Chisinau, Moldova

Right at the top of the list of "countries you never knew existed in Europe," even above Liechtenstein. Moldova is just about as Eastern European as you're going to get - both culturally and geographically. Actually, it doesn't even remind me of Europe all that much. It's more like South America or Malaysia or something... except for that the people look like they're in the Russian Mafia or something. They're actually all really nice, though.
Picture of me infront of some sort of Moldovan ghetto... or maybe these are their mansions - I don't know:

Typical Church shot:

Getting here was a little bit of an adventure. I took a local city bus from my hostel in Lviv to the international bus station. The city bus was by far the most packed I've ever seen any form of public transportation. With my sort of big bag = adventure.
Then I took the 17 hour bus ride from Lviv to Chisinau. I've done some long bus rides before - including something like 24 hours with Dave and Neil in Brazil. If I had to choose, though, I'd take 24 hours with my friends on a bus over 17 hours on a bus being squished by an obese gypsey. Obese gypsey = adventure.
Then I got to Chisinau at 10am this morning, in the crazy heat. I had to take another local bus to get me to my hostel here... somehow, it was twice as busy as my bus in Lviv. I wish I had a picture to show how insanely packed it was, but I literally couldn't move.

I'm here. In Moldova. It's weird, but it's sick.