Freakishly Happy

The train ride was beautiful. As we left Sigishoara, everyone was out burning their fields. We passed dozens of little shack towns, with clothes on the line and goats in the back yard. We ate our lunch, and soon were joined by a man whose name was Johann Weinachten, Jean Noel, or in English… Johnny Christmas!! He was a delightful old Romanian man, who was taught German by his grandmother, some 70 years ago. We spoke for the next several hours in German. He told us about the countryside, showed us breathtaking views from the train window, and shared in our cookies bought from the café. But soon, it became dark and we were in Bucaresti and Mr. Christmas left us. We too got off the train and went to find information on a train to Greece. As we were walking, a young man approached us and began leading us to the information booth. Once we got there he demanded money. We gave him a few coins, which he was not at all pleased about and he stormed off after saying some rude things about us to some other waiting passengers. They told us not to worry and not to speak to anyone who approached us. We got up the window and inquired about our train. The woman was far less than helpful. We asked her about the train and she said, “I don’t know.” Or finally after much pressing, “I won’t tell you.” So we walked off disgusted, to find that once the passage through to the information center was a point of no return. We had to pay to get back in. The only problem was that we were out of Romanian money and the ATM was on the other side. We explained this and explained this, and finally a young guard decided to let us through and be our “escort” to the Bank-o-mat. We followed his quick pace to the automat, got out some cash and again found ourselves following him to our train. Once got to the train he asked us for money. We pulled out a 50 note, the equivalent of 3 or 4 Euros, but it wasn’t good enough. He pointed to the 500 note, telling us that it really wasn’t that much money, in reality it was about 30 or 40 bucks. John said no, and gave him the 50, which he wasn’t too pleased about, but oh well. We went to our car, where we met the old man who we’d met in line at the ticket booth. We sat and talked to him. We found out that he was an ambassador from Bulgaria to Romania. We talked to him for a while, before he went to another car. He told us that he’d come back once we got to the border to help us, so we wouldn’t get screwed by “taxes” imposed on foreigners. And help us he did. When we got to the boarder, he changed trains with us, and helped us change some money and get tickets. That night we had the best night train. It was 4 Euros apiece to cross the country and another 4 Euros for a first class night train. The beds were comfortable, and there was a sink and power in the room. We sat on our bed, exhausted and ate warmed cheese pastries from the station.

We didn’t get nearly enough sleep, and arrived early in the morning in Sofia Bulgaria. When we got to the ticket office, we found out that daylight savings time had kicked in that morning, and that the train that we wanted and would have made to Greece had left an hour before due to the time change and we had to wait 8 or so hours till the next train. We walked out of the station into the cold, misty early morning, tired and hungry. We had dropped off our bags, so we went out into the city unencumbered. We decided to try to find a hostel in the city so we could catch some more sleep. We’d met a nice woman in the station who had a hostel, so we decided to find it. We walked and walked and walked. We found the sign for the Kentucky Fried Chicken that was on her map, but still couldn’t find the hostel. We did find more cheese pastries and a nice woman in a bakery who couldn’t really help us. Then we realized that we were over 2 blocks too far and we righted our course and finally after a lot more walking and searching we found a hostel. We were unsure if it was the right one, but we rang the bell anyway. We walked in to a dark dirty and dank building, with flickering lights. We mounted the stairs to the second floor, where we met the woman’s sister, who spoke absolutely no English. The beds were all open, but due to language constraints we couldn’t convey that we only wanted to sleep there until 4 or 5 in the afternoon. We left tired and disappointed, and decided to take care of our other need: Food. We sat down in a park and ate our pastries which were good but as we sat there I became very very cold, so we went to find somewhere to sit and get something to drink.
It was early Sunday morning, and nothing was open. We finally found a café, and ordered some fresh squeezed orange juices, and coffee. The juice was refreshing and the coffee was bad. But we were able to sit and be warm for over an hour. I’m convinced the waitress overcharged us horribly, as the price of 3 orange juices and coffee cost us more than our entire afternoon meal, but, in the long run, oh well.

When we immerged from the café, the sun was trying to come out but not quite succeeding. The air still had a bite to it. We walked down a long block past dozens of closed shops. At the end of the street was a huge convention center that was having a home goods exposition. We walked in, and made a game of avoiding the people trying to hand us flyers. We finally found some chairs, and we sat there and talked and did a running commentary on the people passing us and the home goods around us and after a half an hour or so of sitting, we decided to move on. We wound our way back down the maze of escalators to the entrance. The sun had come out and the temperature was finally warming. We went back to a shopping center that we’d seen earlier. We spent a lot of time just sitting on benches, waiting for time to pass.

After awhile we became bored with sitting on benches, so we went back out into the bright sunshine. And wandered around some more. We were approached by an annoying girl, dispatched by her mother, who was asking us for money. It was really the most pathetic attempt we’ve seen. She didn’t even really try before giving up. I’ll do an impression for you in person some time if you want.

After wandering around aimlessly for quite a while, we decided on lunch, which was not really all the significant. We did more wandering and finally it was time to get on our train. I bought a pastry, and water and we got on the train. The train ride was really beautiful, and the sunset was amazing. And after several hours we arrived in Thessaloniki Greece.