what a wonderfull life

Mom, please close your ears- or your eyes in this case- and skip down a paragraph! And everyone else should know that hitch-hiking is a very normal, very acceptable way of getting from place to place here...

Darren and Kim live in the same region and have pretty regular transportation between the two villages. Howeverr just the other night that was not the case. The bus Darren and I waited for never came and like a chump I let him talk me into hitching home. It was 6:30 and very dark out, there are no street lamps in Moldova. While hitching is very acceptable, it is seen as creepy after dark. Which means only creepy people pick you up! We got lucky after only 10 minutes a car with a sober enough looking man pulled up and said he was only going half way, one village away from our destination. Figuring every car going past us must travel through his village we got in. After 15 minutes and massive amounts of lost hope I put my arm out for a passing car, but when I realized it was a limousine immediately dropped it. To our surprise, the man stopped and told us to get in the back (at which point ideas about rusty scalpels and missing kidneys fluttered through my head, but it was so warm and I was so cold)! In we climbed and it was glorious! A truly 'crunked' out ride. Blaring music videos from a flat screen, half drunken crystal glasses and lava lamps! Life was good, we could barley feel the pot-holes. He dropped us off exactly where we wanted to go and it only cost $2, $1 for the ride and another for the tip.