Stolen

Day 519
I was the first person up in my room and packed quickly and quietly. The guy who had asked if I believed in JC very loudly said "miss, I'm sorry for last night." I whispered back that if he wanted to talk we could do so outside, but that people were sleeping and we can't talk.

After checking out I mapped out my day over breakfast.

In the city garden I possed with everyone else on a bronze chair. I have no idea why , but everyone was doing it. After taking pictures of various buildings and monuments I headed to the Western and Eastern Art Museum. We can just call it the W & E from now on.

The W & E sounded amazing. It might sound a bit familiar because on July 30 of last year Caravaggio's "Taking of the Christ," worth US $100 million, was stolen from here. Not a trace of it has been found. Miracles have happened here before though. At the end of the 18th century Katherine the Great purchased four Frans Hals paintings (he was a Dutch master). The two shops transporting them were hit by a brutal storm. One sank and the other was badly damaged. All four works were considered lost. In 1958 an art collector was perusing a market and was drawn to an ancient looking painting. The museum paid the woman who had it 9 rubles. I don't know how much that was then, but it wasn't much. Another one of the paintings was found in a museum storage room.

In 1965 both paintings were sent to Moscow fora special exhibit. St. Luke was cut from its from. When the thieves started talking to buyers they ran into an agent and were caught. The painting had been really mistreated and thought destroyed, however the experts were able to salvage it. The other tow paintings have been found as well. One was in a private collection, the other in the Getty museum in LA.

As an aside a Russian woman recently threw a cup at the Mona Lisa for not receiving French citizenship. The painting was unharmed. It is also unknown as to why she would attach a painting by an Italian painter.

I was really excited about this museum. The bottom floor held the Eastern art collection. It was good, but I wanted to see the European stuff. When I got upstairs I found out that the museum was under renovations because of the stolen painting. There wasn't much to see at all. It really sucked.

Disappointed I headed to the Archaeological Museum. I was pretty good with a small but nice Greek and Egyptian collection.

After some more wandering I had finished my to do list I went to an i-cafe to type up the entries I had written the night before. When I was done I went back to the hostel to charge my i-pod.

At 9 I asked the guy at reception to call me a cab. He asked when my bus was and when I told him 10:15. He said that I didn't need to leave until 9:30 and that he would call later. He then left, but told me that he would come back. At 9:40 he still wasn't there and I was irritated.

I managed to find a cab but the guy tried to over charge me. I told him that I only had about $7 left and he took that.

The bus was loading when I arrived. I found out a few hours later that I had gotten the right ticket after all and had missed Transdniester.

Cats!

Day 518
My train arrived around around 8 am and I had no problem finding the bus for my hostel. The friendly drivers then pointed me in the direction I needed. That didn't prevent me from getting lost though. As they say, if there's a will there's a way.

At the hostel I was greeted by a very friendly woman who showed me that instead of giving everyone a key they kept on in a lock box on the door. The combination was really easy to remember as it as the same as a very important date in American history.

A cab was then called for me so that I could go to the bus station. I needed to get a night bus ticket to Chisnau in Moldova that wouldn't pass thru the breakaway region of Transdniester. The boarder guards there are known for demanding large bribes and even confiscating electronics. Transdniester is not recognized by any other country so I don't think that it belongs on my to do list. Of course I had forgotten to ask the woman at the hostel to write down what I needed. I had also forgotten the name of the city I was going to. I ended up just writing down Moldova and hoping that I ended up in the right place.

I then had to get back to the hostel and all of the cab drivers tried to rip me off. I ended up really angry. I was tired, hungry, and irritated. To take care of at least one problem I decided to eat at the first cafe I found. One of the girls working there had spent a year living in the US and was able to give me a much better map. I was lost no longer.

After breakfast I popped into and i-cafe for a bit to book my next hostel.

My bit of culture for the day was the Fine Arts Museum. There were a lot of cats sleeping outside. They were really cute. Unfortunately pictures were not allowed and I had to write down the names of the paintings I liked.

I grabbed a kabab on the way back to the hostel. The shower was really weird, it was rather unbalanced large tub.

When I was clean it was time to face the music. I was horribly behind in the blog. I went to an Irish pub and wrote and wrote until I was all up to date. It felt really good.
Back at the hostel I chatted with some Russians until it was about 1 am. I was sort shocked that the light in the room was still on. I saw a girl reading and told her that I was going to turn off the light. She said that she was reading, I replied that it was 1 am and that there was a common room for that. I didn't see that there was another person in the room reading as well. When I got into bed the guy I hadn't seen said that he was reading. I repeated that there was a common room for that and it was one am. He then asked if I believed in Jesus. I replied that all I believed in at 1 am was sleeping.

When will people learn that the hostel room is for sleeping? Now I understand that someone will snore, someone will come back at 4 am and be drunk and loud, and that an alarm will go off at 5 am. This is all not fun, but it's staying in a hostel. Turning on lights in the middle of the night, talking while others are sleeping and have sex are not ok. Just because your staying in a hostel you don't get a free pass to behave like an asshole. Really, asking me about my religion because I want to sleep at 1 am is just asinine. I feel like I should pass around a sheet of rules or something.
At least I fell asleep quickly and those who should be stripped of their passports and sent to live in, I don't know, Dante's 4th circle of hell, didn't keep me up.