, for after a few minutes a lady would come by and tap me on the shoulder, which is the signal to pay her bus fare and get a small paper ticket.  Bus fare costs 2 lei, and the ride itself for me was about fifteen minutes.  Now, 2 lei isn’t very much to pay.  In fact, when there are roughly 20 lei to the dollar, my morning commute cost roughly 10 cents, which is a pretty good deal if I do say so myself.  Gas is about 19 lei per liter, or just under $4.00 per gallon, and while it’s true that I wouldn’t use much gas to get to the Embassy, 10 cents is probably not the real cost of driving every day.

But then my car was ready and I pretty much stopped riding the bus, at least to work.  I am an American, after all.

Bus fare.

Drawing an Inside Straight in Chisinau

Now if that doesn’t sound like a B-grade film from the 50s or some strange modern mash-up of Zane Grey and Alexander Pushkin, I don’t know what does.  However, it happens to be something I did not long ago. 

A colleague had invited me to play poker one Friday night, and of course I readily agreed.  The stakes were high, let me tell you:  a 200 lei buy in for Texas Hold ‘em, with the option to buy in again at the half-way point when the stakes would then double.

I got there a bit early, so a few of us were watching pre-season football and having a beer when the doorbell rang.  Much to my surprise, the last entry in our friendly little game was the United States Ambassador to Moldova, James Pettit.  Suddenly the tenor changed:  Is it appropriate to raise the stakes on the Ambassador?  What if he loses all of his money?  The book on protocol doesn’t really include a chapter on cleaning out the Chief of Mission in the country where you are assigned.  This was definitely new territory.

Turns out the Ambassador isn’t a card shark after all, and in fact is as much a regular guy as anyone else, he just happens to be the President’s representative to the Republic of Moldova, speaks four languages and is married to – wait for it – the Ambassador to Latvia.  Evidently he never managed to absorb the rules of poker while learning all of those languages, and, you know, being kind of a badass guy in regular clothes.  In fact, after we cashed in for chips and sorted out who would have the first deal, the Ambassador pulled out a cheat-sheet from his pocket which he had printed from Wikipedia.  It seems that he needed help recalling whether two pair beat three of a kind.

At some point during the evening, our in-between hands discussion turned to spirits.  And no, not of the metaphysical type.  Hennessey, the various high-end versions of Johnnie Walker, Bombay Sapphire and some South American top-shelf rum were discussed, and several were brought out for sampling.  So naturally I brought out my locally produced bottle of vodka called Exclusiv (sans “e”), a liter of which costs about 100 lei or $5.00.  (I’m quite the high roller.)  High quality stuff, that.  And since I like to share, we all did a shot together.  Including the Ambassador.  Yup, it was quite an experience in cognitive dissonance.  I’m still wondering how all of that played out, especially since when the night ended, and with no evident favoritism at play, the Ambassador managed to take everyone’s money.  It was a night for the record books, that’s for sure.

На здоровье!  Well, maybe not...

RTWD becomes an IDOM

So of course by now, the both of you now know that we have a new addition to Team Panetti; one four-footed, furry and uber-friendly golden retriever named Riley.

One day in mid-January, while I was in Washington and just after having started language training, I received a phone call from my co-captain.  Seems she had seen an ad from the local Humane Society back in Minnesota that a golden retriever was up for adoption, and she called to see what I thought.  My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I kind of think the conversation went something like this:

Me:  So, how old is he?

Kate the Puppy Pushover:  about five, they think.  What do you think?

M:  Is he healthy?

KPP:  Well, he has had seizures, but they’re not too bad, and we’ve managed them before with Snickers.  What do you think?

M:  Ah, I see.  How long has he been there?

KPP:  Just a couple of days, actually.  What do you think?

M:  Huh.  What’s that sound in the background?

KPP:  Sound?  I don’t know.  What do you think?

M:  Are you already at the Humane Society?  Is that what I hear?

KPP:  I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.  What do you think?

M:  You’ve already adopted him, haven’t you?

KPP:  But he’s soooooo cuuuuute!!!!  You’re going to love him!

-         click    -    

So it came to pass that Riley the Wonder Dog joined the Team, and what a pick-up he’s been.  A more loyal, loving puppy would be difficult to imagine.

And now he’s become an International Dog of Mystery!

Long ago we had agreed that I would head to post alone, and Kate would stay back in Minnesota in order to help get Sophie ready to start school and to see Tommy off as he transitioned to Basic Training outside of Chicago.  And, of course, that’s exactly what we did.  However now we had RTWD and another set of concerns with which to contend, such as:  How do we get him to post?

Well, after more researching, questioning, debating, discussing and no small amount of fretting, we arranged to have RTWD fly with Kate when she was scheduled to arrive in Moldova, about six weeks after me.  It turns out that traveling with pets, if they are just the slightest bit bigger than a breadbox, can be quite the ordeal.  Since RTWD weighs about 80 pounds, and his travel crate us just so big, the total weight of the two together trends toward just under the 100 pound limit by which most airlines allow you to bring the pet as excess baggage instead of having him go as cargo.  Unless you’ve done this before you might really have no idea how much of a difference that makes.  Classifying him as excess baggage meant the cost to get RTWD on the plane was about $200, as opposed to a classification as cargo, which would cost something like ten times that.  Good thing he cut the chocolate cake out of his diet!

And then a new wrinkle emerged, as it is wont to do.  It would seem that one can fly with pets all the way to Moldova, but only if they are under a certain weight and total size.  Which Riley is not.  Evidently the airlines which service the Moldovan capital don’t fly to Chisinau in planes big enough to handle crates his size, and so plan “B” it was!

Plan B was to fly from Minnesota to Moldova via Romania, and upon arrival in Bucharest simply collect the baggage – inanimate as well as animate – and drive to Chisinau.  So that’s what we did.

Riley transforms into the IDOM in our very own wine cellar!

An Interesting Week

A few weeks before Kate and RTWD flew to post, I was asked by the DCM (the Deputy Chief of Mission) if I would be the Control Officer for an upcoming CODEL visit.  CODEL, if you didn’t know, stands for Congressional Delegation, and being the Control Officer means you have to, well, control things.  Mostly it means coordinating and arranging for other people to do some particular task:  arrange for accommodations, transportation, set up meetings with appropriate people given the CODEL’s focus, stuff like that.

I was fortunate in that this CODEL was only going to be in town for about 36 hours, and Moldova was the last country on their four country tour.  These trips are notorious for being massive amounts of effort with minimal benefit (think of the “junkets” you might have heard of in the past, and you might have an idea).  This trip was two Congressman (no spouses), one professional Congressional staffer, and a military officer escort. 

Late on a Tuesday evening in mid-October, the Ambassador and I met Congressmen Duncan Hunter and Mark Sanford at the airport.  I rode with them to their hotel, got them checked in and settled, and they then spent the evening on their own in Chisinau.  The next day was filled with meetings of various sorts, and mostly I just arranged the details (who, what, where and when), although I did sit in on one and take notes.  On Thursday, Congressman Sanford departed Chisinau for South Carolina on the 700 am flight, which meant getting him to the airport at 530 am, which meant I needed to get up at about 400 am in order to get ready for the day and get him there on time.  The others had further meetings to attend, and then they departed around 1230 pm.

The CODEL at the local BBQ restaurant the Smokehouse.

At the Ministry of Defense.

After the last of them checked through security, my job as Control Officer was done, so I went home, packed, and then drove the seven hours from Chisinau to Bucharest to pick up Kate and Riley for their arrival the next day.  That made for a long day, let me tell you.  Add to that the fact that I had never been to Bucharest, had never driven on Moldovan or Romanian highways (that particular experience will wait until the next edition), and in fact had only had possession of my car for about four days previous and it was quite the adventure, I must say.

And so that’s how RTWD became an IDOM.

Further Transitions

And so it’s probably time to transition back to reality now, and let you get back to more pressing matters.

We are extremely fortunate to be in Chicago at the moment, having flown in to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with both kids, Tommy’s girlfriend Jenna, and a good portion of the family.  Tommy and the other naval recruits were given about ten hours of leave from the base, and so we had a wonderful meal together in downtown Chicago at Aunt Susie’s house, complete with my first ever turducken.

The matryoshka of meat.

My girls.

Tommy is about to complete his eight-week stint in Basic Training at Great Lakes Naval Training Center next week, and so we will spend some time visiting family in the Milwaukee area and then will return to Chicago for his graduation next week before heading back to Moldova.  Overall it will be a short trip, but we are very, very grateful to be able to come back to the US for the holiday and to all be together for this next milestone event.  Sophie’s semester abroad is fast approaching, and we are so looking forward to meeting her in Rome in the New Year, immediately after which I will hopefully have the opportunity for some additional training in Frankfurt, Germany.

And then before you know it, we’ll all have transitioned ourselves into 2016, and everyone will perform that ritual duty of making exclamations about where the time has gone.

But in the meantime, we wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, a happy holiday season, and all the very best as 2015 comes to a close.  And despite recent events which have shaken many, for us life is good, and we hope you can say the same.

Extremely blessed, and very, very thankful.

The opinions expressed above are my own and not those of the U.S. Government.

Please do not disseminate widely without permission.