Dateline: Podis, Romania; November 1, 2013--What a month October was. On the 1st we had just completed a Phase 3 school in Japan. On the 6th we held a cooking school in Harajuku, Tokyo, and then had a lecture for over 100 people at a special elementary school in another part of Tokyo. On the 8th I flew from Narita to Cincinnati. The time difference is 11 hours and I am normally wasted for a few days following such a transition. But not only did I have to transition from night to day, I had to transition from summer into winter. Traveling as I do can present many interesting challenges. Returning to Alabama would have been hazardous to my health as I had driven in July from Uchee Pines to Andrews University then returned to the Cincinnati area where I left my car and flew on to Japan. Driving many hours totally jet-lagged is not a great idea.

From Cincinnati I drove a few days later to Maryland where I prepared to fly on to Romania. While in Maryland I had to do a total overhaul of my suitcases. Japan is always a sauna when I arrive in August and is still just bearable by the time I leave in October. Across the pond in Romania it can be quite cool in October and in many parts they had always had snowfall in October. So, winter coat, gloves, heavy socks, warm pullovers. And a leather jacket.

I have been looking for a good leather jacket for some time. Normally I check eBay and while in Japan I saw the very one I wanted so “clicked” the Buy It Now button. It was then I noticed the only payment method was PayPal and I no longer use that service. This seller only accepted PayPal so I was in trouble. Finally, after a lot of correspondence between the seller, eBay and me, it was resolved. I may be down as a deadbeat bidder with ebay but what can I do? So, while in northern Kentucky I decided to drive up to Cincinnati to what had been a favorite Goodwill store. Since my last visit the store had moved to a much more commodious and accessible location. Entering the store, right in front of my eyes was a was a spiral suit rack with nothing hanging there but leather jackets. Kid in a candy store! The first one I examined was a Wilsons Leather that fit me like a glove, looked brand new and was the perfect style. And the price was only $37. Sold! To me. But there was another jacket, this one being 3/4 length which is great for wearing over a suit. It was $47. The one drawback with this one was it didn’t take genius to ascertain why the previous owner probably gave it up; he didn’t. His survivors gave all of his tobacco smoke saturated clothing to Goodwill after he died of lung cancer. We are talking here about stinking so bad I asked them to place the article in its own plastic bag. We are talking so strong a pipe stem would smell like wild azaleas in the springtime by comparison.

Getting it home, I Fabrized it, covered it with baking soda, wiped it down with vinegar, hung it out to air and now have it confined to a sealed plastic bag with an odor candle in the bottom. We’ll see what three months in solitary confinement will do for its interpersonal relationships.

Soon it was time to fly on to Bucharest. It was a good flight, albeit a bit rambling. Baltimore to Atlanta to Paris to Bucharest. But the travel is part of the mystique of the overall trip. It is when I have some of the most unique experiences. In and of itself the flight was not particularly noteworthy. Once in Bucharest, that changed slightly. 

A friend had intimated that he might meet me at the airport and take me to my first destination, Podis which is near Bacau, so I hung around the airport a while not wanting to miss this possible ride. When my friend did not materialize, plan B was put into action. Arriving too late to catch a 3:15 train to Bacau, I now focused on the 5:45 train. But Bucharesti Nord, the train station, is downtown so a taxi had to be acquired. You can be taken on two types of rides in taxis; one to your destination, one deep into your pockets. Once in Moscow, having flown into one airport and needing to fly out of a different one, my only option was a taxi. Turned out the taxi fare was more between the two airports in Moscow than the flight had been from Perm, near the Ural Mountains, to Moscow. So what would this one cost me?

You can order a taxi in the Bucharest airport merely by pushing a button so I did and went outside to await my surprise. Within minutes a cab pulled up to the curb and a Romanian cabbie hopped out. Before allowing him to load my luggage, I asked how much the fare would be from the airport to the train station. Taxi drivers have to be at least vaguely familiar with English because most people know some of our common phrases. Turns out this man knew English rather well and told me the fare wold be around 30 lei. That’s pretty good, the exchange rate being approximately 3 lei to one dollar. So we loaded up and began the approximately half hour ride to the trains.

The cabbie had visited Oregon. I am amazed at how many people from Eastern Europe settle on the West Coast when they immigrate to the States. But he spoke well and at the end of the trip, charged me the 30 lei as promised. It is always great to meet honest people when traveling. I asked him if I could pay him extra to help me with the ticket purchase, but he had to drop me and run as a policeman was walking toward his cab, so I was left with wrestling my three pieces of luggage into the station. 

“Why so much luggage,” you might ask. When I come over here, or really go anywhere, I ask ahead of time, “Can I bring you anything?” Since I was planning on working in two Romanian locations, one Bulgarian location, visiting one special Moldavian location, and visiting friends in Croatia, I was loaded. Practically one whole suitcase was filled with requested items. I look more like an upscale Gypsy when I travel.

As I was trying to wrestle my bags up an incline, a helpful Romanian bărbaţi came to my rescue, taking possession of two of my bags without my solicitation or permission. But I knew I needed help so followed him into the station, ready to drop my one bag and chase him down if need be. You just never know. He helped me acquire the proper ticket for thankfully I had it all written down. Then he found the right track at which to await the train. Then came the reason for his helpfulness.

“That will be $70, thank you,” he said with a perfectly straight face. And that was dollars, not lei. Seventy lei would have been too much for 10 minutes work, but $70 was totally out of the question. I pulled out a handful of crisp one dollar bills. He changed his demand to a mix of euros and lei. We went round and round until, tired of the drama, I gave him $20. He was a help and who knows, he might really need the money.

It was a long wait for the train but the afternoon was pleasant and I was, in a real sense, going home. I have so many dear friends over here who really love me and anticipate my arrival. Trouble is, for this night, they had no idea when I would be arriving. Somehow I needed to call them.

The train arrived and I found my compartment. There are six seats in these compartments and five became occupied. People like to chat away over here and got right into it as we pulled away from Bucharesti Nord. One turn to me and reeled off a lovely and completely unintelligible query of some sort. Now, I can say “I don’t speak Russian” in Russian, “I don’t understand in Russian and Ukrainian,” but so far Romanian has eluded me. So I normally put on my “I comprehend every thing you just said” face and say, in perfect English, “I have no idea what you just said but I appreciate being a part of this discussion.” At that point I become invisible.

But I needed to make a call to Podis. It is hard for me to ask favors, even from people I know. But the prospect of waiting till after midnight to be picked up was not appealing to me, so, using arm and hand signals, I asked if the woman sitting across from me could make a call to Podis. I wrote my name, destination station and arrival time and phone number to Podis down and handed it to her. She made the call, arranged for the pickup and all was well. Then I made the faux pas. I offered her five euro. She drew back in shock. The old man at the end just shook his head slightly and gave me the “you poor foreigner” look. But when we arrived at the station, the whole compartment helped me shuffle my menagerie of thrift store luggage to the station platform. We parted in good humor.

[I have been woefully neglectful with my posts and for this I am sorry. I write this on December 9 from a place called Hagota in the Carpathian mountains of the Transylvania region of Romania. The snows have come, winter is here, and I am enjoying myself, albeit missing much some of my closest friends back at Podis. But between Podis and here, I have traveled to Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and Hungary. Have God, Will Travel.