Sergiu speaks no English; I speak even less Romanian (Moldova’s state language), but Sergiu explains – via Natalje – that if we drink enough alcohol this totally won’t matter. Well, it’s gotta be worth a shot. Ahem.
Turns out he’s right. As Sergiu exuberantly offers up shot glasses of mulberry vodka, pine-needle vodka, strawberry vodka, “medicine” vodka, “78 per cent proof” vodka and “at this point I forgot to take notes” vodka, we start chattering away in some special drunken Esperanto before breaking lustily into urgent folk songs, and then at last I stumble home, chuckling, to my…
