Off to MOLDOVA!!

 On April 9th at 4am four leaders and 15 students met at BFA to drive to the Basel airport so that we could being the ADVENTURE of the MOLDOVA MISSIONS TRIP!

E is the only girl from my dorm on the trip and we were able to fly from Basel to Munich together.

In Munich we had a layover...and since we were all up very early in the morning, some students decided to take a nap where they were!!

We arrived in Chisinau, the capitol city of Moldova.  Igor (in the gray and blue coat) is our contact.  We were loaded into a mini bus that could hold 15...but there were 22 of us counting Igor and the bus driver.  It was a tight squeeze.  Igor then gave us a driving tour of the former Communist city.

Notice how it is one building and yet there are many different varieties of window sizes and shapes.

I really liked the creative name they have for their mall!  In this city there is an interesting mix of the modern and the ancient. 

We were able to stop for about 20 minutes to go tourist shopping at this open air market.  I bought a pin of the Moldovan flag.  Then we were off....on a 2 hour ride to Antonesti, the village we were going to stay at.  It was a very bumpy road!!!!!!  

Many of the Moldovan homes are painted blue or decorated with a blue or a green.

This is some of the Moldovan countryside.  Even though Moldova is considered the poorest country in Europe, the people are very proud of their homeland.