A Day in the Life

Arlington National Cemetery

2009-02-09T01:23:00.002+02:00

Today Masha and I went to the Arlington National Cemetery. It was her first time there and my first time back since I was about 12 years old.

The weather today was absolutely beautiful. Blue skies and about 65 degrees, the perfect day to spend a lazy Sunday outside at the cemetery. We started out by walking up to see the changing of the guard. It was a really pretty ceremony that only lasted about 10 minutes. From there we went inside the viewing area right next to where the guards patrol and directly in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier. Inside we saw gifts from several foreign armed forces to the U.S. Armed Forces. Most of the gifts were medals from the foreign nations, but some were more elaborate like pots from Japan.

Next we went to see the eternal flame at the President John F. Kennedy grave. Just above the grave site is the highest point in the cemetery which is the Robert E. Lee house. However, even from the Kennedy grave site you have a great view of the cemetery and the National Mall just across the Potomac.

We took lots of great pictures today, some of which I've posted to this blog. It's our plan to see all of Washington, DC has to offer while we live here and today was a great start. Even within the cemetery we have more to see since it's so vast we only managed to see a small portion of what the National Cemetery has to offer. Hopefully we'll go back soon to experience the full scale of this huge monument to our nation's fallen veterans.

Jerad

New Washingtonians

2009-02-01T03:19:00.002+02:00

After quite a long hiatus I've decided to continue this blog. The revised concept will now focus on our life in Washington, DC.

We've been living in our nation's capital now for just over three months and it's been a great experience thus far. Life in this city is far different from Moldova, or even Michigan. Most people you meet have been abroad for an extended period of time, whether they traveled abroad, moved abroad, or are from abroad. This creates a great mix of different cultures, which is always interesting.

After staying with some friends for about a month-and-a-half, we both got jobs and now live just north of Washington, DC, in Silver Spring, MD. Silver Spring is a great place for us and we found a great place to live that is close to the downtown area and the Metro.

When we moved in to our new apartment we literally had no furniture. We spent the first two weeks sleeping on blankets in our bedroom. When we moved to the US from Moldova we brought no furniture, not that we had any to bring in the first place. While in Michigan for the summer we acquired a dining room table and some chairs, but we never really had any furniture before since we had never lived on our own, until now. My parents, Jen and Keira visited us in January 2009 to bring us the furniture, as well as some other things. Now I can honestly say that it looks like we really live here rather than us just squatting in a vacant apartment.

Our jobs are keeping us pretty busy. Life in the world of international development is a busy one. There are always new challenges when working with developing countries, and this is my first time working with African countries, specifically Angola, Malawi, and Mozambique. I might even be making a trip out to those countries in the coming months, which would be amazing.

Masha and I have been doing our best to get out and experience Washington, DC. We've been able to meet up with friends on a regular basis, but we've still got so much to see in and around the city. There always seems to be something going on and, not least, was the recent inauguration. We were very lucky to have been able to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama on January, 20, 2009. It was a very cold day by Washington, DC standards and we stood right next to the Washington Monument during the historic event. There were an estimated 2 million people there and everyone was in a very good mood. To make things even better, our friends Chris and Katie made it to Washington for the inauguration too. I hadn't seen Chris for a very long time and it was great to catch up with him.

Our next major event will be attending a Superbowl party tomorrow. Our good friends Mike and Katy will be hosting a party. Mike's a huge Steelers fan since he's from Pittsburgh, so it should be a pretty good time.

Our other good friend Mike Majerus and his wife Kate just had their baby Liam on Wednesday of this past week. Liam was born slightly premature so he's still in the hospital, but he's expected to be home any day.

Masha is doing great here and she misses Moldova, but she is able to speak with her family on a regular basis, which helps a lot. She speaks to her mom through Skype and also through a calling card that we purchased, which is the same card plan that my parents used to call me while I was in Moldova. I also miss Moldova and we will live and work in Moldova again.

I'll keep this blog updated, but it might not be in regular intervals like I did in Moldova. I will probably update this whenever we do something interesting, or if I have something that I'd like to say. This newly revised blog is a tool for us to keep track of what we have accomplished and what we'd still like to achieve in our life.

Washington is our new home and we are very happy to be here.

Cheers,

Jerad

The End of an Era

2008-06-09T08:12:00.002+03:00

Hello,

I am almost in disbelief that this time has come. After almost four years of writing to you all, first by simple email and now by way of this blog, this will most likely be the last blog I write from Moldova. This is my last week of work and next week we'll be pretty busy attending going away parties and beginning to pack so I can say that I probably will not have time to write again before we leave Moldova. I would like to thank you all for being such a captive audience over the past few years. I can say that many times I wrote this blog I thought that it was too mundane to be interesting, but I guess when you write about your own life it some how seems less glamorous. Anyway, thank you all for being interested in what Masha and I have been doing in Moldova.

We leave Moldova exactly two weeks from today. Again, it's almost unbelievable that the time for us to leave Moldova is coming up very quickly. I believe that coming to Moldova was one of the best decisions that I have ever made and I know my life is better for it - Masha being the perfect example of this. I was talking to my dad on the phone last night and we were wondering what our ancestors would say if they knew that I had been living here for the last few years. They left this region close to 100 years ago for a better life and now here I am almost 100 years later claiming that my experience in Moldova has been life changing. It seems that our family has kind of come full circle, but my dad, Masha, and I believe that we will be back in Moldova to attend to business in the future.

Masha and I are not the only ones leaving Moldova at the end of June. The U.S. Embassy and many other international organizations are going through their transition cycles and many many expats are leaving Moldova in the next month or so. Even the U.S. Ambassador is leaving Moldova at the end of this month. He has excepted a new position in Washington D.C. that will put him as the second person in charge of all visa applications to the U.S. During his time as Ambassador in Moldova he has worked closely with us and AmCham and we wanted to thank him for all that he has done for us. On Friday of this week John, the AmCham President, and I had coffee with the Ambassador at the Embassy.

I had never been to the Ambassador's office before and I guess I was kind of expecting it to have an extravagant feel to it, you know, a swimming pool with mermaids in it, butlers, champagne, the works. When we got to his office though it was very nice, but not unlike any other office. We were not disappointed with the meeting though and we presented the Ambassador with two gifts. The first was a carving of three Moldova haiduci drinking wine in a cellar. I would say that a haiduc is a man that lives in the forest and likes to drink. Anyway, the second present was an honorary lifetime membership in AmCham Moldova. The Ambassador was really happy to receive the gifts and right before we left John mentioned that I am also leaving Moldova. Once I told the Ambassador that I was from Detroit he congratulated and sympathized with me on the Red Wings winning the Stanley Cup, the Pistons losing to the Celtics, and for the Tigers and Lions being just generally bad. He then asked me what I was going to back in the States and I mentioned that I have been thinking about joining the Foreign Service. He was happy to hear that I was considering such a career and then we said goodbye and good luck.

This weekend we didn't really do a whole lot. On Saturday I came to the city and applied for jobs and registered for the Foreign Service exam. Masha stayed at home and prepared for today when she will defend her thesis. On Sunday I went back to the city with Masha's mom to buy some things for the kitchen. The remodeling job had been going on for a few weeks it was finally completed this weekend. The kitchen now looks great and it feels good to see how happy every one is now that the job is done.

As I mentioned above, today is Masha's last day at the university. She defends her thesis today and then we have a birthday party to attend tonight. I think that Masha will do great defending her thesis but she is still a bit nervous about it. Anyway, it will be great for us to celebrate our friend's birthday and to celebrate Masha finally being done with the university.

This is my last week of work and I think it will be relatively laid back. I would like to finalize the 2007 Annual Report for AmCham and hopefully we can get it done by the end of the week. This coming Sunday Masha and I are planning to host our own going away party for our friends. We are going to invite them all to come to our village for a BBQ in the forest right next to the Monastery in our village. Only a couple of our friends have ever been to our village so it should be a great time. We're inviting like 30 people and it will be a real Moldovan/American celebration.

Masha and I are looking forward to seeing you all when we get back to the U.S. on the 23rd. I'm not sure what the future holds in store for this blog since I don't think writing about our life in the U.S. will be so interesting for you all to read. Maybe I'll just update it for us so we can look back years from now and remember this time in our life together.

From last week's survey:

60% of participants said that they have played mini golf 21 or more times;
33%, 1 - 10 times;
and 6% 11 - 20 times.

Thank you all once again for taking in interest in us and in Moldova and we'll see you in a couple of weeks.

Jerad

Slowly Getting Ready

2008-06-02T09:55:00.002+03:00

The time has finally come when Masha and I can say that we'll be back this month! We leave three weeks from today and we're slowly getting ready for the trip.

I say slowly because we are both still pretty busy. Masha has her last final exam today and then she has to defend her thesis next week, after that she's done! I am done with work at the end of next week and then we have about 10 days in Moldova to say goodbye and pack. Ten days would normally be enough but in Moldova you need a lot of time to say goodbye, and pack.

Last week went by pretty fast. The highlight of the work week was our AmCham event. We hosted our members at the Family Golf Center, which is the only miniature golf course in Moldova. As I mentioned in the last blog post, many Moldovans had never played miniature golf before so it was a learning experience for them. As I predicted, I was an instructor for part of the night showing people how to hold the club and giving them great advice like "just aim for the hole". Everyone ended up having a great time, and I was happy to help Masha with her first miniature golf experience. She played pretty well for a first-timer and we hope to play more in the U.S. this summer.

On Friday we had a short day at work and I spent the afternoon helping Masha get ready for her office farewell party. It's common practice here for a person leaving a job to throw a party for themselves. The outgoing person brings food and drinks to the office for their co-workers and so I helped Masha buy every thing and then take it to her office. While Masha had her party I met up with some friends for a beer at a bar in Chisinau. We were sitting outside on the patio and we actually witnessed a minor car accident. It was just a fender bender and no one was hurt but it was pretty loud and the two drivers even started arguing over whose fault the accident was. After her party was over Masha met up with us at the bar and then we went home.

This weekend was very relaxing (for me). Masha was preparing for her exam all weekend which meant I just watched tv and movies. I had planned to go to the city and do some things but it was pretty hot outside and the thought of riding in public transportation was enough to keep me home. Now that the weather is starting to get warmer public transportation is getting much worse, mainly due to the fact that people don't like to open up the windows because of the draft and air current that comes in while the transport is driving.

I have mixed feelings on this belief. I learned about it back when I was a Peace Corps volunteer and many Moldovans swear that if you are in a confined space (car, bus, room) and one or more windows is opened, then the draft/air current that is let in will make you cold and lead to an imminent sickness, which could vary from mild to severe. I do think that people in Moldova believe this theory so much that they make it into a reality. Doctors even site the draft/air current as a potential source of sickness. I have many American friends who think the whole idea is crazy, but I'm some where in the middle. I just think that if you believe something enough then you can make it a reality, for better or worse.

From last week's survey:

66% of participants believe that now is a good time to buy a home;
13% said no;
and 20% said that they don't know.

Have a great week.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Work & Travel Fever

2008-05-26T08:15:00.003+03:00

Hello,

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this, but there are many Work & Travel programs in Moldova that send students to the U.S. to work for the summer. Masha and I personally know at least ten people that have done this and the number of students obtaining visas this year is expected to be around 5,000 (according to the U.S. Embassy in Moldova). The Work & Travel to the U.S. business has taken off in the past couple of years and the Embassy has even issued a Black List for programs that don't take care of the students that they send. A company can also get on the Black List if they have a very low return rate of students at the end of the program. Some people that Masha knows went to work for the summer and never came back. They are now studying in a couple of different universities. One of Masha's friends from our village is leaving today for her Work & Travel program.

She and a group of other students are taking a bus to Kiev and then flying to New York before they get to their final destination - Utah. I guess when I think about where a visitor to the U.S. would like to go I imagine New York, Chicago, L.A., etc., nothing against Utah. Masha's friend will be working at a summer camp and national park and her friend was very excited when she called us yesterday to say bye.

That got us excited about going and we talked a lot about our upcoming move yesterday. Ultimately we are both looking forward to the move very much but since Masha is pretty busy with her exams and thesis she hasn't had too much time to think about it. We now have less than one month until we're back in the U.S. if you can believe it. Of course we have much to do between now and then but we hope that the time will pass quickly.

On Friday we went to dinner and then a concert with some of our friends. We had dinner at a place called Pizza de Italia, it's some of the best pizza in the city. After dinner we went to see The Snails play. The Snails are a pretty good Moldovan band and we've seen them perform many times before. We even know the guys in the band because they played at the AmCham 4th of July party last year. Anyway, the concert was a lot of fun and we realized after the show that it was probably the last time that we'll see them perform live.

On Saturday we stayed home and just relaxed and cleaned the house. Masha's mom had a big certification test that day. Masha's mom has the highest possible certification for teachers in Moldova and she was getting it renewed. Only about 5 or 6 teachers in the whole country have this certification for Russian and she is one of them. She ended up getting the certification renewed and now she won't have to do it again for five years.

Yesterday we came to the city and Masha did some research on the internet and I applied for different jobs. My job search is starting to make some headway and I've made some pretty good contacts recently. After we did our work we went home and spent the evening watching the movie "Wedding Crashers". We had seen it once a long time ago and it was good to watch it again for the second time.

The weather forecast for this week calls for rain and cool temperatures. One night last week, I think Wednesday night, it was raining so hard that it woke us up in the middle of the night. It was easily the hardest rainfall that I had ever heard and it sounded like our house was in the shower with the way the rain was hitting the roof. We have an AmCham member social event planned for Thursday.

We are going to have our members play miniature golf. There is one mini golf course in Chisinau and not many Moldovans have ever played so we've been getting a lot of questions about how to play and I think that I'll have to be an instructor for the evening. Golf is just not something that people play here, I'm not sure, but I don't think there is even a real golf course in Moldova. If the rains holds out for our event then it should be a good time, if not, I'm not sure what we're going to do.

From last week's survey:

93% of participants said that food prices have recently gone up in their area;
6% said that they had not.

Have a great week. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Weekend of Birthdays

2008-05-19T08:51:00.005+03:00

Hello,

It seems that the spring weather is already starting to give way to summer. For the last month or so the weather has been cool and we've had a lot of rain. However, towards the end of last week the temperature started to rise and it got up to around 30 Celsius (80 Fahrenheit) this weekend.

On Saturday Masha and I hosted two of our American friends in our village, Sean and Jerin. They had never been to our village and they hadn't had much exposure to life outside of Chisinau. Jerin just arrived in Moldova last week and he is going to be working with an NGO here for the summer. Sean is a Fulbright Scholar and has been here since November.

So on Saturday morning I met them at Sean's apartment in Chisinau and we made our way back to the village. Jerin is staying with Sean at the moment while he is searches for a place to live, which was how they decided to come to our village. We mentioned to Jerin that a family from our village may be interested in letting him stay with them so we did some asking around and we found a family that was willing.

When we got to the village we stopped briefly at our house to get Masha and then we made our way to the school to pick up Masha's mom and the woman that agreed to host Jerin. From the school we went to the woman's (Aliona) house and she showed Jerin around and where he which room he would be staying in, etc. Once the tour was over, Aliona provided us with lunch and some house wine - both of which were really good. After leaving her house we were on our way to the Monastery in our village and we passed by the home of Maria, where I lived when I first got to Moldova. She was outside in her garden so we stopped by to say hello and then she served us all a glass of wine and some more food. I've said it before, but the people here really are very generous. You can show up to some one's house without warning and they'll feed you and give you some wine. Anyway, we stayed at Maria's house for a little while and then continued on towards the Monastery.

It was very hot on Saturday and the Monastery is located up on a hill in our village, so by the time we got there we were all very thirsty. Luckily the Monastery has a very nice fountain so we had a drink from the well and then went into the summer church. The church was full of touring students so we only stayed for a little while and then visited the natural spring at the Monastery for some even better water. The spring comes from under the hill and the place where the water comes out of the soil they have built a small collection point where people can collect the spring water. If you ever seen one of those diagrams on the back of a bottle of water, that's exactly what they have at the Monastery. We didn't have a cup or bottle so we just drank the water from our hands. The water was very cold and very refreshing and from there we went to the cemetery next to the Monastery. The cemetery is pretty old and some of the graves date back to the early 1900s and some even earlier. Since that was the last attraction at the Monastery we headed back to our house.

We didn't stay long at our house because we all had to get to Chisinau that afternoon for a surprise birthday party. Our friend Ana's birthday was Saturday and her husband Heath threw a surprise party for her. Heath is a teacher at one of the international schools in Chisinau and the school is a very large house that has been converted into the current school. Many of our friends gathered at the school and we waited for Ana to show up. Heath had sent her on a scavenger hunt around the city and the last stop was the school. She was very surprised when she opened the door and we all yelled surprise. The party started when Ana got there and we had a great BBQ with hamburgers and other good stuff. Later in the evening we all played basketball and volleyball. Around 10 or so we all went to a bar where they have live Jazz music and we stayed there until the end of the night.

Yesterday Masha was busy all day studying for her first final exam which will be on Tuesday. She is going to be done with all of her exams and thesis on June 9 and then I'll be done with work on June 13th so we are both looking forward to those dates, not to mention the big date of June 23rd.

Masha's parents are remodeling the kitchen and I've been helping her dad off and on with small things. Last Sunday I helped him mix and haul cement because he had to lay some new cement in our kitchen to raise the level of the floor in one part of the kitchen to make it level with the other part. The hauling didn't last very long and we actually ran out of cement just before we reached where we were supposed to stop. Since we didn't have any cement Masha's dad asked around and ended up finding enough cement for us to mix two more buckets and finish laying it. I was amazed that he was able to find it but I guess that anything can be found in a village. My back was pretty sore last Monday after hauling the cement and the kitchen in coming along well.

Yesterday was our niece Keira's first birthday. The party was held at my parents' house and when I was talking to my parents yesterday Keira seemed to be in a really good mood because she was dancing to a special birthday CD. Masha and I are really looking forward to meeting her and it's amazing how fast a year can pass. So, happy birthday Ms. Keira, uncle Jerad and Aunt Masha will bring you something nice from Moldova.

This weeekend was also my good friend Dustin Weber's birthday. I've known him for a very long time and I hope he had a chance to celebrate in true D-Web fashion this weekend.

From last week's survey:

62% of the participants said that it took them 0 - 3 months to find their last job;
18% from 3 - 6 months;
12% 6 months - 1 year;
and 6% of said that it took them more than a year.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Happy Mother's Day....and Victory Day

2008-05-12T13:38:00.002+03:00

Hello,

Now that the Easter holiday season is over we are back to work like normal. We had about three weeks of short work weeks due to Easter and this week we are back to full work weeks. Actually, I have only one month left at AmCham Moldova. My last day in the office will be June 13, which will allow Masha and me the chance to have the last week or so free.

Masha spent all of last week working on her thesis. She has to present the first final draft today to her professor and then he will give her some suggestions so that she can prepare the final paper and presentation. On June 12 she has to defend her thesis in front of a panel and before that she has her final exams, a pretty busy time for her. However, things will all be moving by pretty quickly and it will be June before we know it.

On Friday of last week we went to a small get together with our usual group of friends. Noticeably absent were Heath and Ana, since they had prior plans. Our friend Sean organized the party at his apartment and we went there and had a great time. Our friends Carly and Bledi were there and they had just gotten back from Albania, where they had their third wedding. They had some great pictures and stories to tell and they both said that three weddings was enough (one in the U.S., and two in Albania).

Sean also had a guest at his apartment. He was hosting a relative of an acquaintance that just graduated from college. The guest's name was Jeran and he had just arrived from Kiev the night before. He's got an internship with the International Organization of Migration Mission Moldova this summer and he'll be in Moldova until the end of July. Trent and his wife also came to the party and they got to meet our group of friends (Trent is the person that will be taking my position at AmCham). We stayed late a Sean's house and then took a taxi home.

On Saturday I met Sean and Jaren in the city and we had lunch at the new sushi restaurant. There are a few sushi restaurants here but this one is supposed to be one of the best. Masha was too busy working on her thesis so I met them by myself. I have not really eaten too much sushi in my life so it was kind of a new experience for me in that the menu had a very large selection of things that I had never considered could be put in sushi, sea urchin for example. After lunch I met up with Masha since she had been working on her thesis at my office.

I should also mention that Friday was victory day (a.k.a. Europe Day). It was the anniversary of the end of WWII and there were many concerts and small celebrations on Friday. It was a day off so I spent most of the day in the office searching for jobs before meeting Masha and going to Sean's house.

Sunday I met up once again with the people from Friday and we had lunch. Masha spent the day finishing her thesis and then we watched the movie The Illusionist last night. It was a very good movie and we both really enjoyed it.

Since yesterday was Mother's Day, I would like to wish all of the mothers out there a Happy Mother's Day. Especially my mom. Happy Mother's Day and thanks for being such a great mom. Masha and I can't wait to come back and see you more often.

From last week's survey:

71% of participants said that they would spring clean their homes;
29% said that they would not.

Have a great week. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

The Second Easter

2008-05-06T10:38:00.003+03:00

Hell0,

This weekend was the second Easter and we managed to make it to Masha's grandmother's village. We were unsure whether or not we were going to make it there since Masha's dad got a cold during the middle of last week, but all worked out in the end and we had a great time.

We arrived in the morning and had a meal with Masha's brother, his family, and Masha's grandmother. They all live in the same house and it was nice to see them. I love Masha's grandmother. She is the smallest woman I have ever met, but she's got some fire in her. At the table she always monitors who is eating and drinking enough and if you're not she'll let you know. She's about 82 years old and is no more than 4 foot 5 inches tall.

One of the funniest stories that I have about Moldova involves Masha's grandmother. Before the first time I met her she knew that I was American and Masha's extended family had been talking about meeting me. Sometime during the talk about me her grandmother understood that I was black. When I showed up with Masha and her family that first day, her grandmother was very surprised to not see a black guy and she was asking people where the American was. Finally, they told her that I was the American and she was asking why I wasn't black. It was so funny (and a bit embarrassing for me) but it's one of my favorite memories of Moldova.

After we had our first meal of the day we went to Masha's dad's sister's house and had our second meal of the day. This was a smaller meal because we were only there to wait out the rain before we went to the cemetery. Once the rain stopped we all piled into the car and made our way to the top of the hill in the village where the cemetery is located. The ride there was interesting because the ground was very soft and muddy due to the rain. We had to get out and push the car a little bit to help it get over a small hill and we all ended up getting very wet and muddy shoes and pants. Once we reached the actual cemetery, the weather lightened up and the rain stopped. We ended up staying there for about two hours and once the priest came to the grave of Masha's grandfather and blessed it we went back to the second house to continue eating and celebrating. We made our way back home in the late afternoon and we had a great time.

The second Easter at the cemetery was the big event of the week and for much of the rest of the long weekend we stayed home. Masha is still very busy with her thesis statement and she needs to have the first draft finished by next Monday. Then she'll begin studying for her finals and then once the finals are done we'll be on our way back to America.

After a lengthy search we found my replacement at AmCham. His first day is today and another new employee also starts today. I'll have to train Trent and I only have about a month do so. I plan on my last day in the office being June 13, since we'll need some time to prepare everything before we leave and find time to visit all of the people that we can to say goodbye.

I would like to point out a few new things that I've added to the blog. If you look on the right side of the page you'll see a clock that shows the time in Moldova. You can also find some links to an article that I recently found on the Men's Health website. The links will take you to the lists of the worst foods at chain restaurants in the U.S., as well as some other interesting categories. If you eat out a lot I suggest that you look at the lists, if not then it still may be interesting for you to see the nutritional value of foods in major chain restaurants.

From last week's survey:
41% of participants said that they have had root canals;
and a lucky 58% said that they have not.

Take care and have a great week.

Jerad

The Three Days of Easter and Two Days of Swelling

2008-04-29T10:55:00.005+03:00

Salutations,

I apologize for the delay in writing this new post. This weekend was the Orthodox Easter so nobody worked yesterday. Actually, there are three days of Easter in Moldova. The first takes place on the Eve of Easter when people take special food and wine to the church at midnight and have it blessed. The ceremony is very traditional and it usually lasts until about 3 a.m. I've been to the church ceremony once and it's pretty interesting. The second day of Easter is the holiday itself. By now you've all read how Moldovan holidays are and Easter is not different, much food, drink and good times. The third day of Easter is a day to rest and recover from eating and drinking too much on the actual holiday.

We were supposed to spend Easter at Masha's grandma's house this year but we ended up staying home. We stayed home because I had an infection in my cheek. It all started on Thursday of last week when I had a a sore where the cheek and gums meet. The last time I had one of those sores a root canal was the prescribed treatment and, hoping to avoid another root canal I went to the dentist on Thursday. The dentist said that this sore was nothing more than a sore and that a root canal would not be required to fix the problem, that was very relieving. Instead, I just had to rinse my mouth out with an antiseptic fluid, a mixture of herbs, and hydrogen peroxide. The dentist also poked a hole in the sore to allow the puss to drain out and so the swelling went down. On Friday all seemed much better and I went to work like normal and had a normal day. Then on Saturday afternoon, my cheek started to swell up and that eventually spread to the gland behind my right ear. There was no pain involved initially and it got especially inflamed after eating. This went on all day Saturday (the day before Easter) and I went to a doctor in the village who confirmed that this was nothing to worry about and to just take some antibiotics. I followed his advice and started the antibiotics on Saturday night.

Sunday morning I woke up and not much had changed, my cheek and the gland were still swollen so then a different doctor came to our house to look at my face. His diagnosis was that it could be some virus that makes the gland behind the ears swell up and that it could take 2-3 weeks to go away. I didn't like that version of what was happening and kept on taking the antibiotics. It became painful to eat on Sunday afternoon and opening and closing my mouth really irritated the area and it would swell up whenever I would do so. I went to sleep Sunday night after taking some antibiotics and an aspirin and when I woke up yesterday morning the swelling was virtually gone, along with the pain. I kept a close eye on the situation all day yesterday, kept taking the antibiotics and I feel great today. The swelling is now completely gone and I'm at work writing this blog post.

So we ended up missing Easter at Masha's grandmother's house and I felt pretty bad since it was due to my cheek that we didn't go. However, the second Easter is later this week so we may end up going to her grandmother's house for that. One great thing about Moldova is the holidays, there really is a second Easter, I think on Sunday of this week or Monday of next week. This is the day that everyone goes to the cemetery and visits the graves of loved ones that have passed away. Most people also take food and wine and have a picnic close to one of the graves in the cemetery. It's actually a very fun event and, if we go, it should be a nice time. Even though the day is spent in the cemetery it's not depressing because most people go to remember the people that they lost and have a good time while doing it.

This is a very short work week. We work today and tomorrow and then have Thursday and Friday off. Thursday is Labor Day so no one works and everyone just gets Friday off because it's a Friday after a holiday. Then, I just realized that the second Easter is next Monday, we don't work on Monday of next week due to the cemetery holiday and then Friday of next week is also another holiday. Basically, the next couple of weeks will be short work weeks.

Masha and I bought our plane tickets on Friday of last week. We leave Moldova on Monday, June 23rd and we'll also be back in the U.S. in the afternoon of the same day. We are very excited now and everything feels very real now that we have the tickets. We have so much to do in the short amount of time before we leave and I hope we have a chance to do it all. Before we leave Masha has to finish her University Thesis, take her final exams, and finish working. I also have to finish work and we are currently looking for my replacement in the office. Then we have to say goodbye to everyone that we know in Moldova and pack our bags. Saying goodbye to everyone will probably take a week or so and we are even considering having a big party to see everyone at one time.

I would like to thank those of you who took time to give me suggestions about my resume. My job search goes on and my goal is to have a job waiting for me in the U.S. before we leave Moldova. Masha and I have been talking about where we'd like to live and work and we think that the best place for us outside Detroit would be Washington D.C. or Philadelphia, so we are looking into opportunities in those areas.

From last week's survey:

55% of participants said that they would not print anything in support of Earth Day;

and 45% said that they would print things anyway.

Actually, we did not print anything in our office on Earth Day and we got one of our member companies to support the cause as well. This company is the largest electricity company in Moldova and not printing material for one day is a big deal for them, so we were very happy to have their support.

Take care and keep in touch. Have a great week.

Jerad

Chappelle's Show, Airports, and Education

2008-04-21T08:34:00.003+03:00

Hello,

This past week went by very quickly. That seems to be the new trend with the time that we have left in Moldova. We now have two months and two days until we'll be back in the U.S. We have a lot to do before then and I'm sure we'll wake up on the day we leave and think how fast the last two months went by.

I have started looking for jobs in the U.S. Ideally I'd like to get a job in Detroit, Chicago, or Washington D.C. These are all great places and we would have great opportunities in any of these cities. Both Masha and I want to get an MBA, so we are trying to find good schools that won't cost us an arm and a leg to do it. I have also come across a website that has a program for the self-taught MBA, the Personal MBA. I've kind of been debating myself whether experience or a degree is more valuable, however, the value of both are too great to make a clear cut decision. Anyway, if you are interested in the Personal MBA program just visit http://personalmba.com/ They have a great list of business books that may help you even if you're not interested in a Personal MBA. I have already found a couple of the books on the list available for free download online.

On Thursday of last week we had dinner with some friends. David Jesse and Liliana hosted us, Heath and Ana for dinner. David and Liliana are vegetarians and they made some great curry and basmati rice with some other great vegetarian dishes. Somehow during the course of the evening we got on the subject of Chappelle's Show. If you're not familiar with the show, it's a sketch comedy show done by comedian Dave Chappelle. Anyway, it was one of my favorite shows in college and we (the Americans who had seen it) were all laughing so hard when we talked about some of the skits. David was a commercial pilot for a number of years in the U.S. and he's got some great stories about the highjinks that pilots pull in the cockpit. One of the best stories that he told was about pilots accidentally landing at the wrong airports. I always like to believe that the pilot flying the plane I'm on is very competent and almost machine-like in his ability to fly and navigate, which is predominantly true.

This weekend was nothing out of the ordinary. On Saturday Masha and I came to my office to do some work. In the afternoon we met up with a friend of ours, Oxana, for lunch. Oxana works for a company in Chisinau that is also a member of AmCham. Masha and I have known Oxana for about a year and she even has a sister living in New York City with her American husband. I never would have thought that so many Moldovan people live in the U.S., but as you meet more people you inevitably meet some one who has a relative living in the U.S. Oxana has tried to visit her sister in the U.S. on three different occasions and all three times she was denied a visa because the Embassy believed that she was "too educated" and that she had a high probability of finding a job in the U.S. (she has a master's degree) and not returning to Moldova. Masha and I feel very fortunate that we got her visa without any problems because that is not always the case.

Yesterday Masha had her yoga class and I came back to the office to work on my resume. I've been re-writing it and updating it to reflect my experience at the American Chamber of Commerce in Moldova. I know that I have already spoken to many of you about helping me find a job and I will send you my resume very soon. However, if there is anyone else that would be so kind as to help me with my job search, I would very much appreciate it. As I mentioned above, Detroit, Chicago, and Washington D.C., are the areas that Masha and I would prefer to live, but we are also keeping our options open. The areas that I'm interested in working are business start-up management, business administration, project management, innovation, and process improvement.

From last week's survey: (Many of my friends and family are very well educated)

38% of participants said they have a graduate degree;
33% do not;
and 27% do not currently have a graduate degree, but they plan on getting one.

This Tuesday, April 22, is Earth Day. I already sent you an email about what our office is doing to support Earth Day. Please consider not printing any materials on Tuesday. Each small action can have large effects on the environment. Together we can make a difference. Support the environment. Support Earth Day.

Have a great week. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Spring Feelings

2008-04-14T08:32:00.002+03:00

The spring weather has been beautiful here for the past week. Before last week it had rained every day for about two weeks. Recently, the sky has been so blue and the sun warm with those spring breezes that bring the sweet smell of blossoms. This morning is so beautiful that it's difficult to stay indoors.

Soon the food in Moldova will come back to life. We've had our fair share of potatoes and other starchy foods this winter and we are looking forward to fresh vegetables from our garden. Masha's mom has been planting things for a couple of weeks now and our garlic has grown so well that we can eat it already. In a few weeks we'll have some green onions and then, little by little, the garden will come alive with onions, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, potatoes, and so on. In the past Masha and I would help out with the garden, but, unfortunately, we've too busy to help lately.

Last week was pretty busy for me. We organized a Business Networking meeting for our members and one of our wineries, Dionysos-Mereni, provided a wine tasting event for us. The formal part of the meeting went well and I presented our plan of activities for 2008. The theme of our meeting was Education and Human Resources in Moldova. We had two guest speakers: AIESEC Moldova (a student organization) and Newport International University, which offers MBA and graduate programs in Moldova. The real fun part of the night came last.

Before we got into the wine tasting, I had organized a surprise raffle drawing for our guests and members. I got three of our member companies to participate and each one gave a great prize. The winners of the raffle were very surprised and it was a great success. The next raffle that I am going to organize will be for our 4th of July party (which I won't be at) and I want there to be great prizes for that. The wine tasting started after the raffle and it was great. The wine from Dionysos-Mereni is very good and they brought some of their best wines. The night was wonderful and we all had a great time. Masha was there too and it was very nice to such a great time together.

On Friday we went to another wine tasting. Our friends, Heath and Ana, organized a small wine tasting at their apartment. Every one in attendance brought a different bottle of wine and we all were able to try all of the wines. They also made some great food, especially a spicy dip, and it was nice to just have a fun night with every one.

On Saturday, Masha and I met a couple of her friends in Chisinau. There was a tourism exhibition at MoldExpo (a large complex where many exhibitions are organized). The exhibition ran from Thursday through Saturday and it featured many tourism agencies from Moldova and abroad. We got there a little too late on Saturday and most of the stands had already been vacated and there were crews already taking the sets apart. However, we managed to get some good information from a few stands and we even visited the Purcari Winery stand before it closed. Purcari is the winery that we visited on Thanksgiving Day. We even saw the young woman that hosted our wine tasting on Thanksgiving and she gave us some posters and postcards.

After the exhibition we went to a small theme park located in the same complex. The theme park is called "Adventure Park" and they have some small rides and bumper cars. We almost went on the bumper cars but then we decided to go to the shooting booth. As I've mentioned before, Masha loves to shoot, and she's a crack shot. In Odessa last year she shot the lights out and she was eager to give it a go on Saturday. She shot pretty well, but there were no prizes at this booth so she didn't win anything. We left the theme park and the four of us went to lunch at a restaurant called Barracuda in Chisinau. It was a nice restaurant that is decorated in a high seas kind of theme with anchors and treasure chests as part of the decor. The food was good and it was nice that we had a seat in the non-smoking section, as many restaurants have only one section that is for both non-smokers and smokers alike.

Actually, a new law has been passed in Moldova regarding tobacco. The new law stipulates that smoking is banned in all public places such as restaurants, bars, discos, etc. However, these establishments can have special smoking areas designated on their premises. I hope that this law is enforced, but it may not actually kick in here for a while.

Yesterday, Masha went to her yoga class in Chisinau and I just stayed home. It was a beautiful day yesterday, but I didn't feel like traveling to the city. Our friend, David Jesse, the one who helped us out in Romania recently, is back in Moldova. He lent me his copy of Fast Food Nation and I read a good portion of it yesterday. I highly recommend it for those of you who have never read it. It will help you see our food industry in a whole new light. We spent the evening watching a movie and then I spoke to my mom on the phone. My parents call every Sunday and this time my mom called from North Dakota.

My cousin Shawna got married this weekend so my mom went to North Dakota for the wedding. For those of you that don't know, my parents are both originally from North Dakota and some of our family still lives there. I had a chance to speak with my mom, grandma, grandpa and my cousin Shane (Shawna's brother). Shane is in the National Guard and I found out yesterday that he is scheduled to leave for Iraq in September of 2009. Hopefully the war will be over by then.

Now that I'm on the topic of North Dakota, Masha and I are really looking forward to going there this summer for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary and the huge family reunion that will take place. We only have about two months until we're back in America and we can't wait.

From last week's survey:

100% of the participants said that they have cellular phones, I thought that might happen.

I hope all is well with you all back home. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Monday Morning

2008-04-07T08:02:00.005+03:00

Hello,

Monday morning is usually not any one's favorite part of the week and I can this week I can agree. I left the house without an umbrella this morning and when I arrived in Chisinau it was raining and I had to walk to work in the rain. At least it wasn't raining too much so I managed to stay relatively dry. It has been raining here for the last week, pretty much every day and it looks like today is no different. However, the weather forecast calls for the rain to stop and the sun to come out, bringing temperatures in the 70s. I think most people here are ready for the real spring weather and we'll be crossing our fingers that it will come soon.

This past week was pretty much a standard affair with work. Both Masha and I have a lot to do in the next couple of months at the office/university and I'm starting to search for the person who will replace me at AmCham.

On Saturday Masha went to Chisinau with her friend Sveta and Sveta's sister. I didn't want to see the city again so I decided to stay home and relax. Masha started a yoga class on Sunday so she while she was in the city on Saturday she bought some sport clothes to do yoga in. On Sunday we both came to the city and I went to my office while Masha was at her class. She had a great time in her first class and she's going to do it twice a week from now on.

We are getting more and more anxious to go to the U.S. We talk about it a lot and I think these next couple of months are going to go by quickly and slowly at the same time. We both love Moldova and we are looking forward to the next chapter of our life in the U.S.

I would like to say happy birthday to my mom. Her birthday is this Wednesday, April 9. I would also like to say happy birthday to Mike Majerus who shares the same birthday with my mom. I wish both of you a great birthday and Masha and I send our love.

If you look on the right side of the blog layout today you can see a link for a website called "find your spot". My aunt Cindi sent it to me and it's a pretty interesting site. The idea is to help you determine what city in the U.S. would be the best fit for you to live and work in, and they help determine the city by asking you some questions. When you finish the questions they propose 24 cities that would suit you based on your answers to the questions. The website then gives you links to jobs in the cities that fit your profile as well as housing/rent prices and much more. For anyone thinking about moving I would recommend looking at this site, but it's also fun just to take even if you are happy where you are.

While I'm recommending websites, I listen to the radio every day online at my office. The website that I use is www.live365.com. It's great and free with every kind of music you could want to hear. The classic rock station "The Ride" is what I listen to and it's got a great mix of classic rock that is new every day and not just the same songs repeated over and over. If you listen to online radio I suggest that you check it out.

From last week's survey:

61% of participants would like to own their own business;

12% would not;

and 16% already do own their own business.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

No Land for You

2008-03-31T08:50:00.002+03:00

Hello,

Spring is now officially here, at least according to the clocks. We changed our clocks on Saturday night/early Sunday morning so now we are on spring/summer time. It got dark last night about 19:30, which was really nice because now when Masha and I travel home in the evenings it will still be light. However, with the extended daylight comes more work.

Many people have already begun planting their gardens this year. Masha's mom has planted some potatoes, garlic and onions. I'm not sure what they plan on doing with the two plots of land that they own. Last year we didn't plant anything on them so they got to rest and replenish the vitamins and minerals in the soil.

Speaking of land, the local city council had a meeting last week to make final decisions on land distribution. If you remember, Masha's village gives away small plots of land to newly married couples and other eligible people in the village every couple of years. This year we were not lucky and we did not receive any land. I can say that we weren't surprised as giving land to us probably would have been seen as a small scandal since most people know we plan on leaving this year. However, we'll still keep our name on the list for next time.

We had a pretty busy week last week. Work went by like normal and Masha has now switched to a new schedule. She is going to work part-time now so that she has more time to focus on her thesis paper. I'm pretty busy now at work and I've started searching for my replacement. We're also trying to get some pretty big things done before I leave and I want to leave on a very high note to try and make the transition period for my replacement as smooth as possible.

On Friday we went out to dinner with some friends. We were three couples and one Fulbright Scholar. All three couples were mixed, as in one American and one Moldovan or Albanian. Actually it was the same group of people that we normally go out with, Heath, Ana, Carly, Bledi, and now Sean (the Fulbright Scholar). We had dinner and then went to the Irish Pub in Chisinau. At the pub Heath surprised me by giving me his favorite necktie to hang above the bar. At this pub you can hang your tie above the bar and they have managed to collect quite a few ties. Anyway, Heath let me do the honors and the necktie was placed permanently above the bar at the pub. They cut the loop that you would put around your neck and then nail it to the bar. After it is hanged then they ring a bell and everyone cheers. In general we had a great time that night.

On Saturday Masha and I came back to the city. Our plan was for us to go to my office so that Masha could use the internet to do some research for her thesis, but that never happened. When we got to the city we went directly to a new supermarket called Fourchette. It's a Ukrainian company and they just opened up a gigantic store right below another gigantic Ukrainian consumer electronics store called FoxMart. Fourchette is great and they have a lot of things there that we haven't seen at other supermarkets in Chisinau. After we did some grocery shopping we decided to just go back home and relax for the rest of the day.

Yesterday Masha spent most of the day translating. One of their professors asked them for a favor and then proceeded to give Masha and each person in her group 13 pages of an economics text book to work with. It was very difficult translating and she worked for about 12 hours and didn't finish it all. I helped her out when she had questions, but she didn't need much help from me. It just takes a long time to translate because you try to preserve the sense of the text, and economic terms and theories don't translate very well.

I've been following the NCAA Tournament as much as I can. Unfortunately, I saw that Michigan State lost to Memphis, but at least Memphis is now in the Final Four so it's not a total loss.

From last week's survey:

A total of 59% of participants are in an NCAA Tournament pool;
of the 59%, 33% said that their brackets were already destroyed;
20% said their brackets were in good shape, and 6% didn't specify;
40% said that they were not participating in an NCAA pool.

I hope you all have a great week. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Happy Easter

2008-03-24T08:46:00.005+02:00

Hello,

Now that the initial excitement of getting Masha's visa is slowly wearing off we are getting back to life as normal. Last week was business as usual and we both returned to work and our normal schedules. However, we are both starting to look toward our future in the U.S. and I have already begun searching for jobs, while we are both re-writing our resumes.

On Friday we were invited to attend a party for people in Moldova that used to be Peace Corps volunteers, but not necessarily volunteers in Moldova. The party was at the current Peace Corps Country Director's house, he was also in the position while I was a volunteer. Now that I am not a volunteer, Masha and I get invited to nice events like this. There were a mix of Americans and Moldovans at the party and we brought a couple with us to the party as well. I mentioned them in a previous email. Carly and Bledi are friends of ours and they recently got married are went through the whole visa process. We had a great time at the party and we even had a chance to speak with the U.S. Ambassador to Moldova because he showed up to the party. He is a pretty laid back person when he's not acting as the Ambassador and he was telling some funny stories about his life in Southern California in the 1970s. After the Peace Corps party we decided to go with Carly, Bledi, and their friend Shawn to have a drink at a bar called the Beer House. This bar is also a microbrewery and they make some pretty good beer.

On Saturday and Sunday Masha had her last two training classes and I spent both days in the office re-writing my resume and searching for jobs on the internet. The weekend went by pretty fast and now I'm back at work writing this email.

Masha will be working less between now and the time we leave for the U.S. She is writing her thesis on how commerce and trade in Moldova have been affected since the country joined the World Trade Organization. Needless to say she has a lot of work ahead of her and she'll cut back work to a few days a week so that she'll have time to write and research her thesis.

Work for me is going well. I'm in the process of finding my replacement and it's not an easy proposition. Not because I'm irreplaceable, but because there are not very many candidates out there. We would like an American to take over my position, but there are not so many to choose from here. Anyway, the search will go on.

I've been following the NCAA basketball tournament and it was a crazy weekend, but I would expect nothing less from the tournament. I was very happy to see that Michigan State moved into the Sweet 16 to face Memphis and I hope that MSU can pull off a great upset.

I'd like to say congratulations to my great friend Agim Palaj and his new fiancee Heidi Herzog. They recently got engaged and we are all looking forward to the wedding.

From last week's survey:

41% of participants said that they would be watching the NCAA tournament;

and 58% said that they would not.

Also, Happy Easter to all. Easter here is not for another month or so. I've always wondered how the same holiday can be celebrated on two completely different days, such is life.

Take care and keep in touch,

Jerad

Back from Bucharest

2008-03-17T08:36:00.003+02:00

Hello everyone,

I would like to start off by saying that we got Masha's visa last week in Bucharest! After starting the whole process in June of last year we finally have the visa in Masha's passport. We are so relieved to finally have it and we can't wait to get to the U.S. The next step for us is to buy our plane tickets, but as I've mentioned before, we plan on being back at the end of June this year, just over three months from now.

The trip to Bucharest was very nice. Surprisingly the whole visa process there was very organized and stress free. We arrived in Bucharest on Monday morning and checked in to our hotel. One of our friends, David, met us at the hotel and showed us around Bucharest on Monday. David was a life saver in Bucharest. To make a long story short we had a problem with my bank account and debit card and David bailed us out by lending us some money so that we could pay for Masha's visa. The problem was quickly resolved and we were able to pay for the visa in the end by using my debit card, but there was a scare for about a day when we didn't think that we'd be able to use my card and we didn't know how we'd come up with the cash.

We left Monday free of appointments and we decided to check out where the clinic and Embassy were in relation to our hotel. Both were very close and we decided to go to the clinic to make sure that our appointment was in order for the following day. When we got there the doctor was very helpful and friendly and suggested that we do Masha's x-ray that day if we had time. Luckily David was familiar with Bucharest and he helped us find the x-ray clinic which was in a different part of the city. After we got x-ray we all went to lunch and then Masha and I just walked around the city for a while before going back to the hotel for the night.

On Tuesday we had Masha's medical exam at the clinic near the Embassy. We got there at 09:30 and we were done with her exam by 10:00. We had the rest of the day free so we did some sight seeing before meeting up with David in the evening. He invited us to a special concert at the National Art Museum that night. The concert featured a famous Romanian violinist and pianist that played together on stage. The violin that the man played was a very old and rare violin owned by the Romanian government. It's so rare that they only bring it out once every 10 years for someone to play it; the estimated value of the violin is also 2.3 million dollars. The concert was very nice and really short and after it was over David went home and Masha and strolled around the city before going back to the hotel.

Wednesday was the big day. We had the visa interview at the Embassy at 13:00. We had heard many strange stories about questions that they ask you to see if you are a real couple. In our case they asked us pretty standard questions such as when we met, how long have we known each other, when did we get married, etc. Actually, the American consular officer that was interviewing us was kind of surprised that I was there since most of the time only one spouse goes to the interview. The real turning point of the interview was when she asked me when I got back to Moldova. I explained that I was a Peace Corps volunteer there and I never really left after my service was over. After that she basically approved our visa. She asked us to come back to the Embassy after a couple of hours to get our visa and we picked it up at the appointed time. Actually seeing the visa was such a great feeling and we are so happy to have this part of the process behind us.

The rest of our time in Bucharest was spent just doing tourist things such as shopping and sight seeing. We left on Thursday evening on the night train and arrived in Moldova on Friday morning. In the train we were in the same cabin as an English guy who had left London that morning bound for Moldova where he was going to meet his wife Masha. They are now in the process of getting her documents so that she can go back to London with him, needless to say we had some things to talk about during the train ride.

This weekend we had dinner with our friends Heath and Ana and two of their friends. Heath and Ana will be going to Bucharest this week to get Ana's visa and their friends are another couple that had to go through this same process. Their friends met in Albania and also got engaged there, then they went back to the States and got married before moving to Moldova. Before we started the process of getting Masha's visa I never realized just how many people are trying to get the same thing and it's very nice to meet with people that have gone through or are going through the same process because you can relate and share war stories with them.

So this week we're back to work. It almost feels like we never left except for the visa in Masha's passport. Now we can come back to U.S. anytime we want, of course we're going to wait for Masha to finish school. I'm sure that the next three months will fly by and we'll be back in the U.S. before we know it.

From the last survey:

44% of participants said that they've had to petition the Government for something;
55% had not.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Take care and keep in touch,

Jerad

The Final Countdown to the Visa!

2008-03-03T09:43:00.005+02:00

Hello,

The main news from this past week was related to Masha's visa. We went to the Romanian Embassy in Chisinau to pick up her visa to enter Romania. When we got to the Embassy we had to wait in line for a little while and then they let in the first group of 30 people, which we were a part of. Once we got inside we handed the people our ticket so they could retrieve Masha's passport, but they couldn't find it. We asked where her passport was but they just told us to wait, no further explanation. Luckily, we were not the only people who did not get their passport immediately and the workers finally told us that our particular passports had not been delivered to their office yet so we had to wait. It was a semi-relief to know that the passport was going to eventually arrive, and it finally did after about only 10 minutes. We got the passport and checked to make sure all of the information was correct, it was and we passed one very important step in the visa process.

The next step is the last in getting Masha's immigrant visa. We will be leaving for Bucharest on Sunday to get her visa! We are both very excited and we can't believe that we are going to get it already. We have an appointment at the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest on Wednesday of next week and when we leave the meeting we should have the visa in Masha's passport.

On Friday we were invited to attend a wine tasting at the U.S. Ambassador's residence. They usually organize one wine tasting every two or three months, and we missed the last one. One of the most famous wineries in Moldova, Milestii Mici, provided the wine. We went with our friends, Heath and Ana, and we saw many people that we knew there. I was talking to a guy that worked in a consular section at an Embassy some where and he was telling me about the interview that we will have to go through in Bucharest. We also spoke with a guy who went with this process with his wife and got his views on it. Basically, we understand that the point of the interview is twofold.

The main reason of the interview is to make sure that we are a real married couple. They will ask us questions about our marriage, when we were married, where, then to personal information such as birthdays, middle names, occupation, education, etc. They will also ask about our families and the names of our parents, siblings, etc., just to make sure that we really know these things. Basically, they ask information that any married couple should know about each other. The other reason for the interview is to test Masha's English.

The former consular officer that we spoke to said that the simple fact that we are going to the interview together is a strong sign of our relationship. He went on to say that many times a random woman or man would just show up at his Embassy and say that their husband/wife/fiance/fiancee, was waiting for them in the U.S. and that they wanted to obtain the immigrant visa. Obviously they were very sceptical about those cases. Anyway, through talking to the Embassy people we got a clearer picture of what we are going to have to do in Bucharest and we feel much better about it all. Just like anything, there are many rumors about the difficulty of the interview and the process in general. One thing we heard about the interview from was that they try to ask you strange questions such as the color of the underwear that your spouse is wearing that day, and other off the wall things.

Anyway, back to the wine tasting. It was a great event and Milestii Mici brought some of its best wines to the tasting. We tried different kinds of white and red wines, red and white sparkling wines, and then a very rare and expensive dessert wine that has won them gold medals at many international events. My favorite type of wine was the Negru de Purcari, which is a mix of three different types of wine in one, it's very good. Along with the wine there was also a great spread of food that we don't normally have a chance to eat, such as sushi, a very tasty bean dip, etc. We had a great time and we hope to go back to the next wine tasting in a few months.

Masha was supposed to have her training seminar on Saturday, but while we were on our way to Chisinau that morning, she got a call saying that the training was cancelled for the day. We ended up spending the day shopping and Masha bought a new spring jacket, which is beautiful and looks even better on her. After shopping we stopped by my office for a little while to check our emails before going back home.

On Sunday Masha had her training seminar and I stayed home and cleaned the house. We are so busy some times that we neglect to clean our room enough so it was great to have time to take care of that. When Masha got back from the city we spent the day relaxing and watching movies.

This will be a pretty busy week for us both. AmCham has a general member meeting this Friday so I will be busy finalizing the event and preparing my presentation for that. Then Saturday is International Women's Day so Masha and I will be doing something fun to celebrate. Then we leave for Bucharest on Sunday evening. We'll arrive in Bucharest on Monday morning and stay a few nights, and of course, get the visa before returning to Moldova. When we get back from Bucharest we'll have only about 3.5 months until we'll be in the U.S.

I won't update my blog again until we get back from Bucharest so wish us luck with getting the visa.

From last week's survey:

33% of participants believe that the U.S. Economic Stimulus Package will help avoid a recession;
6% believe that it will cause a recession;
46 %, neither;
and 13% don't care either way, they just want their money.

Also, some of you have commented that the video link at the top of my blog does not work. I'm not sure why this would be. It seems to work when I click on the link, maybe you could try copying and pasting the link into a new web browser.

Also, if you have not seen the short video about Moldova just scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to view it.

Take care and keep in touch,

Jerad

Going in the Right Direction

2008-02-25T08:43:00.003+02:00

Hello everyone,

Spring is certainly in the air in Moldova. The weather has been kind of like a yo yo lately with cold days followed by hot and vice versa. However, it looks like we're going to have a stretch of nice weather this week and the high today is supposed to be 16 degrees Celsius. This morning was cold when I left the house but by the time I got to work it was already noticeably warmer.

The nice weather benefited us on Friday. We are now one step closer to getting Masha's visa. On Friday we went to the Romanian Embassy in Chisinau to submit the documents so that she can get a visa to enter Romania. This had the potential to be a very difficult part of the visa journey because as recently as three months ago people were waiting in line for two full days to get their visas. A new consular office has been opened up during those same three months and it has a much larger capacity and can process many more visas per day.

We got to the Embassy at 07:00 on Friday and there were only a few people already waiting in line. We waited until about 08:30 and then they let the first wave of people into the consular office. The office can service 20 people at a time and when we got in we walked right up to a free window and were helped immediately. After about 10 minutes of reviewing the documents that we submitted, the woman behind the counter told us that we were all set and that we could come back to get Masha's passport and visa on Wednesday. It was a very easy and streamlined process and I still have nightmares thinking about the old system.

Anyway, we pick up the visa on Wednesday and we leave for Bucharest to get the other visa in less than two weeks. We are both looking forward to going to Bucharest to get the visa and also for a mini vacation.

The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty hectic for me at work. We have many things that need to be in a short amount of time and I am going to have to test all of my organizational skills to make sure that we get them done. We now have three students working for us as interns and we hope to hire another full time employee soon to work on our publications.

This week it was also decided that I will not be making a trip to Washington D.C. this April. Basically it was an internal decision to save the money for other more essential projects within our organization. I was a little disappointed but that's how life works sometimes. Actually it feels like the right decision and I'm happy that the next time that I come back to the U.S. that it will be with Masha.

From last week's survey:

75% of respondents said that they have had a computer virus;
25% said they have not.

Take care and keep in touch,

Jerad

One Year Behind Us....Many More to Come

2008-02-18T09:26:00.002+02:00

Hello,

Masha and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary this weekend. We had a wonderful day and we would like to thank everyone that sent us cards and emails, we really appreciate the kind thoughts and words.

We had a wonderful anniversary in Chisinau. Masha started a new training program for students and she had her first class on Saturday so after her class we met and went to lunch. After lunch we decided to go bowling and we had a great time. Bowling here is a different experience than in the U.S. The game is exactly the same but they put a Moldovan spin on it too. Anyway, we both bowled really well and from bowling we went to a nice dinner. We went to a restaurant called "Symposium" and we had a great meal, we both like this restaurant and we had been there a few times before. We ended the night by going out for some drinks with our friends Heath and Ana. All in all it was a great day and we really can't believe how fast a year went by.

Since the traditional first wedding anniversary present is something made out of paper, Masha gave me a calander that she had made with pictures of us for the months. It is very nice and we now have it hanging up in our room. I gave her a picture and poem. I hired a Moldovan artist to draw her picture in black and white and then write a poem next to it, it turned out exactly how I wanted it and Masha loved it.

This weekend just flew by and now I'm back at work writing this email. Other than our anniversary we dont' really have too much news. It looks certain that I will be visiting Washington D.C. this April for a training seminar. The seminar is going to hosted by the European Council for American Chambers of Commerce, our AmCham is a member. I'll be in Washington for only a few days before I go back to Moldova. If any of you will be in Washington at that time let me know.

We are going to get Masha's visa for Romania this week. The U.S. Embassy in Romania sent the Romanian Embassy here in Chisinau a letter on Masha's behalf explaining that she needs to enter Romania so she can get her visa for the U.S. Basically the letter proves that we need to go and it will make the process of getting Masha's visa for Romania a little easier. We actually go to Romania in a few weeks and we will have her U.S. visa when we come back.

From last week's survey:

76% of participants said that they have been on television or the radio;
23% said they have not.

I hope all is well back home. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

On Our Way

2008-02-11T09:34:00.000+02:00

Cheers,

It looks like the Moldovan ground hog was right, winter has come back with avengance here. After a nice spell of mild and even warm weather the temperature has dropped and it is about 0 degrees Celcius today and it even snowed a little bit this weekend. At least the end of winter is in sight now that it's almost the middle of February.

Masha and I had a great start to our week this morning. We went to the Romanian Consulate office in Chisinau to scope out the procedure for when we have to go get her visa to enter Romanina and it wasn't the chaos that I expected. Actually it was quite the opposite. There were not too many people there and they had a nice and orderly system put in place so that people could apply for their visas in a timely and controlled fashion. I really had been having nightmares about going to get this visa to Romanina because of how the former system was set up. Previously people had to go to the Romanian Embassy in Chisinau (not the new consulate) and they could not process very many visas in a day so people would start waiting in line about 02:00 and sign a list reserving their spot in line because there was no appointment system. To make a long story short that system is history now and we are lucky to have a much nicer and more pleasant system to work with.

We will be in Romania in a month from now and that means that we will have Masha's visa to enter the U.S. very soon. It's so close yet it still seems so far away, but once we get it it's going to be such a huge relief. Once we get her visa we can buy our airline tickets and then we'll know the exact date and time we'll be back! I'm trying not to get too excite because we still have a lot to do and anyone that's worked with the Government before knows that nothing is final until you have what you need in your hands (and sometimes that's not even final). Anyway, we're staying very optimistic and we can't wait to go get her visa.

Of course this week is Valentine's Day. Masha and I are going to go out for a little while after work on Thursday, but we don't really have any concrete plans yet. Our first year anniversary is only two days after Valentine's Day, on the 16th and we are both looking forward to that. For our anniversary we are going to have a nice dinner in the city and go out aftewards. It's been such a short year and so much has happened in that time. However, I can say that Masha and I love being married and we are looking forward to starting a new chapter of our life this summer.

If I've learned one thing about marraige it's that you have to support each other more than before you were married. Not that it's a bad thing, actually it's a great feeling to have that reciprocal support from your spouse. Masha and I have had to work together so much in the first year and that cooperation has given us a very good foundation to grown and develop together on.

As always, we are both busy with work. My office is growing and I am in the process right now of hiring a Publishing Director that will take over my responsibilities in creating all of our monthly newsletters, among other things. That is going to give me some extra time to develop other areas of AmCham and I've already begun planning some good programs and promotions for our members.

From last week's survey:

15% of participants believe that Puxatony Phil's prediction of six more weeks of winter weather will come true;

23% do not think it will come true;

46% hope it will not come true;

and 15% of participants don't care.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Superbowl Upset

2008-02-04T08:51:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

I hope you enjoy the new look of my blog. I will try to add more videos as often as I can, also, if you want to watch a short film about Moldova then scroll down to the bottom of this page.

All is well in Moldova. Masha and I are both very busy as we have been in the last weeks. AmCham is starting to get some well deserved recognition in the business community and we are in the process of setting up a meeting with the Minister of Economy. The meeting will be a breakfast meeting with a presentation by the Minister followed by a question and answer session for our members.

AmCham has recenly been accredited with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and we will soon be accredited with the European Council of American Chambers of Commerce (ECACC). The ECACC is also having a couple of training seminars coming up in the near future so there is a chance that I will be leaving Moldova on a business trip or two, but more to come on that as it unfolds.

Not much is new really new here. The weather was beauiful on Saturday, just amazing, one of those days in the very beginning of spring with a cloudless sky and sunshine. It was a perfect day for a national "holiday" in Moldova. The day is called "ziua absolventiilor" and it's basically the day when almost all of the high schools in Moldova have class reunions. Masha's class met at the school where they attended a concert and talked with their old teacher and classmates. She had a great time and I was happy to see her when she got home. I didn't go with her since I don't know many of the people that she went to school with, although I have been to these reunions in the past. I thought it would be nice to spend the night at home and I just relaxed and watched a couple of movies on tv.

On Sunday we didn't really do anything. Masha had a paper to write for one of her classes and I watched tv for most of the day before we took a walk later that night. On one of the tv channels here, Pro TV, they usually show good movies in English with Romanian subtitles.

I'm sure that many of you were as surprised as I was to see that the New York Giants won the Superbowl. Masha and I had a chance to watch the game last night but we decided to stay home. There is a small group of Marines here and they have a large house in Chisinau. They have made it a tradition each year to have a party for the game, which is shown live on the U.S. Forces television network. That's great, but the game didn't start here until about 1:30 in the morning and we both had to be at work this morning so we decided to skip the game, but what a game to miss! Actually, I'm used to missing large sporting events since being here so it didn't bother me that we missed the game.

So we are still working on the visa for Masha. Next week we will be going to the Romanian Embassy in Chisinau to get her visa for Romania. It will be a big relief to get that visa and an even bigger relief when we get her U.S. visa in March. We are both really looking forward to coming back to the States and it will be a great feeling when we finally get there later this year.

From last week's survey:

17% of participants said that 2008 has treated them much better so far than 2007;
29% better;
23% the same;
and unfortunately 29% said that this year has been worse than last year.

By the way, Puxatony Phil (the Ground Hog) saw his shadow so that means that we should be in for at least six more weeks of winter, let's hope he's wrong this year.

I hope that you are all well back home. Take care and keep in touch.

P.S.

My mom is in Grand Caymon this week so I hope she has a great and relaxing week on the island.

Jerad

Home Brewing

2008-01-28T12:32:00.000+02:00

Hello to everyone,

This week went by very fast for us. We were both very busy at work and the weekend went by especially fast, it almost feels like we didn't even have a weekend.

Masha is now back in class after a week long break. They had a week off of classes after finishing their finals, but she was still working this weekend on some preliminary research for her thesis. She has to write an 80 page thesis by May and so she has already started doing the research and contacting some experts in the field.

This week I am going to be in the field for a couple of days. Tomorrow I will be in Balti (about 2 hours North-West of Chisinau) and on Wednesday I will be in Comrat (located in Gagauzia - about 2 hours to the South of Chisinau). AmCham is organizing a competition for journalists in Moldova, in cooperation with the Eurasia Foundation. The competition will be launched in the two cities that I mentioned above via press conferences, there will also be a press conference in Chisinau on Thursday. The goal of the competition is to raise awareness and participation among journalists in the area of corporate social responsibility. We are going to establish a panel of judges who will read the entries and select the winners. The winners will all get cash prizes and diplomas for participating in the competition.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in a previous blog or not, but my brother has begun brewing his own beer. He recently tasted his first batch and I got the chance to speak to him and my dad about it this weekend. They both said that the beer was pretty good and it had the consistency and properties of an Ale style beer. My brother also had the beer analyzed and it had approximately 3.8% alcohol content. The only downside to the first batch was that it didn't have very much carbonation, but that can be fixed easily enough through trial and error in future batches. Anyway, I don't think the beer has a name yet, but I'm excited about trying the beer when Masha and I get back to America.

Speaking of America, we are still working on her visa. We have made some good steps in the right direction and we just called the hospital in Romania where Masha will have to go to get a medical exam. The hospital staff were very helpful and we got some important questions answered. We will be going to Romania in early March to get her immigrant visa for the U.S. and when we get back from that trip we will have the visa in her passport. That will be a huge relief and it will make things seem much more real. The only major hurtle between now and then is getting her visa to enter Romania. The issuance of the visa is not a major issue, but waiting in the huge lines is, more to come on that.

As I mentioned earlier, this weekend went by very fast. On Friday night Masha had a going away party for one of the Americans that works in her office. Jeff and his family are going back to the U.S. so they had a party at the office for him and then they all went bowling. Meanwhile, I was at a party for former Peace Corps volunteers in Moldova. It was a small party and I went with our friends Heath and Ana. After the party we all met up with Masha for a drink before we went home.

On Saturday we spent most of the day in the house. It was pretty cold outside so I didn't go very far away from home, just to the store in the village. Then on Sunday we were invited to lunch by Jeff and his wife Kate. We went to the city to meet them for lunch and it was a very nice time. Jeff and Kate are a great couple and they met while they were Peace Corps volunteers in Kyrgyzstan. They now have a 2 year-old son, Duncan, and they have been living overseas for a while doing development work with various NGOs. It was great to meet with them before they leave and we will certainly keep in touch with them.

From last week's survey:

86% of participants think that the New England Patriots will win the Super Bowl;
13%, chose the New York Giants.

Take care and keep in touch,

Jerad

A New View of Suruceni

2008-01-21T09:47:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

It seems that time in the New Year has some how become faster than normal. The weeks are flying by and Masha and I are getting closer to our one year anniversary. The big day is February 16 and I've got some special things planned that I can't talk about here, because Masha reads this blog too.

In general not too much is new here. Work is going well for both of us and Masha has finished all of her final exams so she has a break from the university until January 28. This is her last semester at the university and she's excited. When she goes back she'll have a few weeks of classes and then everyone in her group has to start their internships. The internships will last for about two months and each student is responsible for finding their own place to work, Masha has already found where she'll work so she doesn't have to worry about that anymore.

This weekend Masha and I spent most of Saturday in Chisinau. One of our favorite Moldovan bands, the Snails, was promoting their new album and after their performance they were singing autographs. We bought their new album and it's pretty good, we even got it signed. While we were at the performance there were various media outlets walking around and one of the reporters heard me speaking English so they requested an interview with me. The reporter didn't speak much English so she requested that she ask me the questions in Romanian and that I respond in English, which was interesting.

The weather was absolutely beautiful yesterday so Masha and I decided to go for a walk around the village. We walked up to the monastery and we eventually made it to the top of the hill that looks over the monastery and the village. It was great to get out and get some exercise and to see the village in that way. We hadn't been to that hill in a long time and it was kind of nice to make the first tracks in the snow while we were going up the hill. Even today the weather is pretty warm and it's supposed to stay this way for a few days before cooling back down. The only problem with the warm weather is that it brings out so much mud. You can't imagine how much mud there can be on a road or sidewalk, especially in the village.

From last week's survey:

5% of the people who answered the survey said that they support Hillary Clinton;
41%, Barack Obama;
11%, John McCain;
5%, Mitt Romney;
5%, Mike Huckabee;
17%, Other;
11%, None of them.

I hope you all have a nice week. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Early Spring Weather

2008-01-14T08:48:00.000+02:00

Hello,

It seems that the worst of the winter weather is behind us. They have reported on the news that the temperature will steadily increase and that spring will be here in early March. Yesterday may have been the start of the end of winter because it was warm enough to start melting snow and ice, leaving behind a lot of water and mud. We still have a lot of snow and there was a lot of ice this morning because all of the water froze last night.

This past week was a nice ease-in to this week. We only worked three days last week and now we are back to full-time in the office. We are pretty busy and we are going to be this way until the end of January.

Masha and I had a nice weekend. On Saturday we went to a concert with some friends. A Peace Corps volunteer that we know - and since gone back to the U.S. - was back in town this week visiting so we saw him on Saturday. The band played jazz and classic rock music. The concert was at a bar in a shopping mall called Jumbo. There is a shooting simulator near the bar and Masha and I went there so that she could shoot. She is a great shot and she even got a prize this time for how well she shot. There was a small crowd watching her while she was shooting and the pressure didn't get to her. After Masha was done shooting a Moldovan guy had his turn and he thought that he was going to do great seeing as how a woman did very well, but he was terrible.

We spent the rest of the weekend just relaxing and watching movies. They have been showing the Lord of The Rings Trilogy on tv, they play one episode per week. "The Two Towers" was on tv Saturday night but we missed it because we were at the concert, we both really like those movies. They might be some of the best movies ever made as far as I'm concerned.

From last week's survey:
43% of participants said that they made a New Year's resolution. Of those, 55% said that they would keep the resolution and 45% said that they would not.

Take care and keep in touch,

Jerad

Happy New Year

2008-01-09T10:06:00.000+02:00

Hello from Moldova,

Vacation is now over for Masha and me. We enjoyed it while it lasted and it was really nice to have some time off and to spend a lot of time with each other.

We had a lot of big plans for the vacation, but we ended up just taking it easy for most of the holiday. We wanted to go ice skating; there is one ice rink that opened up in Chisinau last year. When we went there was a huge line so we decided to watch for a little while, which was interesting because a lot of people fell. Masha has never been ice skating before so that is something that we will have to do before the end of the winter. Later that same day we went to see the new Nicolas Cage movie, I think it's called National Treasure 2. We saw it at Patria, the Russian language movie theater in Chisinau. It was a good movie and I was surprised at how much I understood.

For the New Year we planned on going out with some friends, but those plans fell through and we just stayed at home and had a relaxing New Year's Eve. We had a huge meal to ring in the New Year, and we actually celebrated the New Year twice. Since Masha's mother is Russian, we celebrated the New Year when it got to Moscow, and then an hour later when it arrived in Chisinau. It's a Russian tradition that the President addresses the nation for the last few minutes leading up to the New Year, and this year the Moldovan President did the same.

We celebrated my birthday on Monday by going out to dinner with our good friends, Heath and Ana. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Chisinau called El Paso and it was really good. I missed Mexican food and it was very nice to have tacos and fajitas again. After dinner we went back to Heath and Ana's apartment and had a couple of drinks before we called it a night. It was a good birthday and I guess you could say that I'm a grown-ass-man now that I'm 27.

Now that our winter holiday is over we are both back to work. Masha has an exam today and then she'll be at work. We are going to have a very busy January at my office and I believe the same will be true for Masha.

Now that 2008 is here I can say that we will be coming back to America this year. We are going to start gathering the documents that we need before we go to the American Embassy in Bucharest. Our plan is to be in the U.S. by the end of June or mid-July at the latest. That is only six months from now and those six months are going to fly by. Of course, I'll keep you updated as we go along.

From the last blog's survey:

30% of the participants said that they planned on gaining 1 - 5 kilograms;
7 %, 5 - 10 kg,
7%, more than 10 kg;
53%, planned on maintaining their weight.

Wow, gaining more than 10 kg in such a short time would be impressive.

Take care and keep in touch,

Jerad

Merry Christmas

2007-12-24T09:01:00.000+02:00

Happy holidays everyone,

I would like to start off by saying Merry Christmas! You probably remember that Christmas is celebrated here on January 7, my birthday. Masha's birthday is today, so it's a coincidence that both of our birthdays are on Christmas.

To celebrate Masha's birthday we are going out to dinner tonight with some friends. There is an Irish Pub in Chisinau that has pretty good food and that's where we're going. Masha has an exam today and then she has to work, I'm at work right now writing this blog.

Masha and I both work until the end of this week and then we are off until the 9th of January, so we are looking forward to some free time to relax.

This past week was pretty busy. On Wednesday we had a Board of Directors meeting followed by our first annual AmCham Christmas party. The party went really well and our members and guests had a great time. At the end of the party there was a lot of food and wine left over so we got to take home different kinds of food and a case of wine. We had a winery, Chateau Vartely, sponsor our party, so there was plenty of wine left over. There was such a build up to this party because we had a lot to do even the day before the party, so on Thursday we had a relatively relaxed day at the office.

This weekend we didn't really do anything too interesting. Masha went to her office Christmas party for a little while on Saturday and I spent some time in the office. Masha had to study all day yesterday for her exam that she has right now, so I worked a little bit around the house and then relaxed.

From last week's survey:

35% of the people who participated will spend the New Year at home;
28% at a bar;
7% at a restaurant;
and 28% responded "other".

Masha and I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Christmas Collection Project 2007

2007-12-17T09:26:00.000+02:00

Season's Greetings,

Winter is here in a big way. We've had about 8 - 10 inches of snow since Friday and it the snow is coming down very slowly right now as I write this.

In Moldova winter is a complex time. You have to keep moving or you get cold. At home a fire must be made to warm the house, in the morning you have to heat up water to wash yourself, and when you are waiting for transportation you need to keep moving so you don't freeze. It's really not too bad but it takes some getting used to.

This was a busy week for Masha and I. On Thursday we went to a Town Hall Meeting at the U.S. Ambassador's residence. The Ambassador, Michael D. Kirby, has a great house and they host a lot of events in it. At our meeting the Ambassador spoke about what the Embassy in Moldova is doing and a variety of other things before he passed the mic to his staff. After everyone was finished speaking we had a light meal of appetizers and finger foods and a glass of wine and we called it a night. Masha and I had a minute to thank the Ambassador on our way out and he is a pretty nice guy, and he is very down to earth for being a diplomat.

Actually, our night didn't end there. We got a ride from AmCham's President, John, back to the center of the city so we could catch a taxi home; he Ambassador's residence is located in a part of the city where not much public transportation runs. We ended up staying at John's apartment for a little while before we went home.

The next morning came too quickly and were back at work/university. Friday night we met up with some friends and went to dinner followed by a concert. A group called "Snails" was performing at a local club and it was actually to celebrate the release of their new album that they just recorded and had produced in London. The show was pretty good and we all had a great time. Masha and I ended up staying with our friends that live in the city that night because the roads were full of snow and we didn't' want to try and go all the way home. It started snowing while we were at dinner on Friday and didn't stop until some time on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning also came very quickly for us and we were off to the first orphanage to donate the gifts that we collected through the AmCham, DHL, and Peace Corps, "Christmas Collection Project." The first orphanage that we went to was located in Chisinau and it houses children that range from infants to 6 and 7 year-olds. The children were very excited to see us and the DHL truck full of 18 bags of toys and clothes, 6 boxes of books, and 3 cases of juice.

We unloaded the truck and then all the children were brought into the music room. Then many of the children recited poems and they all sang before we let them loose on the bags of toys. When they were let go to get any toys that they wanted it was a free for all and they were so excited that they couldn't be contained. It was very cute and we all had a good time giving them toys and everything else. Masha and I were both kind of surprised that the orphanage was so nice. It was maintained very well and the children seemed to be happy living there.

After we were done at the orphanage Masha and I did a little bit of shopping. Masha really needed a winter hat so we bought one for her. Then I realized that I should probably get one too so we found one for me as well. The only reason why I bring this up is because I really don't like wearing hats. However, on Friday it snowed so much that my hair was wet and then froze while we were waiting outside to get into the concert, so I decided it was time for a hat.

We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing/studying. Masha has her first exam today, actually she's there right now as I'm writing this . She stayed up late last night studying and hopefully she does well. She has a final on her birthday, which is next Monday, December 24. We are going to have dinner with some friends for her birthday and then after that we may go out for some drinks. It should be a fun time and I'm still trying to figure out what to get her, though I did get some good ideas while we were shopping this weekend.

This week will be another busy one for us. At AmCham we have a Board of Directors meeting on Wednesday followed by our Christmas Cocktail Party so we've got a lot to do before that. Our office will be on vacation starting December 29 and returning on January 9, so we are all looking forward to having some time off. Masha will be done with her first round of exams then and her office will also be on vacation so we are looking forward to spending some good free time together.

From last week's survey:

26% of participants will spend $0 - $200 on Christmas;
26%, $200 - $500;
%15, $500 - $1,000;
%31, more than $1,000.

I hope all is well back home. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Holiday Rush

2007-12-10T08:45:00.000+02:00

It seems like this time of year time seems to speed up. Around the holidays we're all busy and Masha and I have found that to be especially true in our case.Masha is preparing for her first round of finals and she had an exam today. They take half of their finals before winter break and then finish them after they get back from vacation. She would prefere to take them all at once and get it over with so she could have a vacation without studying. There is nothing like finals week at college in the U.S. One week of studying and stress followed by parties and relief, good times.

I'm getting progressively busier at work now that we're close to the end of the year. We are organizing a Christmas cocktail party for our members and some people from the U.S. Embassy and other business people. We also have a Board of Directors meeting coming up and we have to prepare the 2008 budget and resolve a question about our tax exempt status. On top of that we are starting two brand new publications that will require a lot of work and I am still meeting frequently with companies that are interested in joining AmCham. I think we're going to have a one-week vacation close to the New Year and Christmas, remember, the Moldovan Christmas is on January 7, my birthday, and Masha's birthday is on December 24, quite a coincidence.

We still don't have any plans for New Year's or Christmas. For Masha's birthday we are just going to have dinner with some friends and maybe go bowling afterwards. For my birthday we are not sure what we are going to do, but it will probably be something similar. In March we are going to go to Romania to get Masha's visa and that trip will cost us a good amount of money so we are trying to save for that.

I mentioned in one of my blogs a while back that we have a cat that we thought was male but actually turned out to be female. Well I still had my doubts because Max had very masculine tendencies but now all has been clarified because he is pregnant. Even though I know Max is a female I can't help but keep thinking of him/her as a male. Anyway, he/she is going to have kittens in a month or so. After the untimely death of Dimca it may be nice to have a few more kittens around the house.

Outside of work this is going to be a busy week too. We are going to dinner on Tuesday night with some friends and on Thursday we were invited to a Town Hall meeting with the U.S. Ambassador. This is just an informal meeting at the Ambassador's home where Americans in Moldova can meet the Ambassador and have a nice time and chat with a few diplomats. On Friday we may be going to a Snails concert. They are the band that played at our 4th of July party and they are pretty popular here. They are going to launch their new album and they have spent a few months in London working on it with a good producer, it should be a good time.

Apparently Steven Seagal is still in Moldova. He gave a speech at Masha's university last week and Masha got to see him up close. She said that he's starting to look a bit old and heavier than in his movies. At the meeting he also mentioned that he wants to start an acting school in Moldova and that he really likes the country. There have been many rumors about why he is here ranging from the acting school to him wanting to buy a local soccer team, who knows if any of them are true. He may have just been humoring the crowd by saying that he wants to open an acting school. One of the interns in our office also saw him speak at the university and the intern said that Mr. Seagal looked like he was coming off of a long night and may have just been hung over, good times.

I have received requests to reinstate the weekly survey so, if you are interested, please take part in this week's survey.

I hope all is well with you back home.

Jerad

Another Week in Moldova

2007-12-03T08:18:00.000+02:00

Cheers,

I hope you all had a nice week.

Not much has change lately in Moldova. The weather is still cold and getting slightly colder every day, although it's a little bit warmer today than it has been recently. Last week we had some light snow falls and on Friday we had a very wet snow/freezing rain storm. This weekend the weather was nice and not too cold.

Work is keeping me busy as usual. We are starting a couple of new projects and we are in the middle of organizing a Christmas party for December 20th for AmCham members. One project that we are working on is called the "Christmas Collection" Project. We are working with DHL Moldova and Peace Corps to organize a collection of books, toys, and clothes for two area orphanages. We are asking all of our members to participate, DHL is asking all of their clients, and Peace Corps is asking its contacts to join in. McDonald's has agreed to sponsor the event by donating hamburgers to the orphanages. We will have a reception at each orphanage when we give the kids the things that we have collected and they will have a chance to eat McDonald's.

Masha is very busy with school and work right now. She has exams coming up that she is preparing for and at work they are at the end of the year so they have a lot of reports to complete/translate, etc.

Honestly not too much is new. We are still in the process of getting Masha's visa and we are still planning on being back in the U.S. around the end of June or early July of next year. Of course, we'll keep you posted on the process.

From last week's survey:

71% were surprised that Steven Seagal came to Moldova;
29% were not.

Over the past weeks I have seen that the survey is not very popular so I will no longer be posting survey questions.

I hope all is well back home.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Thanksgiving Day and Steven Seagal

2007-11-27T08:15:00.001+02:00

Hello,

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Masha and I had a great time at the Purcari winery. We went with four other people, the two interns that work in our office, and our Project Manager and her boyfriend. We rented a taxi for the day and made the two-hour trip in the morning, arriving at the winery at 11:00.

When we got to the winery we were greeted by one of the winery's directors, Pavel, and he showed us a row of pine trees where a family of owls live at the winery. Then he took us into the wine tasting room to have a cup a tea to warm us up after our trip. Once the tea was finished we met Marcel, Production Manager, and he took us on a tour of the wine making facilities and explained the wine making process to us in detail, we also got to tour Purcari's more than 30,000 bottle wine cellar. The cellar holds various old wines dating as far back as 1951.

Once the tour of the winery was finished we went back into the tasting room and began our next tour. Purcari winery also has a very nice hotel so we got to see some of the hotel rooms and the hotel. Located in the hotel there is a billiard room, a bar, a summer room, and a special place on the roof of the building for summer barbeques. It was all very beautiful and then the fun began.

The wine tasting was certainly the highlight of the trip. Purcari is one of the youngest and most prestigious wineries in Moldova. It is a wholly owned Moldovan business and the owners have invested considerable money into the winery and hotel since 2004. Anyway, Purcari wine is exported to most countries in Europe, many in Asia, and the U.S. and Canada.

For the wine tasting they laid out 8 specially designed glasses in front of each of us. Each glass is specially made for the specific type of wine that will be poured into it. The tasting began with white wines and ended up with the darkest red wines. All of Purcari's wines were great but I especially enjoyed the Negru de Purcari and the Pinot Noir de Purcari. If you ever happen to come across a bottle of Purcari wine you should give it a try.

After the wine tasting was finished we went back to Chisinau. Our original plan was for the six of us to have dinner some where to celebrate Thanksgiving but everyone was tired so most people just went home. Masha, one intern, and I did not want to go home so we went to McDonald's to have dinner. The meal was good but it was not a good substitute for a real Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner we were on our way home and we had such a great time that day and we are all looking for an excuse to go back again soon.

This weekend Masha and I had planned on going to a Thanksgiving dinner with our friends, Heath and Ana, but Ana was ill this weekend so they decided to postpone the dinner. So this weekend we did nothing but stay home and relax because we both had a long week and we wanted to have a relaxing weekend.

On Saturday Masha was going to the store in the village when she discovered something very surprising and disturbing. Our cat, Dimca, was hit by a car and lying dead in the middle of our road. Masha came back home to tell me and brought her body back home and buried her in the garden. Dimca was a part of Masha's family for six years and it was a terrible way for her to die. We were a little shaken by the event on Saturday but everything is okay now and we were happy to have laid Dimca to rest at our house.

Sunday night I had a sore throat and fever so I decided to stay home from work yesterday, hence the delay in me updating this blog. It was my first sick day for a very long time and I just spent the day watching movies and laying in bed. The days are much longer when you have nothing to do and I'm happy to be back to good health and back to work today.

Last night Masha and I heard some very surprising news while watching the news on tv. Apparently Steven Seagal is currently in Moldova. He was invited to Moldova by a big business man here and he has been sight seeing and visiting local night clubs. He also visited two monasteries in Moldova including the monastery in our village, Suruceni. When we heard that we both were left shocked. We see his movies all of the time on tv and to know that he was so close to us it made the world feel very small. They interviewed some of the people at the monastery in our village and they said that Mr. Seagal was very polite and interested in the monastery and spirituality. We still can't believe that he is in Moldova and that he was actually in Suruceni! I asked Masha and as far as she knows he is the first movie star to ever visit the village.

I would like to congratulate my friends Dave and Aubrey who were married on Friday, November 23. Contratulations Mr. and Mrs. Trimble and we all wish you success, happiness, and a long life together.

From last week's survey:

25% said that they would miss Stuffing and Gravy most;
20% Green Been Cassarole;
20% Pumpkin Pie;
15% Mashed Potatoes;
10% Other;
5% Turkey;
0% Cranberry Sauce.

I can understand nobody missing cranberry sauce but only 1 person said that they would miss the turkey, interesting. I really missed all of those things this year.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-18T11:36:00.000+02:00

Hello,

I would like to start off by wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving. In Moldova it will be mainly just another working day for most people, except for expats that work for the U.S. government. I'm still not sure if I'll be working or not, but either way I think that Masha and I will be having dinner with some Americans on Thursday. We were invited to attend a Thanksgiving party with some people that we know and we will probably go there to celebrate.

Next Sunday we will be going to our friends' home for a Thanksgiving dinner. The married couple that we see very often, Heath and Ana, invited us over to their apartment for dinner and we are looking forward to going. They also invited us to a wine tasting event at the U.S. Ambassador's home this past Friday, but we had to turn down the invitation to go to my old host family's party. However, we will certainly go to the next wine tasting event as they usually host one every two months at the Ambassador's home.

Masha and I went to a party on Friday night. The family that I lived with when I was a Peace Corps volunteer had a celebration and blessing of their apartment. The evening went like a normal Moldovan event and we had a very nice time. We actually didn't stay for the blessing of the apartment because they had to wait until after midnight for some reason before the priest would do the ceremony. This family now lives in Chisinau so we ended up going home at the end of the night. They have a really nice apartment close to the center of the city, perfect for hosting parties.

Masha's dad and brother got back from Moscow this weekend. They were originally supposed to be working there until the New Year but since they were working construction it got too cold and all of the workers had to come home. They are happy to be back in Moldova and they said that it was freezing in Moscow and that there is snow on the ground that goes up to your knees.

It is starting to get pretty cold here. Days are about 5 degrees Celcius and it is now below zero at night. Today is especially cold with the wind blowing and overcast skies. Many people were predicting a very warm autumn but this has turned out to be a pretty cold season. My personal opinion is that nature always balances itself out. This summer was extremely hot and nature will correcct itself by having a very cold winter.

Masha has her last seminar today. They will be having a meeting and receiving diplomas for completing the course. She has really enjoyed this seminar and she is already looking for more opportunities to participate in other events like this one.

It looks like we are narrowing down the date that we will be back in the U.S. next summer. Masha will finish her exams in mid June and then collect her diploma and transcript by late June or early July so it looks like we'll be back in the beginning of July. My grandparents are organizing a huge family reunion some time in July so we definitely want to make it back for that. I'll make sure to keep you posted on any new updates but as for now early July is the most probable time that we'll be back.

From the people that participated in last week's survey:

9% prefer to run half marathons;
full marathons 0%;
5K run 9%;
5K walk 9%;
Evening Walks 36%;
Other 36%.

Masha and I wish you all a great Thanksgiving holiday. Make sure you eat enough for the both of us too.

Take care and keep in touch,

Jerad

First Snow of the Season

2007-11-12T08:26:00.000+02:00

Hello all,

Today is the first real snow fall of the season. The snow is just trickling down every so slightly but I would say that winter is certainly on the way. Many people in Moldova predicted a warm autumn and mild winter, however so far it's been very cold compared with the same season last year.

This week was a very busy one for us. At AmCham we successfully completed the International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility on Thursday. The conference went very well. We were a little bit concerned about the attendance numbers we would get, we invited around 200 business people, media, government officials, etc., in all we had over 100 people in attendance so we were satisfied. Generally when you invite people to a seminar or conference you can expect roughly 75% of them to RSVP and approximately 50% of them to actually show up. The conference got good media coverage on tv and radio so we felt that the message of the conference was relayed. The point of the conference was to raise awareness about CSR practices in Moldova and abroad and to share real examples of CSR practices through the speakers at the conference.

After working very hard on the organization of the conference it was nice to have the weekend and a couple of days off to relax. On Friday, Masha and I went to a party for former Peace Corps volunteers that now live in Moldova. The party was held in Chisinau at the home of a former volunteer that now works for USAID. He met his wife while he was a volunteer in Paraguay and they now live in Chisinau with their three daughters. Masha and I spoke with the couple and it was very interesting to hear the story of how they met. The conversation eventually evolved to which language the girls speak since their mom speaks Spanish and their dad English. The answer was both, mom speaks only Spanish to them and dad only English. When Masha and I have children we want to do something very similar and speak English and Russian at home. In my opinion the benefits of knowing two or more languages is too great to not have our children speak two or more languages. For me learning Romanian has been a great experience and will certainly help me in my career and more importantly in my personal life.

The rest of the weekend was low key for us. On Saturday we went shopping and Masha got a new pair of winter boots. You would not believe how expensive things are here. I should actually say that goods are relatively expensive here. After three years of reading about Moldova you now know that salaries in Moldova are not very high; I would say that the average salary in Chisinau is a little more than 2,000 lei per month, which is about $175, in the villages the salaries are even less. However, the prices of many goods are very high. Masha's winter boots for example cost 1,100 lei. Can you imagine a normal pair of boots in America costing $1,100? I still don't know how many families with children can afford to buy all of the things that children need.

I got an email today from a former Peace Corps volunteer that served in Moldova. She is from the St. Louis area and she is going to be running a half marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. If you are interested in helping her raise money for this cause please click on the following link:

http://www.active.com/donate/tntgmo/Dbrownback

Our good friends Heath and Ana invited us to a wine tasting party that will be on Friday of this week. The tasting will be at the U.S. Ambassador's residence and we will have the opportunity to taste a variety of different wines and meet some new people. I think it will be a great time and we are really looking forward to it.

Speaking of wine, if you have not had a chance to see the October edition of AmChamNews you can read it by clicking on the following link:

http://www.amcham.md/index.php?go=bulletin

The October edition focuses on the wineries that are our members and if you are interested in Moldovan wine you will probably find the issue interesting. This week I am also going to try using my small amount of business influence to try and get AmCham staff members a free tour of one of our member's wineries. Since we featured our members in the newest edition of AmChamNews we think that they will oblige us with a tour and tasting. We have some very good wineries as our members so the tour and tasting would be very good for us.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this but AmCham is growing. We now have two interns working with us and they have been great so far. They are helping us with a lot of things around the office and I am going to work extensively with them on the next edition of AmChamNews with the idea of eventually turning that responsibility over to them completely. Anyway, it's nice to have more people in the office.

From last week's survey I learned that of the people that participated in the survey:

5% prefer Chinese as their favorite type of ethnic food;
21% prefer Italian;
26% prefer Thai;
31% prefer Mexican;
0% prefer Moldovan;
15% prefer other types of ethnic food.

Please continue to partcipate in the surveys.

I hope all is well with you all back home.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

A Mexican Feast and Fresh Prince

2007-11-04T12:50:00.000+02:00

Greetings,

This was one of the busiest weeks that I have had in a very long time. AmCham's office is growing and we now have two interns working with us. It was the first week that they were in the office and it was kind of hectic getting them settled in and showing them what to do around the office. In addition to that we had a Board of Directors meeting this week.

This was the first meeting of the new Board that was elected in October at our General Member Meeting. I had to prepare the 2008 AmCham budget for Board approval as well as a few other things to present at the meeting. Luckily I was able to finish everything and the meeting went well. We try to make these meetings quick and efficient but they usually turn out to be very long and lose efficiency due to the length of the meetings. One up-side is that our Board of Directors is a very easy going group so while the meetings are serious and business oriented we have a good time.

Masha has been busy with the university, work, and training program. This is the third week in a row that she has had the trainings on Saturday and Sunday so it is also my third weekend at the office. This weekend I actually had a lot of work to catch up on so it was not a problem for me to work.

On Friday night we went to a dinner party hosted by a couple that we are friends with. The party theme was Mexican and the hosts cooked a great Mexican feast with all of the great food that I haven't had a chance to eat in a very long time including, nacho cheese dip, burritos, etc. We were joined for dinner by another mixed couple. This couple is also made up of an American man and Moldovan woman, but they are not married yet. Anyway, the party was a great time and it was nice to relax with some good friends.

Yesterday Masha had her training seminar in the morning and we spent the second part of the day watching movies that we borrowed from our friends who hosted the dinner party. One television show that I have not seen in a very long time is "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air", but that all changed yesterday. Our friends have the whole first season on DVD so Masha and I had a chance to watch the show, it was Masha's first exposure to a young Will Smith and she liked the show, but was not too familiar with the black culture of the early 1990's that is heavily featured in the show. An example of this is when in one of the episodes will is talking to a girl he wants to pick up at the mall and begins explaining what he does during a typical evening. While he begins to explain the screen cuts to his home and shows a number of famous African Americans of the day showing up at his home to hang out including: Heavy D, Bo Jackson, and two guys from the television show "A Different World". Good times.

Today after Masha is finished with her training program we are going to go shopping. Masha wants to buy some new clothes and we need to stop by a grocery store and pick up some food and toiletries. We don't have any plans for the evening but we may watch some more Fresh Prince or another movie.

We also discovered something this weekend about one of our cats Max. Max was born this spring and has grown up to be a very good cat by catching mice, birds and other small animals. He definitely displays many of the qualities associated with Alpha Males including being the first to eat by fending off the other cats and always trying to get attention. When we got home from Chisinau yesterday Masha's mom surprised us by telling us that Max was not only a female but that he/she was also pregnant. That was surprising to say the least and we'll have to wait and see if he/she really will have kittens. Maybe the real solution to finding out Max's sex is to check between his/her legs, but honestly I'm not that interested to violate our cat.

Of the people that participated in last week's survey:

58% are married;
33% are single;
1% selected other.

Of those that are married:

42% have been married for 1-5 years;
28% have been married for 6-15 years;
28% have been married for 25 or more years;
0% have been married for 16-24 years.

I hope all is well back home. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Sunshine and Gagauzia

2007-10-29T08:29:00.000+02:00

Greetings,

The sun is out today for the first time in a week and it is very nice to see it again. It has been raining for the last week and when we woke up this morning to get ready we were very happy to see the sun.

We turned the clocks back an hour on Saturday night so it gets dark here now very early. I think you guys turned the clocks back too this weekend. Anyway, now it's light in the morning after being dark for a few weeks when we would leave for the city so it's a nice change.

Life here is going well. Masha and I are both very busy with work and Masha with her training sessions. She had her training this weekend again and I spent the weekend at work catching up on some things that I didn't manage to finish during the week.

On Friday I was out of the office all day. I was invited by one of our members to attend a Business Investment Forum in Gagauzia. Gagauzia is a semi-autonomous region in southern Moldova with a population of about 150,000. This region is still part of Moldova, but it has its own flag, governor, culture, and language. The language and culture a mix of Moldovan, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian, at least that's what a Gagauzian man told me.

The Business Investment Forum was actually a two-day event, but I missed the opening and more formal sessions on Thursday. Our day was less formal and we spent the day visiting some manufacturers in Gagauzia who already work with foreign capital. Turkey is probably the largest foreign investor in the region, which leads to the influence of Turkish culture among the people. Anyway, we visited a juice making factory, furniture factory, textile factory, and a petroleum manufacturer. All of the businesses are very successful in the region and some of them have more locations throughout Moldova. At the end of the factory tours we had lunch and then we attended a concert. The concert featured traditional Gagauzian singers and dancers as well as a few Moldovan songs and dances.

Although Gagauzia is semi-autonomous they display the Moldovan flag along side their own in all public buildings and on the Business Investment Forum materials. All-in-all it was a very interesting day and I enjoyed my first trip to the region.

This weekend Masha's dad and brother left for Moscow. A man in our village helped them get jobs working in construction at the same place he works. They left by bus on Saturday and they'll most likely be gone for close to three months. The typical pattern is that they leave for close to 90 days to work so that they don't over stay their legally allotted time in Russia. Then they come home for a couple of weeks and go back to work, but the employer may help them obtain short-term work visas so they can stay for up to 9 months without coming home.

I would like to say congratulations to my good friend Mike Majerus and his fiance Kate. They will be getting married this weekend and I wish them a long and happy life together. Masha and I are sorry that we can't be there but we hope that you have a great wedding and we look forward to seeing you again when we get to America.

I hope all is well with you back home. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Trolley Buses, Fines, and Trainings

2007-10-21T11:29:00.000+03:00

Hello,

I saw something in Moldova for the first time this week. I was on a trolley bus going to work in the morning and there was a scuffle between the ticket collector and a young man. The collector asked to see his ticket, when he didn't have a ticket the collector asked him to pay, but he refused. The price to ride on a trolley bus is 1 leu. Many people have bus passes, but this guy didn't have anything, he just refused to pay. Now, I've heard the ticket collector threaten someone by telling them that if they didn't pay then they would be kicked off the bus, but nothing has ever come of any of those threats because people usually pay. Well this guy was never going to pay so the collector asked the bus driver to stop the bus at an arbitrary location and the young man was forced to exit the bus. The reason that I thought that this was interesting is because most ticket collectors on trolley buses in Moldova are not so passionate about their work. This collector was very active and made sure that everyone paid the 1 leu tax. Generally if you want to ride without paying it's pretty easy because you can avoid the collector or just present a ticket that you have previously paid for or found on the ground. Most collectors are not so aggressive, but it was kind of refreshing to see someone get the boot for not paying.

This past week at work was very busy for us. We had the annual meeting with all of our members on Wednesday. The meeting went really well and we started the meeting by having the General Director from the new "Agency for Protection of Competition" speak to our members. Many of our members are very large international corporations that may be identified as having a monopoly status by this agency so they were very interested in hearing what the Agency had to say. To date the Agency has fined two companies in Moldova for "unfair competition practices". The first company fined was an electronic retailer named "Bomba". The second company fined was "Sun Communications". The President of AmCham is also the CEO of Sun Communications and this was a big surprise to me. The fine for Sun Communications was handed out on Thursday and since then many people in the business community, diplomatic community, and many international organizations have come to the defense of Sun Communications. There are many people in Moldova who see this new government Agency as being an arm of the government that can be used unfairly to punish companies instead of actually trying to protect competition.

Anyway, back to the meeting on Wednesday. After the very interesting presentation by the Agency we presented to our members the various projects that we are working on at AmCham. Briefly these include three initiatives: 1) Work with the Millennium Challenge Corporation on the implementation of a national irrigation system in Moldova; 2) Work with the Moldovan government and our IT & Software Developers/Distributors members to implement a Home Computing Initiative in Moldova; 3) Work with the National Bank of Moldova, Ministry of Finance, our member banks, and international organizations to lower Moldova's Credit Rating score. These three projects are going to take a lot of work and collaboration between AmCham, our members, and various government agencies and international organizations, but we have already made some good progress.

After the presentation of the projects we had our first official election for the new AmCham Board of Directors. The election went very quickly since we had 11 seats on the Board of Directors and 11 people on the ballot. The members voted unanimously to elect the new Board as a group and then we finished the meeting. Immediately after the meeting we had a small reception and cocktail party for our members. In general it was a great evening and we were happy that it was a success.

Yesterday Masha and I went with a couple of her colleagues to a concert. Masha's university, ULIM, was celebrating its 15th year anniversary so all students were invited. Before the concert started there were speeches from various government officials including the President of the Parliament and Minister of Education congratulating the university and its students. Then they presented some professors with awards and the director of the university gave a very long speech. The concert itself was actually pretty good. Usually I'm not interested in this type of concert, but they did a really good job and it was enjoying to watch.

Masha is at her training seminar today so I am at the office writing this message. She is really enjoying the seminars and she has even interviewed to become a member of a student organization that will organize similar trainings. So we are both pretty busy at the moment.

Unfortunately I don't have any updates on the visa process. We are still working on the documents that we need to proceed to the next step before we have to go to Romania, but at least we still have some time.

I hope all is well back home. Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Wine, Training Programs and Work

2007-10-15T08:07:00.000+03:00

Greetings,

As I mentioned last week, this weekend was the International Wine Festival in Chisinau. The day started out very cold and rainy. Masha and I were in the city by 09:00 and it looked like the day was going to be ugly. Masha had class in the morning but I met up with a friend of mine who is also married to a Moldovan woman and we headed straight for the center of the city and the festival.

When we got to the festival there were not many people there due to the weather so we had the opportunity to take some good pictures of the displays that the wineries had set up. We currently have three wineries as members at AmCham so I stopped by all of their booths and took pictures and spoke with the people I have been working with at the wineries. The President of Moldova even stopped by one of our winery's booths, but I didn't get to speak with him or even really see him because of the security surrounding him.

Later in the day my friend, Heath, and I met up with our wives. We were all really cold so we decided to warm up by going to have lunch. The rest of the day we spent visiting with people that we knew at the wine festival and we saw a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers. That night there was also a going away party for a volunteer that we know so we went to the local Irish Pub to see him. In general the wine festival was a success from what I saw. The weather did get a little bit nicer towards the end of the day and eventually hundreds of people made it out to celebrate.

As I mentioned above Masha had class in the morning on Saturday. If you remember from one of my previous blogs she was applying to participate in a program. She was accepted to participate in the program and the first classes were this weekend. This program will help the students that participate in it build their business skills and at the end of the 5-week program the students will have their resumes sent to all of the companies that sponsor this training. Masha said that the classes this weekend were pretty informative and that she thinks they will be very useful.

This is going to be a busy week at work for me. We have our annual all-member meeting this Wednesday. This meeting will also be where we elect our new Board of Directors. We have also invited a guest speaker from the new government agency: The Agency for Protection of Competition. This agency has been the subject of much talk lately and we have invited its director to speak about her agency at our all-member meeting. This agency is supposed to be responsible for setting the guidlines for what will be considered monopolistic companies in Moldova and how they will be dealt with. Some of the companies that are our members are already dealing with the agency and many other members want to know more about the agency's plans for the future. It should be an interesting presentation and I'm looking forward to it.

Not much else is new here. The weather is getting cold but it's not anything unlike autumn weather. It did snow in Romania this weekend so hopefully it won't get that cold here for a while.

I hope all is well back home.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

International Wine Festival

2007-10-08T08:09:00.000+03:00

Hello,

I understand that the weather in the Midwest has been really hot for the last few days. I just read an article about the Chicago marathon and how one person died as a result of running the race and many others went to hospitals or were treated on-site. The weather here has been typical autumn weather. It rained all day Saturday and it was a very sunny and warm day yesterday.

This weekend was not too exciting. Masha and I went out to dinner with some friends on Friday night. On Saturday Masha had an interview. She is going to participate in a training program that helps students build the skills necessary in today's job market. The students that will be selected for the training will find out today so we're hoping that she gets a call back.

Work is going well for me. We are in the process of doing some great things and it's a busy and productive time in our office. I am pushing right now to get our membership numbers up and I am currently targeting some well-known multi-national U.S. corporations to become our members. In many cases it's an easy sale because their respective organizations are already members of AmCham in various other countries. We are also in the process of organizing an Agricultural Committee within AmCham. This committee will undertake a very important project dealing with irrigation. This has become somewhat of a hot topic due to this summer drought. The World Bank in Moldova is even granting the Moldovan government approximately $10 million to combat the effects of the drought.

I really hope that more of you participate in the surveys. I learned from last week's survey that many of you that drink wine prefer the wine straight from the barrel. I can only assume that the people who selected that answer are either former Peace Corps volunteers or people that have been to Moldova. Speaking of wine this weekend is the International Wine Festival in Chisinau.

The event is always a good time and it's probably the only time of the year when a large wave of tourists come to Chisinau. This year's event is supposed to be pretty exciting. We have three wineries as our members so I will be visiting their displays and taking pictures of their products for our October newsletter. I am going to focus the issue on Moldovan wine and the wine industry. I am also meeting with several wineries and I would like to add more to our membership roster. Wineries are especially interested in irrigation projects so hopefully I can have a few more join AmCham this month.

Other than that not too much else is new. Life goes on and we are trying to enjoy our time.

Take care and keep in touch.

Shopping for Bulk in Moldova

2007-10-01T09:31:00.000+03:00

Hello everyone,

Life is going well here in Moldova.

Masha and I went shopping with her parents yesterday. We stocked up on food stuffs at a Moldovan version of "Sam's Club". It was interesting how the system works here. Instead of a huge warehouse where people are free to walk around with a shopping cart and select their own items they had a show room with empty containers. These containers represented the products in their warehouse that you could order, they also had cookies and biscuits pinned to the wall and various other displays that used as your guide. After you have selected your items you proceed to the check out where they tell you if your items are in stock and from there to the warehouse itself. At the warehouse you give the workers your stamped and signed order form (everything in Moldova has to be stamped and signed before it becomes official) and they deliver the products to your car. In short, it was basically the same system as in the U.S. with some minor differences.

Work is going well. I was busy last week finalizing the August-September Edition of AmChamNews, our monthly publication. If you are interested in reading it visit the following link and download a .pdf version of the file.

http://www.amcham.md/index.php?go=bulletin

This weekend was pretty relaxing for both Masha and me. Other than shopping we spent the weekend at home. Masha had a lot of studying to do and I was finishing up a book that I had been reading. The book was "1984" by George Orwell. If you have not read it I highly recommend reading it. Many of you are probably familiar with the book and the general idea of what it's trying to get across, that the government controls all facets of life and "Big Brother" is ever watchful.

While reading the book it became apparent to me that many of the things that Orwell was talking about are slowly coming to pass in real life. In the book Orwell explains that one way to keep a population scared and submissive is through a never ending war against a vaguely defined and faceless enemy. That sounds eerily familiar, some may even say that it sounds like a "War on Terror".

In general all is well here. Masha and I have a busy week ahead of us as I'm sure many of you do too. Have a nice week and enjoy the autumn weather before it gets too cold.

Take care and keep in touch.

Autumn and Work

2007-09-24T08:10:00.000+03:00

Hello,

Autumn is upon us, as I mentioned in last week's blog. Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days of the year. A classic fall day with a clear blue sky, no clouds, beautiful sunshine, and a slight breeze. If every day could be like yesterday I would be very happy.

This past week was pretty busy. We had a lot going on at work. The luncheon at the Ambassador's house went very well. We had a great turnout from our members and we all got to see the Ambassador's house, which was beautiful. The event lasted for about two hours and consisted of two speeches. The first speech was given by the number two diplomat at the Embassy because the Ambassador was in the U.S. on personal business. The second speech was given by AmCham's president and was followed by a reception. The reception was just that and people had time to socialize and network. Everyone thought that the event was a real success and we look forward to many more events like this one.

I found out from last week's survey that the majority of people that read this blog grow grass in their gardens and picked summer as their favorite season of the year.

I don't have much else to add this week. In general all is well here.

Take care and keep in touch until next time.

Creating "Front Page" News

2007-09-20T16:26:00.000+03:00

Hello,

I know that this mid-week blog is a break from my usual format but I would like to draw your attention to something I learned today. I was speaking with an acquaintance of mine and he mentioned that this blog had been featured in the "Tiraspol Times" newspaper. At first I thought he was joking but he persisted and I didn't fully believe him until he sent me the following link:

http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/opinion/moldovas_independence_day.html

It seems that the people of Transnistria also have an opinion about Moldova's Independence. I guess that is only natural as the two have been one country until very recently, even fighting a war over what is now called referred to many as a "break away Republic".

I have no problem with Moldova, in fact I love it here. I've said this many times before in previous emails and blogs.

I have only two experiences with Transnistria and many of you may remember that one of them was not very positive.

The first time that I entered Transnistria was with my wife and family after coming back from Odessa, Ukraine to Moldova. We entered Transnistria as our route had us transiting the territory. Upon getting to customs the bus was emptied of its passengers and bags were checked. Upon the authorities discovering that we were American we were separated and had our passports taken from us. Shortly thereafter my wife was whisked away by two border guards into a small and closed room where prying eyes and ears could not oversee or overhear the fact that they wanted us to pay for our passports back and for them to grant us permission to travel to the other side of the territory. In the end we were forced to pay for our release and subsequent travel to the other side of and then out of Transnistria into the relatively free and beautiful land of Moldova.

The second experience I had with Transnistria was very mundane and it involved me traveling to a village close to Tiraspol and then going back to Moldova after a few hours, no incident involved in this particular travel.

I bring this all up because it is apparent that the "Tiraspol Times" has its own agenda and promoting its cause for independence is certainly high on the list. I hope that the "Tiraspol Times" uses this blog to show its readers that every story has two sides. My blog about Moldova's Independence was reflecting my own experiences and in no way represents Moldovans or Moldova as a whole. Just as my experience with Transnistrian border guards does not represent all experiences of Americans in Transnistria.

I would also like to make it clear that the vast majority of Moldovans have no problem speaking Russian or interacting with people of Russian origin or nationality, and I have never in my three years in Moldova seen anyone have "strong racial intolerance against anyone who speaks Russian" as the "Tiraspol Times" states.

Despite the fact that I feel my blog was used out of context, I am humbled that my blog was published in the "Tiraspol Times" and that anybody from anywhere on Earth can read my blog at anytime.

I wrote the following email to "Tiraspol Times" regarding thier use of my blog in their online "opinion and commentary" section:

Dear Opinion and Commentary Editors of "Tiraspol Times",

My name is Jerad Scott Tietz and I recently discovered that your newspaper used part of my blog in an article regarding the Independence of Moldova.

I would like to say that I believe that you miss represented my article by claiming that Moldovans have "strong racial intolerance against anyone who speaks Russian." This could not be further from the truth.

As I mentioned in my blog, there are some people in Moldova who very much dislike anything to do with Russia or the Russian language. These people are hardline nationalists and they are a minority in Moldova. In fact, most people in Moldova do not feel this way and speak Russian at home, work, or in public.

My mother-in-law is originally from Russia and I have never seen or heard of any Moldovan disrespecting her or acting ethnically intolerant to her based on her Russian origins.

Furthermore, I would like to ask you how Moldova can be expected to embrace a language that is not native to its people. Moldovan is the native language of people in Moldova. Granted I believe that there should be no intolerance directed towards Russian speakers in Moldova, as anybody should have the right to speak any language they want regardless of where they live.

In closing I would like to thank you for posting a portion of my blog in your online "Opinion and Commentary" section. I do request that if you decide to use my blog posts in the future that you contact me before you post them to your site. I would certainly be open for future collaboration with "Tiraspol Times" and I wish you success.

Best regards,

Jerad Scott Tietz

Once I have a response from "Tiraspol Times" I will post it here.

Take care and keep in touch.

The Thrills of American, Romanian, and Moldovan Bureaucracy

2007-09-17T08:51:00.000+03:00

Hell0,

Autumn is officially here. The last couple of weeks have been getting increasingly cooler and the mornings and nights are now very chilly, it's like God just decided to turn down the thermostat. I really like this fall weather, especially after the heat wave that we experienced this summer. This is a great time of year in Moldova if you like working.

There is a lot of work to be done around the house. People are busy preserving food for the winter and harvesting their crops, or what little crops they have due to this year's drought. We got lucky this year in regard to work. We did not plant anything this year like we did in previous years. No corn or beans in the field, just some tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and garlic in our family garden, much of which has already been eaten. We don't have any grapes at our home or in the field so we don't have to worry about picking grapes, but that also means that we don't get to make wine.

Wine season is about to be upon us and the International Wine Festival in Chisinau will take place next month. It's always a great time and we are looking forward to it this year. I think that I may have some work to do at this year's festival because three of AmCham's members are wineries and we are going to focus on them in next month's newsletter. Two of the three wineries are quite large and I think that I'll be visiting their displays and taking pictures and sampling their wines, very difficult work.

This week we are scheduled to have a meeting with all of our 42 members with the U.S. Ambassador to Moldova. Ambassador Kirby invited us to his residence to have lunch with him this Thursday so it is a big event for us. The Ambassador is a huge supporter of AmCham and we are very happy for that. The lunch will be relatively informal and it will be a mix of people sitting, standing, eating and chatting with the Ambassador about their businesses and AmCham. The Ambassador will say a few opening words at the event but then he really wants to talk to everyone and he has even agreed to an interview for this month's newsletter.

Masha and I were at the Embassy last week for a meeting with a woman in the Consular section. This woman has been helping us with our visa and she gave us the documents that we'll need to complete before Masha and I have to go to Bucharest. The documents are pretty straight forward and hopefully we'll get some help from the U.S. Embassy with getting Masha's visa for Romania. Since Romania joined the EU, Moldovans require visas to enter the country. This had lead to a political standoff between the Moldovan and Romanian governments because of the huge demand for visas among Moldovan citizens. The Moldovan government supposedly promised that it would open up two consular offices (one in Balti and one in Cahul) to provide assistance with issuing visas. This promise has not been fulfilled and the result if a large mob of people in front of the Romanian Embassy every day. Supposedly the only way to get into the Romanian Embassy is by appointment and I've heard that you need to make an appointment up to a month in advance. Luckily we are not in a hurry. The U.S. Embassy gave us an official letter addressed to the Romanian Embassy stating that we need to go to Romania for Masha's visa and that she needs a visa to enter Romania. The U.S. Embassy also told us that we don't need an appointment if we have the letter, we could just show up at the Romanian Embassy and get in without an appointment. That sounds good until you really try to do it and the mob of people that have been waiting for hours tear you limb from limb for trying to cut in front of the line. Needless to say we are going to have some obstacles to get through in the near future.

For those of you that are familiar with the "Snails", they had a concert on Saturday night at Booze Time Club. It was a great time and they performed their new songs. They are coming out with a new album in November and they are travelling to London to record some of the tracks. The Snails is a popular Moldovan band, the same band that performed American Classic Rock songs at the AmCham 4th of July party.

In general things are going very well. Masha and I are keeping busy and we are enjoying the cool weather.

Take care and keep in touch.

Goodbye Summer, Hello Japan

2007-09-03T13:44:00.000+03:00

Greetings,

Summer is now officially over in Moldova, at least according to students. September 1st is traditionally the first day of school for all schools and universities in Moldova. However, today was actually the first day of school since the 1st fell on Saturday.

The school in Masha's village had a celebration to honor the first bell of the school year as did virtually every other school in Moldova. During this celebration students recite poems and sing songs and teachers and administrators give long and most the same speeches about how great school is and how this is going to be the best school year ever. Actually at the school in Masha's village they had a very special event. As I mentioned close to the beginning of summer, the school is now officially named after Ion Suruceanu, Moldova's most famous singer. He is from Suruceni and accepted the invitation for the school to be named after him. We attended that ceremony some time in May and he promised to be at the celebration today with computers for the school's new computer lab. Well he kept his word and was at the school today with the computers that he is personally donating to the school. In May he said that he now feels a responsibility to help the school now that his name is on it and it looks like he really will help out.

Masha's classes also started today but she will not be going to class this week because she is still under contract at work until the end of the week. In Moldova the first week of classes are not very productive and usually it takes about two weeks or more for the class schedule at her university to stabilize itself. So she'll return to classes next week and continue to work part time at the office where she works now.

I, of course, am unaffected by school being back in session, well almost. Now that students need to travel to the city every day our morning commute will become even more crowded than it normally is. At least it's not as hot as it was earlier this summer.

The weather has actually been rather mild lately. Highs in the low to mid 70s and very cool nights and mornings. I think everyone here is happy to see the extremely hot weather be on the way out but not too many people are looking forward to winter. Most people here are saying that this winter is going to be extremely cold and icy with little to no snow. Most people get their information by word of mouth but some get it from Farmer's Almanacs and those do say that the winter should be very cold after a very hot summer, or so I'm told.

Work is keeping me pretty busy. We have hired another employee and she will start next week. She is going to be the project manager for us and we are currently organizing a conference with the topic of "Corporate Social Responsibility". The concept is not very well known in Moldova and that is exactly why we're doing it. The general idea about CSR here is that nobody does something for nothing and if you're giving computers to a school, for example, that you are secretly getting something in return for someone or the government. Of course this could be true in many cases but we want to focus on the genuine acts of CSR in Moldova.

My mom recently found out that she is going to Japan. We are all really excited for her, especially me and Masha. I'm excited because I too hope to go back to my birth place and see where I lived when I was a baby. Masha is very excited because she really wants to learn Japanese and is very fascinated with Japanese culture. My mom will have some free time whilst she's there and she hopes to make it to the Yokosuka Naval Base (where I was born) to visit my parents', and my, old stomping grounds.

Please make sure to participate in this week's survey.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Moldova's Independence Day

2007-08-28T15:00:00.000+03:00

Hello again,

Yesterday was independence day in Moldova. Sixteen years ago Moldova gained its independence. We tend to think that the United States is a relatively young country, but Moldova having only 16 years of independence is still a baby. I heard mixed views of how Moldovans feel about independence day. Some people are very happy that Moldova is independent because Moldovans are now free to direct their country into the direction they see fit. Other people say that this freedom came at the cost of a bad economy and no real possibilities for its improvement in the near future, i.e., joining the European Union or getting Transnistria back.

Despite the mixed views on the country's independence, Chisinau had concerts and celebrations all day yesterday. Masha and I were in the city and there were not as many people in the center of the city and at the concerts as we thought there would be. However, the weather yesterday was beautiful. We finally had a break from the heat and it was a sunny and cool day, a perfect day to celebrate a nation's independence with a barbeque or party.

There is another holiday on Friday called "Limba Noastra", or Our Language. This is another holiday that gets mixed feelings from Moldovans. The basic reason for this holiday is to celebrate the Moldovan language. There are many people in Moldova who resent the Russian language and the former Soviet Union. Many of these people could speak Russian fluently but they simply refuse to utter a word, even if some one speaks Russian to them they will understand every word but just answer back in Moldovan (Romanian). It's not too uncommon to witness, or be involved in, a conversation where one person speaks Russian and the other person speaks Moldovan and they both understand each other completely. I have been involved in such a conversation and it's kind of surreal, I mean you're speaking one language and hearing another but yet you completely understand the conversation.

Speaking of parties, Masha and I were invited to a birthday party on Saturday. It was a party for a guy named Heath, he is also married to a Moldova who just happens to work at the Peace Corps. Anyway, the party was held in a park in Chisinau and it was pretty close to a traditional Moldovan party. We got there around noon and it was terribly hot that day. The portion of the park where we were was shaded and it had a small stream running through it, which made for a relatively cool spot. There was a mix of Americans and Moldovans at the party which always makes for an interesting party where there usually can be three or more languages over heard. The party was a pretty good time and we stayed in the park until about 4 pm before moving on to the next party.

The second party that we went to was for a Peace Corps volunteer named Adam. It was his going away party/last performance with his band. During his service he started playing the harmonica with a band that is relatively well known around Chisinau and Peace Corps circles. We stayed at this party for a couple of hours before moving on to the concert. The concert was held at a bar called "The Attic" (translated from Russian) and it was packed. Adam's band played a diverse set of music including some of their own songs and various other American Classic Rock songs. We had a great time and everyone enjoyed the band very much.

I spoke to the people at the U.S. Embassy on Friday. Masha and I submitted our first round of documents on June 15 and the results from those documents just came back last week sometime. Basically everything we submitted was accepted and approved and now we can move onto the next step. The next step will involve us getting some more documents and then eventually going to Bucharest, Romania for Masha to have a medical exam. After the exam we will have to go to the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest and, if all goes according to plan, we will leave the Embassy with Masha's visa. The visa is only good for six months so we have to be careful about the timing of our trip to Bucharest. We are planning on going sometime in March but a lot depends on when we can get a Romanian visa for Masha. I've heard horror stories and seen the mobs outside of the Romanian Embassy in Chisinau. These mobs are full of people, most of them waiting for visas, since Romania joined the EU. Anyway, we have a meeting with the U.S. Embassy on September 12 and hopefully we'll get the information that we need then.

I would like to let you all know that my brother Chris has been very much involved in the opening of a new restaurant in Royal Oak, Michigan. The name of the restaurant is Ronin and it just opened on Wednesday, August 15. Ronin is located in downton Royal Oak at 4th and Laffaette, next to the Royal Oak Music Theater. I invite you all in the Detroit area to check it out and ask for "Chef Chris" by name so he can come out and visit you at your table.

Congratulations to Ryan Stegman and Erin Zalmanski, they got engaged last week.

Take care and keep in touch.

Back to Normal

2007-08-20T10:06:00.000+03:00

Greetings,

This summer continues to be extremely hot. Actually it's been an interesting summer here. There has been virtually no rain and it's been one of the hottest summers on record in Moldova. This in itself is not big news but the effects of the heat and drought are already being felt here. Since most of the crops will not have a good yield this year there is already a shortage of grain and that has caused prices to go up. Staple food stuffs are expected to go up in price by as much as 30% by the fall and bread and bottled water have already gotten more expensive in Masha's village. Moldova has already asked for help from the EU and the U.S. to help with the shortage of grain so maybe that will help keep prices under control.

I have started formally studying Russian again. The last time that I studied with a teacher was while in I was still in Soldanesti with the Peace Corps and I thought that I should start again. This time I will be working with Masha's mother. She has been teaching Russian for over 30 years and she is one of only three teachers in Moldova to hold the qualifications that she has for teaching the language, not to mention she is Russian. We had our first lesson yesterday and it went well. I thought that it was going to take a few lessons to get used to our new roles of teacher and student but it was not awkward at all. In the first lesson we covered some basic grammar and family members. I love the Russian language, it is so different from anything that I've ever studied before and my goal is to speak better Russian than Romanian before I leave Moldova.

Work is going well for both Masha and me. We are both really busy and Masha is getting ready to go back to the university in September. At AmCham we just finished our response to the Moldovan Government's feedback regarding the binding economic restraints that we presented them with in June. Now we are waiting to see what they decide to officially recommend to the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Basically the Moldovan Government is going to identify what they believe are the most binding constraints to economic development in Moldova in order for those areas to receive funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation. This is something that AmCham is very interested in because we could potentially get our members' sectors of the economy a lot of money for development.

Enough about work though. We still have not heard from the U.S. Embassy regarding Masha's visa. I am going to call the Embassy today to try and get some new information but it's only been two months since we gave them the documents and in government time that's not very long.

Be sure to answer the survey question located on the right hand side of this page.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad

Getting up to Speed

2007-08-16T10:34:00.000+03:00

Hello everyone,

I thought it was about time that I stopped living like I wasn't in touch with technology. Many of you have your own blogs or myspace accounts so, as not to be left behind, I am starting my own blog.

I guess in one way or another I have already been blogging the old fashioned way through my weekly email - no more. I will no longer be sending a weekly but I will be updating this blog on a weekly basis. I think this will work out for all of us since your inboxes won't be filled up by my emails anymore and I can just as easily update this blog as I can write an email. I will also be adding past emails and pictures to this blog.

So now that I am officially part of today's technology movement I invite you to start your own blogs too. During the last three years (it will actually be three years in September) I have become acustomed to sharing my life with you all via email. Writing about your life every week gives you a new perspective and insight into your own existence. Even if many of my emails are not very noteworthy they will at least provide me with a sense of how I lived in Moldova when I look back on my time here years from now. I think that is something that I will continue to be thankful for as my time in Moldova comes to a close. I have already read some of my first emails from Moldova and they help shed light on how I have transformed and grown as a person since arriving here.

People always say that life is short and that each year goes by more rapidly than the last. I think that is the perfect reason to document your life. When you are focused on the present each day comes and goes withoug much difference but when you look back the realization of how fast time passes by becomes clear. Speaking of time flying, Masha and I were married 6 months ago today.

Thank you all for being interested in my life enough to read my emails. I hope your interest will continue with my blog too.

Take care and keep in touch.

Jerad