May 23, 2016: Loving Chisinau

Today is our final day in Chisinau, Moldova.  So far we really like this city.  It is green, easy to get around, low cost and very friendly with amazing food options and what appears to be awesome public transportation.  And one of the best things is that it is a wonderful city that is so liveable and is in Europe but has no tourists!

This morning the power went out and stayed out for a long time.  We eventually decided that it was not going to come back on so we walked down the thirteen flights of stairs and went back to Bouchee for another breakfast there.  Both girls really wanted croissants again and we really liked our breakfast food there as well.  We stayed for a while today, as we could see that the whole area including the underground “mall” in the middle of the city was without power.  Bouchee had emergency power only, so they could cook but their extra lighting was off.  When that came back on, we knew that the power was back.

Miller Family Having Breakfast at Bouchee in Chisinau

On our walk back to the apartment, the power went out again.  This is going to be a long day.  We do not want to climb thirteen flights of stairs to our penthouse, so we decided to go to Andy’s Pizza, which is not far away, and sit outside there while we waited for the power to return.  We had a few drinks and the girls got some fruit desserts.

The power was finally back on around two and we went back to the apartment for a little bit, did some research and then set off a few hours later to walk down to the railway station to see about getting tickets back to Romania tomorrow.

The walk to the train station was rather long and downhill.  We decided that this would be way too much to walk with our luggage tomorrow and that we will be needing to get a taxi when we head out of the city.  The walk let us see a lot more of the city today and a lot of the shopping areas.  We found another underground mall area as well and I got a picture of this one with Liesl walking through it.

The train station was very nice and has a nice courtyard and a big fountain in it.  We talked to the ticket agent and found out that we need to buy our tickets tomorrow.  We have all of the details now, though, and know that we will be leaving Chisinau tomorrow afternoon at a quarter till five to take the overnight train to Bucharest where we will be staying for two days.  We asked if we needed reservations and they assured us that there would be plenty of room on the train for us to buy the tickets at the last minute.

We walked back and wanted to go to the Armenian Cemetery as Dominica wanted to see that but after going only the tiniest bit in that direction all three of them were just too hot and tired to keep walking today so back to the apartment we went.  We stayed there for a little bit and then I went out for a walk alone as I wanted to get some video footage at the cemetery for our Twitter Vine video feed which we have started doing.  I managed to get there and see the changing of the guard!  Perfect timing, I am very glad that I did the extra walk.

As I was walking back the wind was picking up and some rain began, but just a little bit.  I even managed to get a pretty good video with the iPhone in the playground of the wind whipping up the seed pods that are all over the place here.

While I was coming up the elevator it turned into a real storm with a ton of rain. I made it back just in time.  We spent the later afternoon just in the apartment waiting for the storm to pass.  It was a lot of rain.

Before going out to dinner we went to the creperia again as the girls have been asking for it.  Sometimes I’ve realized that it is better to go to two different places to eat if it keeps everyone happy.

This evening we returned to Andy’s Pizza and sat outside on the upstairs deck and got some awesome food.  No pizza for us tonight.  This was our first time really eating here.  It was really good, we enjoyed it a lot.

On the walk home I saw the same flower seller that I had gotten the roses for the girls from the other night so I introduced the girls to her and they each picked out some flowers for themselves.

Back to the penthouse and off to bed for us.  The power remained on and we are checking out tomorrow afternoon to catch our train to Bucharest.