Happy New Years in Moldova..

Bringing in the New Year with friends and a great family in Moldova. Each year my normal tradition is to spend time with my friends back in the states, head to a bar, dance the night away and end our evening around 2pm.....

Moldova........ Well is a whole other story. My evening on the 31st of December started at 4:30 pm with another volunteer Brandon McKeel, we enjoyed a beer at the underground bar near Peace Corps. This volunteer is someone I will greatly miss when he leaves. He has been a great friend and a good listener over the past 7 months..

After heading back from the bar to Peace Corps I proceeded to moldovanize myself for the evening.. High heels, and a short black dress with gray tights... It was very important on this night to look good 1. Because we were going to a oscar party, 2. New Years Eve. Then around six Alex came to pick me up to head over to his families house to enjoy festivities. In Moldova it's a tradition to bring in the New Year with your family and afterwards go out to the bars.

How we spent the evening at Alex's families was loads and loads of food, champagne, wine and presents. The other tradition in Moldova is they receive presents on New Years Eve verses Christmas. This was a new experience for me. I received a bottle of wine and some green tea. :)

Me, Dasha and Alex

At 10:00 pm we celebrated the old Russian New Years with toasts and the traditional cheek kisses. And again at 12:00 am we toasted to our New Year. While discussing the bad and good things of the past year, and our hopes for the future.

12:30am finally came around and we took off for Eli Pili. This is a bar that our friend owns. Ruslan had an amazing set up and we had our own private room. There was MORE food, champagne, wine, whiskey, vodka, hookah... really anything you can imagine. The night was spent dancing, signing karaoke, watching the entertainment. It was pretty awesome to see one of the most popular Moldovan Pop Singers at the bar as well!! :)

Alex and Tanya

The famous moldovan singer..

Ruslan 

Our night ended at 7am...