Later that day, I found out that not only did we have that day off but that the office would be closed for the following two weeks. Well...awesome! An unplanned vacation. I can live with this. My teammate Rafael and I decided that we would take advantage of this time and take a quick trip to Bucharest, Romania and Sofia, Bulgaria. So, the following Tuesday (Jan. 4) we took a bus all night to Bucharest. Upon arriving (Wednesday morning) we would go and buy train tickets for Sofia. The plan was to spend Wed. in Bucharest, travel by train to Sofia Wed. night, arrive in Sofia Thursday morning, spend the day in Sofia, travel back to Bucharest Thursday night, then travel back to Chisinau Friday morning...all so that I could be back by Friday night to teach my Bible study.
Ok, so we get to Bucharest and then find out that there is no way to get to Sofia (or anywhere else for that matter) and be back in Chisinau by Friday. Well, that stinks for me. My trip turned into spending Wednesday in Bucharest then hopping on a train Wed. night to come back home while Rafael got to travel on to Budapest! Grr!! Then, when I got back home I found out that I had to cancel my Bible study anyway because most of the girls were gone. Hmmf! Oh well. Such is life.
Bucharest was amazing! I loved the city and everything that I saw there. At times I would think I was in London or Paris or something. We just walked around all day looking at all the buildings and everything we could possibly see in one day. The Parliament building was incredible. I have never seen anything so massive. The picture definitely doesn't do it justice. Also, as we were walking I saw a random sign for a HARD ROCK CAFE!! I was so excited! We sat in there for like an hour because 1. it was warm and 2. they were playing 80's and 90's English music videos! It was a very good day.
I've never traveled to another country over here except Moldova so I wasn't sure about the process at the border. Going to Bucharest we took a bus. The choice of entertainment was interesting. The driver put on some tv series that reminded me of a Russian version of 24 or something. It was on for the entire 9 hour ride. When we got to the border the control people came in and took all of our passports. We waited for about 30 minutes then got them back and went on our way. I couldn't believe how easy it was. Then I realized that was the Moldovan part. We went about 200 meters and then stopped again for the Romanian border control. They came and took our passports again and then we are all told that we have to get off the bus. For the next 3 hours they proceed to search every nook of that bus. Walls, seats, compartments, under the bus, the spare tire, everything! Did I mention that we arrived at the border about midnight?! I wasn't exactly a happy camper at this point but adventure is what I wanted.
Come back to Chisinau I took a train alone. It left Bucharest at 7pm and arrived in Chisinau a little after 9am the next day. Well, first of all, I had no idea how trains work! I asked someone to show me where I which car I was supposed to be on and they spouted off this incredibly fast Romanian and I just acted like I knew exactly what they were talking about. So, I get on a car that has a number one on it because, logically, my ticket said "car 1" on it. It also said "seat 61" so I go looking through all the rooms and just happen to spot one with a big 61 above it. The room had 6 seats in it and you could close the door to have privacy. I was praying that I would be alone in there but no such luck. This older man came in and I tried to start a conversation with him in Romanian but after using up my entire vocabulary in about 10 seconds, I was out of things to say. Awkward silence. After we left the station, a man (who looked just like Bellick from Prison Break) came to check our tickets. He looked at my ticket, looked at me, and said "Nu aici" (Not Here!). So I asked where I was supposed to go and he starts talking 1000 miles a minute and it sounds like he's yelling. The other man in the car with me tried to explain it with hand motions and all I gathered was that I was on the wrong car and at the first stop I would have to get off and get on the right one. So that happened and then I finally was led to my correct room. This room had 4 small beds in it and I was alone! Immediately I tried to go to sleep, but I was a little nervous about the whole experience seeing as how I'd never done it before. I shut my door and was able to sleep for a few hours. Then the WEIRDEST THING EVER happened...
I had a dream that someone was watching me. I saw the man in my dream and he kept staring at me and making me feel really uncomfortable. I had never seen this man before. It was one of those dreams where I woke up and took a huge gasp of air and realized that I had been tensing my muscles in my sleep because I felt paralyzed. It took me a minute to realize where in the world I was! Well, after that it was impossible to fall back asleep so I just laid there listening to my ipod. Well, I heard the door to my room open and when I turned over to look.....IT WAS THE EXACT SAME MAN FROM MY DREAM PEERING INTO MY ROOM!!!!!!!!!! I am so not even kidding! And, I promise I had not seen him on the train either. Well, when he realized I was awake he came into my room and asked for my passport. When I handed it to him he came all the way in the room, shut the door, and sat on the bed across from mine. You can imagine how incredibly uncomfortable I was in that moment! I mean, is this normal?! No...especially since I found out later that I could have locked the door! Dangit! Anyway, he sat in there for a few minutes and tried to make small talk...which consisted of "why are you here?" "are you in moldova alone?" "are you single?" "where are your friends now?" As he was leaving he said that he would be in room #2 and if I needed anything that I must come to him. Gee thanks buddy! I never saw him again the whole trip. Freaky!!!
Another thing that apparently happens on trains is that when you switch countries you also must switch the wheels on the train because the tracks are different sizes! So at about 4am I feel and hear this loud bang and was almost forced off the bed. I felt the train being lifted off the track then lowered back down. It got interesting when my door swung open (again) and this man comes waltzing in there, whips up the rug on the floor, pulls back this big hunk of metal exposing this huge hole in the floor, and pulls out this nuclear weapon looking type metal rod thing! He leaves it laying on my floor and walks away leaving the door open. Um, ok. It's not like I'm trying to sleep or anything! Then about 30 minutes later he comes back and puts everything back in it's place! Ha. This whole process took like an hour. I managed to arrive safely in Chisinau and got home to a warm shower and a warm bed! It was glorious!
Here are my favorite pictures from the day...
No comments:
Post a Comment