The performance in Iasi was great. 200 people. Standing ovation. But after the show, they had to take down the set and load it in the trailer. That led to a big search for a pizzeria open til midnight. It was a long walk but I was glad I did it because we were in a nice section of town which I hadn't seen. Pedestrian street, flowery displays of cabbage every few feet. Cabbage bushes. I thought the whole city was like my neighborhood but I just lived on the wrong side of the tracks.
I had tried to go to the Palace where there's an art museum on the first floor and historical museum on the second but you had to buy tickets in the store where an entire 3rd grade class was buying stuff. One little kid pushed me; he probably heard about the time I pushed the kid at the Dracula castle. I waited around for awhile but didn't have time to wait for hours so I left, right when another class was coming in. Good decision.
We left Iasi on Saturday for the 3 hour drive to Chisinau.
The crossing would have been anticlimactic except for the hassle crossing the Romanian border. The agent came on the van and matched our faces to our passports and took them all to stamp. Another agent had looked at the trailer but didn't ask for it to be opened. Our passports were gone for a long time but other vehicles were moving slowly too. Finally, he came out with one passport. Beata's (the artistic director). They couldn't find the stamp when she arrived in Romania. That stamp was in her Polish passport which she usually uses in Europe because she lives in Barcelona. She gave that to them and they didn't have to honor it since she had listed her US passport number in our official travel papers but they did. Good thing because I would have had to play her part and she has a 10 minute monologue.
There was the possibility Moldova wouldn't take that passport but it seems they didn't care how we got into the EU or out of it. The bus driver took our passports into the building, came back with them stamped and they didn't even look at us. The US and Moldovan embassies were supposed to have called to say let us through and I guess that worked, along with the money we paid to ensure the trailer wouldn't be searched. The driver had to buy an additional certificate to add to his mounds of paperwork but that was it. Meanwhile, the line of trucks going into Romania was at least a mile long. Everyone was being searched.
Unbeknownst to me, I had booked an Airbnb 2 blocks from Trapdoor's hotel. They never know where they're staying and eating until the last minute. This tour is mostly funded by the individual festival. They are the first American group to be invited to perform in Moldova.
Also going on this weekend is the 2018 wine festival. Moldova is supposed to make some of the best wine in the world. I haven't tried any yet because I was too tired and hungry to go anywhere other than the closest restaurant, Andy's pizza. I had a hamburger and a Pepsi. Luckily, the Hypermarket was next door so I could buy laundry detergent. I have a washer and separate dryer in my apartment in the Luxury Apartment complex. This apartment is huge, has everything you need but is tacky. There's mood lighting of different colors in each ceiling. Plus there's this shower. It's harder to understand than European washing machines.
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