Aș dori să mănânc ceva

("I would like to eat something")

(pronounced "asch dor-ee suh muh-nunk che-vah")

Friends, it is really hard not to love a place that has such delicious food. 

I've already posted about the superb frozen delicacies, but we've also sampled delicious Russian crepes (blini), delicious juice, and yummy cookies. 

Below are pictures some more of the delightful Moldovan foods we've sampled:

We begged Jesse's coworker Vlada to take us to a traditional Moldovan restaurant, and it was INCREDIBLE. We had some delicious placinte (thin bread filled with cabbage, potatoes, sour cherries or a soft herb-y cheese and then fried) that I have been dreaming about every day since, along with mamaliga (like polenta but more moist, with sour cream and other sauces for dipping) with some deliciously seasoned meats. Oh, and we had some incredible cantaloupe and watermelon lemonades that we had to try really hard to not down in one gulp. So delicious! 

Nikolai spotted some cotton candy the other day but we had already had ice cream that day so we didn't get any. When we spotted some again a different day, we had to get it! Also, it was bigger than his head and gave us all tummy aches, so that was a perk. 

We've tried other delicious things, but the last ones I have pictures of are these incredible pastries. We may or may not have devoured 3 croissants (filled with Nutella, sweet custard and grape/maybe currant filling, respectively), 1 sweet spiral roll and a custard-and-fruit filled pastry, all in about 10 minutes. AND WE DIDN'T REGRET IT AT ALL.

Really though, this encounter left us scratching our heads. If we can find this kind of incredible pastry here, at a random corner bakery stand in the poorest country in Europe, why is it so hard to find good pastries in the U.S.? What is wrong with our country??? 

Maybe we need to ditch this whole law/library stuff and go learn how to make superb pastries, with the sole intent of Making America Great (Again? For the first time?).