Two Hours, One Jacket and Far Too Much Cheese

Only a week after our first proper visit to Port Mall, we went back.

This time there was a very specific mission. Viorica had decided that she needed a new jacket for autumn and, apparently, several other seasons of the year. From the way the subject was presented, this was clearly not going to be just a jacket. It was going to be a special jacket, requiring proper investigation, comparison, inspection and whatever other mysterious processes are involved in selecting the correct item of clothing.

My enthusiasm for participating in this operation was approximately zero.

I have long accepted that there are certain shopping expeditions where my contribution is neither required nor particularly useful. Standing outside changing rooms while being asked whether two nearly identical jackets look different is not one of my recognised professional competencies. Fortunately, our previous visit to Port Mall had already revealed an excellent alternative: the upper food level, an Italian café, an outside terrace and that remarkable panoramic view over Chișinău.

So we arrived, Viorica disappeared into the serious business of finding the perfect jacket, and I went upstairs to perform my own equally important task: drinking coffee while looking at the city.

The division of labour

This arrangement worked extremely well. Somewhere below me, shops were being examined, jackets were being tried, decisions were being reconsidered and probably several entirely new criteria were being introduced as the search progressed. I, meanwhile, had found a table outside, ordered a coffee and settled into the much simpler activity of doing absolutely nothing useful.

I was perfectly happy.

The terrace has rapidly become one of my favourite parts of Port Mall. The mall itself is busy and enclosed, but the moment I step outside upstairs the entire character of the place changes. There is open air, a broad view over the surrounding landscape and, beyond it, Chișinău stretching across the horizon. Port Mall itself describes the terrace as a place from which visitors can have coffee while overlooking the city, so apparently my strategy was not merely laziness but the intended use of the architecture.

Viorica had the shops. I had coffee, fresh air and a view over Chișinău. This seemed to me a perfectly sensible distribution of responsibilities.

Time passed. Quite a lot of time, actually. I watched people come and go, looked across the city, drank my coffee and became increasingly comfortable with the idea that there was absolutely no reason for me to move. At some point I stopped wondering how the jacket operation was progressing because experience has taught me that asking such questions rarely makes shopping faster.

Almost two hours later, somebody suddenly kissed me.

This was initially surprising.

Fortunately, it was Viorica.

She had returned from the expedition looking very pleased with herself and carrying the result: the super-hyper-special jacket had been found. I am still not entirely certain what makes this particular jacket suitable for autumn, winter and whichever other climatic situations were included in the original requirements, but the mission had clearly been successful. Most importantly, I had managed to contribute to that success without once being asked whether beige was better than slightly different beige.

Then we discovered the cheese

That should probably have been the end of the story. Jacket acquired, coffee consumed, husband recovered from the surprise kiss: go home.

Except that on the way out we needed to buy a few things for Viorica's birthday on Monday. This is not going to be a birthday party at home. She is taking some food and drinks to the office, so we were looking for the sort of things that can be shared easily with colleagues. We stopped at a small cheese-and-wine shop on the ground floor that I had noticed before but had never properly investigated.

This turned out to be dangerous.

The shop is called Istorii cu Cașcaval, literally something along the lines of “Stories with Cheese”. Port Mall describes it as a small business built around good cheeses, wines from small producers, sauces and accessories. Their own catalogue goes rather further: they specialise in authentic European cheeses and say that their selection includes more than one hundred varieties from countries including the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, Germany, Norway and England. They also stock Italian cheeses such as Gorgonzola.

In other words, I had accidentally walked into a problem.

There were Dutch cheeses. Swiss cheeses. Italian cheeses. Mature cheeses. Soft cheeses. Cheeses with herbs and spices and other things that cheese probably did not strictly need but that immediately made me curious.

Then came the truly irresponsible part.

They let you taste them.

A shop containing more than a hundred European cheeses is already dangerous. A shop containing more than a hundred European cheeses and actively encouraging me to taste them is basically financial sabotage.

I do not know whose business model it was to place free samples in front of somebody who likes cheese, but it works.

Very well.

What had started as a sensible birthday-shopping stop gradually turned into a small European tour conducted entirely through dairy products. Taste this one from Holland. Try something different. Compare another. Perhaps that one would work nicely with wine. At some point the original requirement of “buy some things for Monday” had clearly been abandoned.

We finally left carrying a substantial quantity of cheese, some white wine and, because apparently owning cheese is no longer enough, a new set of cheese knives.

I am not entirely sure how a shopping trip for Viorica's jacket ended with me owning specialised cutlery for cheese, but I suspect this is precisely how good retail works.

Europe arriving one cheese at a time

There was also a slightly more serious thought behind all of this, although I promise not to turn a story about jackets and cheese into a geopolitical essay.

One of the things that continues to surprise me in Moldova is how quickly the range of products, shops, restaurants and services is changing. It is very easy to arrive with an outdated mental picture of what should or should not be available here, only to discover a shop in Chișinău selling authentic cheeses from across Europe, specialised accessories and wines that would look entirely normal in a shop in Italy, Germany or the Netherlands.

That matters because European integration is not only something that happens in treaties, government ministries and negotiating chapters. It also happens much more quietly through trade, distribution networks, standards, investment, consumer expectations and ordinary people becoming accustomed to products and services from across the continent.

Moldova is already an EU candidate country, and the accession process has moved materially forward during 2026. The first negotiating cluster was formally opened in June, followed by further negotiations in July. Nobody knows precisely how long the complete process will take, and membership is certainly not automatic, but the direction is very clear.

Schengen is another step again. EU membership would bring Moldova into the Schengen legal framework, but the complete removal of internal border controls would require further evaluation and a separate Council decision. So I should resist the temptation to imagine that one ceremony in Brussels will suddenly make every border disappear the following morning.

Still, it is interesting to imagine what deeper integration could eventually mean for Moldova. Easier movement of goods, stronger commercial links, more investment, broader distribution networks and fewer barriers between a small market here and the much larger European market beyond it could accelerate changes that are already visible today.

Perhaps that sounds excessively philosophical after spending the afternoon eating cheese samples.

But there is something enjoyable about seeing these changes through completely ordinary experiences. A modern shopping centre overlooking Chișinău. An Italian coffee on the terrace. A jacket sourced after an investigation lasting approximately two hours. Dutch and Swiss cheese downstairs. Moldovan wine beside it. And two people leaving with substantially more food than they intended to buy.

Last week, Port Mall made me think about how quickly Chișinău itself is developing. This week, it made me think about Moldova's gradual movement towards Europe.

Admittedly, this time the intellectual process involved considerably more cheese.

I can live with that.

AI Assistance Disclosure: This article is based on my original experience, observations, humour and conclusions from our visit to Port Mall. Artificial intelligence tools were subsequently used as editorial and research assistants to improve grammar and wording, organise the story into a coherent narrative, and verify factual information about Port Mall, the cheese shop and Moldova's current European Union accession process.

Where relevant, factual references were checked against official Port Mall, retailer and European Union sources. The shopping experience, the description of our afternoon and my impressions about Moldova's increasing European integration remain personal observations and opinions, and the final selection, interpretation and conclusions presented here remain my own.