May 22, 2016: Liesl Discovers Croissants

We liked our food at Bouchee yesterday so much and their breakfast menu had looked good so we decided, as we knew of nowhere else to go, that we would go there for breakfast this morning.  Liesl ended up discovering, after months of refusing to try them, that she absolutely loves croissants and she just ate and ate them for breakfast today.  She ate through Bouchee’s supply of small ones and dove into their big ones as well.  We had to wait at the restaurant for a while for Liesl to get her fill of the bread products.

After breakfast we took a slow stroll up the main boulevard and did some shoe shopping on the way (but no one found anything) and worked our way to the Arch of Triumph and the first of the big city parks.  We explored the park and found some fountains and then some playgrounds and let the girls spend some energy there.

Luciana had some attitude problems and missed out on having as much playground time as Liesl got to have, though.

We ended up getting snacks at a little pizza place in the park.  We got a potato sampler tray that turns out is a Moldovan thing.  It is potato wedges, French fries and these unique potato ball snacks all in one.  Tons of places that we have seen already have this.  I got my first Moldovan beer as well, a Chisinau.

After the little snack break we grabbed gelato from a stand by the pizza place and returned to the playground so that the girls could play for another hour or so.

While the girls were on the playground, Dominica and I did our first travelogue videos.  We are starting by working on a Twitter-based channel that can only accept thirty second “Vines” or short video clips.  This will give us some solid constraints and force us to work with that to get started.  Luciana decided that she wanted to record a “YouTube Channel” too, and she made a short clip while we were in the park.

After the first park, we crossed diagonally to the city’s other major park and took the time to see the famous statue there; but the girls were tired and we could not go into that park but had to head back to our hotel.  The walk was not far, but too much for Ciana.

Everyone, except for me, was tired this afternoon.  So I dropped everyone off at the house after their “long morning walk” and I set out for a much longer walk on my own.  I went south and west from the apartment so that I could go to the Armenian Cemetary, a major point of interest in Chisinau as it is where the Soviet Eternal Flame Memorial is with the standing guard is located.  It is a famous World War II memorial.  I had wanted to see that and it was not far away at all.

I went to the cemetery and walked around there for half an hour.  It is well worth seeing if you are in Chisinau.  I walked through the cemetery and out the far side and took the road continuing on for a very, very long walk up hill through the city.  I just kept walking as long as I was going uphill to make sure that I was putting in all of the effort getting there so that it would be faster and easier getting home.

I ended up walking through several really interesting and nice neighbourhoods and got to see a number of the old Soviet era housing blocks as well as lots of new construction in many different areas.  The city really is just amazingly green and seems to be incredibly liveable and great, clean public transportation running everywhere.  I found another Andy’s Pizza located in the middle of a neat residential area, too.

I walked so far that I actually went out to the last road in the city before turning around and walking back to the house.  Many kilometres on this walk.

Last night when we went out for crepes the girls had spotted a restaurant named Jeraffe, that had big giraffes out front and they asked if we could go there.  I checked out their menu online last night and thought that it looked awesome so I was totally up for that.  So this evening that is what we did.

We knew that Jeraffe was on the fancy side so we dressed up as best as we could given the limited wardrobe of impromptu travellers.  The restaurant turned out to be pretty busy with a large birthday party but they made room for us.

Our dinner was absolutely amazing.  Some of the best food that I have had in many years.  Everything was just great and everyone loved their meals.  Great food and great service.  Luciana had had a long day and actually fell asleep during our dinner and slept for at least half an hour at the restaurant and I had to carry her back to the apartment (tomorrow she would wake up and remember none of this as she completely slept through everything.)

Liesl has been wanting to sleep in the upper room in our penthouse here in Chisinau and as it is so warm I am not too worried about sleeping up there myself.  So I slept with Ciana downstairs on the pull out couch and Dominica and Liesl slept upstairs in the warm room.  I find it much more comfortable sleeping by all of the open windows.

During the night we lost power for twenty minutes.  I always know the details of power losses since the CPAP forces me awake.  I got to look out of the high rise windows and see the city had gone dark so I knew that it was not just our apartment or building.

Overall it was a good night’s sleep.