From the ends of the Earth...
Our very own lovely adventurer, Carrie Block, gives us a taste of life at the bottom of the world. OOOh, I'm getting all goose-pimply! Click here for adventure!

And on to more inflammatory matters...
ATTENTION, ATTENTION, ATTENTION!
Chris Logan, apparently with too much time on his hands and a high pain threshhold, has sent in the following to enliven the pages of this respected web site.
{Cowardly Webmaster's note: These are not my opinions, well, at least not all of them. Anyway, send your comments and incendiary devices to him. Thanks.}
          The War Begins Today...

In a much  more contrite mood, Chris Logan has sent us the following dispatch from his post in Chisinau with interesting news for all to read,
so read it!

M5 John Baggaley, aka Mr. MIT, just sent in a note that he has a web site with some info on Gagauzia, so click me baby!

M5 Moriah Hart sent in this:

Have you heard Dawn Lea Barber (MVI) is getting married Saturday, June 12, 2004 to David P. Thompson. Also she told me of the following upcoming MVI weddings Deanna Ryberg (Don't know if I've spelled the last name correctly), Rachael Krantz (redhead) and Eric (who is marrying the Moldovan he was dating)

A Report from My Vacation in Moldova (from Aug 2003)

As a few of you know, I'm currently on vacation in our beloved Moldova. It's been about five weeks now (with the exception of a ten-day trip to Greece) and I'm still getting used to it. I have to say that not much has changed, other than just about every other person has a cell phone, even though reception is spotty in the countryside. People still stop and stare at the American in the village and town. However, a big improvement is the lack of power outages, though privatization meant a hike in rates.

Moldovans are still queuing up at embassies to get out of here, a good thing in a way since money from abroad is the only thing keeping this country afloat. While Aurica and I were in Greece, we visited her cousin who had made her way there and ended up marrying a Greek farmer. The farm was two kilometers from the Aegean coast, so we played farmers during the mornings, then cooled off with an afternoon dip in the sea. Her cousin also clued us into "The Bus Ride," a 36-hour bus trip direct from Athens to Chisinau, which we caught within sight of the farm along the main north-south highway. There were 24 other people on the bus, all Moldovans working in Greece. What amazed me most was the ease of transit across Greece, Macedonia and Serbia (Americans no longer need visas for Serbia and Macedonia, and Moldovans just pay small fees for transit visas). None of the first three border crossings took more than 15-20 minutes. The major sticking points were at the Romanian entry and exit points. You'd think those Moldovans were major criminals by the way the Romanian border police treated them. We had to leave one woman at Oancea (across the Prut from Cahul) as we left Romania, since the border police were unhappy that she didn't have previous border crossing stamps in her passport. Cruel, and pointless to me since the only thing keeping Moldova under contol (and less of a problem to the Romanians) is the ability of Moldovans to go work in other countries.

On the positive side, wife Aurica, frustrated by a lack of wedding invitations (zero, in fact) during the last four years in the states, is ecstatic with the impending wedding of her youngest sister, Vica, who lives in France. Of course, we didn't learn about this until after we were over here (in Greece as a matter of fact), so I didn't pack my suit. This means,of course, that I will soon be off to the Talcioc in search of better duds.

Other positive news: After claiming she couldn't remember how to speak Romanian, daughter Ana Maria is once again chattering away in the mother tongue after opting to stay with the grandparents and cousin in Cimislia, while we went to Greece. Nothing like necessity to jar one's memory.

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The focus of WDSC in its first installment is M5 Christine Cho. For those of you who forgot, Christine was a TEFL at a Russian school in Cahul (one of the numerous Cahuligans). This past Christmas vacation, I had the chance to visit Christine in Los Angeles, where she teaches second grade at a local school. She said she prefered second graders since the class sizes are smaller for K through 3rd and also because the older kids can be a little intimidating (SCARY perhaps?). Christine seems to have readjusted well to life in the US and has settled into domesticity with new hubby Ray, though she still likes to venture beyond the confines of LA, such as going to Vegas and losing all her money (those of us who ventured to Iasi or Galati on a regular basis can certainly understand). Christine is also our new resident expert on hybrid gas/electric vehicles, having purchased one of the gas savers late last year. If you're interested in hearing about life on the front lines of education in LA, or would like to know how many miles per gallon her car gets, drop us a line at moldrpcv@yahoo.com.