Expat In Romania

The sun shines bright and clouds are sparse in an otherwise clear sky. The dash is showing 23℃ as our car dips and weaves between the green, yellow, and fallow fields of Neamț county. It is a quintessential European drive. Vaslui county, the Wild East, is just around the bend, or at the next straightway, I'm not sure where exactly but I know it's coming up because Roman is twenty minutes behind us and the small white and red mileage markers are already indicating Negrești, our destination in Vaslui, is 35 kilometers ahead. Then I see it, a large billboard coming up on the right side of the road. All county borders have signs of this type, usually affixed to long poles, illustrated with the Romanian and EU flags, the national and/or local coat of arms, and, in block letters,  Bun Venit in Judetul _  ( Welcome to _ County ).  Not that we're expecting a welcoming committee, but...Pulled over on the right, no more than ten meters beyond the 'Welcome to Vaslui C...

Romanian Moldova, not to be confused with Moldovan (Moldavian) Moldova aka. 'Republica', as Romanians sometimes disambiguate, is located in the country's eastern region beginning with (and this is often contested) Buzău in the south and ending at Suceava in the north - also contested. The locals in these border counties and towns often seek to disassociate themselves from Moldova but especially from the appellation, 'Moldovan'.  "No, no," a Suceavan will say, "I am Bucovinean". Romanian jokes involving Moldovans generally portray their protagonists as drunk, aggressive, and somewhere at the crossroads of nit and wit. Sometimes all at once. As one story goes, two Moldovan shepherds are minding their sheep when out of the blue one hits the other with his cane, knocking him down.  The victim gets back up without saying a word and resumes the sheep minding, but after a little while he turns to the other. "Listen," he says, "that kn...