Fun in Chisinau

Last week I had to go into the capital city of Chisinau for a week of language and technical training with my fellow Moldova 17s. It was a lot of fun as we all got to see each other and hang out after classes. Moldova celebrates not only an old and new Christmas, but also an old and new New Years. Celebrations were still in full swing then, and in the center of Chisinau there was a little mini-fair set up with a bunch of picturesque backgrounds forming a large semi-circle, and people dressed up as different characters, such as Santa Clause and various cartoon characters, standing in front of the backgrounds. If kids wanted a picture with one of the characters, they could pay to pose with one and get their photograph taken. I was wandering around the center of Chisinau with some of my fellow volunteers when we happened upon this scene and decided to ham it up for our own camera. If you look closely, you can see a big 2006 string of lights hanging behind us. The whole center of Chisinau had lights and at night they would all come to life, creating quite the holiday scene. The guy in the front to the right is Ari. Dan is behind Ari and to the left, and I'm in the back. It was a fun week!