In Moldova!!
www.pangodchaux.blogspot.com
5:07 PM (2 minutes ago) |
Hi Mom,
No worries about anything. It was a lovely lovely week, even with all the poopy business and drinking. Actually, the drinking was fine. We just weren't used to it.
But we made it to the airport with three-and-a-half hours to spare before our flight, miracle of miracles.
It was sorta amazing. And I wanted to tell you a bit about it. I think Na'ima might be interested in it as well.
So, the taxi driver who drove us to Georgia-lesc [sp] (who kept singing the sappy English love songs along with the radio, which was adorable particularly as he had that captain's hat and reminded us of Bluto) got us there within 40 minutes, including when he turned off the car to drift down hills and save gas. There was a line there, but people didn't exactly speak English. In fact no one did, really. The tip there is to find a car to ride in at the *front* of the queue. The people at the back were nice and offered, but then you had to wait. Instead we found this lovely Moldovan couple who work in Belgium (and spoke French... thank goodness we do a tiny bit too) and they were at the front, but not the very front. But then the guy went and talked to the guard and suddenly (like 5 minutes later) we're zooming through. We were to Galati in no time and they dropped us (refusing any money) off at the correct bus station with 40 minutes to spare. Ana was a doll, waiting for us when we arrived. She chatted and was lovely. Apparently, she told John that the 6am from Cahul to Galati was very unreliable. (Good to know, eh?) And she also said that the GSM trans doesn't run every half-hour, but that other mini-buses might. We parted by saying, "see you in London"! The GSM trans website seemed to be correct and we caught the 8:30. Nice bus (air con) and it cost 80 ROL for the both of us. We arrived at the Gara de Nord at 1 (since there was a bit of a traffic hold-up on one of the one-lane-highway parts and the driver did some very ballsy, fancy tricks to push us to the front of the jam) and then caught the 1:39 bus (that came at 1:25) to the airport. Along the way, there was about 1/15th of the traffic there had been, and we got there in little over a half hour. Then we got our flights back, but because our connection in Amsterdam was so tight, our bag was left there, which was yet another blessing in disguise as then we didn't have to haul back all 19.7 kilos of it on our tired, poopy backs on the tube and train. KLM delivered it to our door a few hours ago, free of charge.
And I just unwrapped Iona's home-made wine and it made it safely. The dirt on the side of the pop bottles was still in tact. Good job wrapping those up. Feel free to bring more at Christmas (if you want... hint hint).
It couldn't have worked out better if we had planned any of it.
Tony would like to add that the sweetest bit is that the 500 MOL bill will be waiting for you at X-mas when you arrive.
In any case, I would not try to recreate this set of miracles to get one to from Cahul to Bucharest, BUT if you can find a good way to Galati, it is an easy, potentially more flexible way to Bucharest.
And may Moldova stay off the beaten path. When we got back to Bucharest, we were sorta simultaniously appalled at the way that capitalistic "success" manifested while simultaniously wary of getting ripped off because of the profiteering mindset. We did not get KFC as Tony's tummy was still terribly off and it is still normalizing today. Luckily, his work shifts got cancelled anyway.
We are home, sleeping, resting (well, I worked today) and recovering.
Thanks again for everything. Thanks for going to Moldova which is as ridiculous as it is lovely. I think it has cured me of any need to ever go to Russia though, so it was a money-saving trip indeed.
Anyway, say hi to everyone there. Thank Parascovia and her family again for the hospitality!
Love you. Talk soon,
Britt
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