The Balkans

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Hi Guys,

Well, I imagine that some of you have been wondering if we fell off the face of the earth. We were kind of wondering that too for a while.

Our latest adventure started when we arrived in Athens on Saturday afternoon. We were given a few hours off so catch up on our lives—do laundry, maybe mail some stuff home. Only problem was, the next day was Easter (different church than home). It was a little bit like Christmas Eve. Nothing was open!

But, Bill and Pamela took us all out for dinner that night, we drank lots of wine and had lots of fun, then found out we had 4 countries (Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Romania) to do in the next four days. Oh, and we were on our own when it came to getting around between them. We just had to be sure to be at the hotel in Romania at 9:00PM on Wed as our flight was leaving for Amsterdam at 6:00 AM the next morning. (We made the flight as I’m typing this on the plane.)

So, Easter Sunday we set out to explore Athens. We saw a lot of locked gates and doors with closed signs on them. We took a 1 ½ hour bus ride out to the temple of Posedian so we could look at it through the fence. Since we didn’t want to leave Athens without really getting to see much at all, we decided to stay until Monday afternoon and take the overnight train straight to Romania at 4:30PM. That would give us an evening and a day to take in Romania.

Monday was a lot better in Athens as the outdoor sites we open—and free to enter as it was still a holiday. So, we saw the Acropolos, other temples, all kinds of stuff. Unfortunately, the museums and some other stuff were still closed so we missed a lot of things we would have liked to have seen. One can only speculate as to why we were sent to Athens for these particular dates. However, we tried to make the best of it and needed to move on.

Then we embarked on our journey to Romania on the train from hell (TFH). The TFH started out not bad. We left about 5:00PM. In theory, the train would arrive in Romania 24 hours later, but we had to change trains about 5 hours into the trip. Since we had bought some booze in Athens and eaten before getting on the train, the first 5 hours passed pleasantly. The train was clean, quiet and relatively smooth riding. By the time we had to change, we were mildly pissed and ready for bed.

The new train was the real TFH! The first sign of trouble was when we got on. Supposedly, each compartment slept 6. Well, the train was nearly empty, so when we were assigned to a compartment with some other people, we just went to the empty one next door. Now, the conductor wanted us to pay for all the beds in the compartment! Leslie got into it with him and I finally shut her up and told the guy, fine, but I needed a receipt. That shut him up and he buggered off so we could go to sleep.

3:00 AM: “Bang, bang, bang! Passport! Passport!” We had passed into Bulgaria. Dragging ourselves from a sound sleep, we managed to find our passports and some guy stamped them. Fortunately, we didn’t put the away too deeply as some other guy showed up 15 minutes later and wanted to see them too. Finally, back to sleep.

We awoke with the sun, not exactly refreshed, but hungry and thirsty. We had a 1/3 of a bag of crackers, ½ a stale bun from the hotel in Greece, and 1 small bottle of water. We wanted breakfast!

Ah, and that was when TFH showed its true colours. There was no dining car. There were no vending machines. The conductor was never around, so when the train stopped (as it did often), we had no one to ask how long the stop was for. But, since the doors were locked and we had no Bulgarian money, and most stops didn’t have any place to buy anything on the platform, anyway, we had to resolve ourselves to being stuck on TFH.

In Sofia, Bulgaria, around 9:00 AM, we ran into another team from the group and they saved our lives. They gave us a big bottle of water, without which we may not have made it.

Finally, we reached the border into Romania about 5:00PM. The water was running low despite careful rationing. Someone told us the train would be stopped for around half an hour while they checked passports. I decided to make a break for it. Some generous soul on the train gave us 5 something of Bulgarian money and I rushed into the station while Leslie stayed with the train and our baggage. I found a bottle of water, a goopy sandwich and raced back to the train.

Meanwhile, Leslie is dealing with the border guys, pleading with them to wait for me. The train doors are once again locked and I can’t get back on! Finally, a conductor comes and opens one of the doors, I get my passport stamped again—by two different guys, and we’re off again on TFH.

The next three hours went better, since we finally had some food and water. At 8:00PM, three hours later than expected, we finally got to say goodbye to TFH. We were so exhausted and hungry though, we just took a taxi to the hotel and collapsed.

When we arrived in the hotel, showered and ate, I felt a little like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, “For as long as I live, I vow I will never go hungry again!” After a night in a real bed and once again having food and water at hand, we rallied ourselves the next day and went off to Transylvania. The drive was beautiful. Flat farmland, forested mountains, etc.. By chance, we saw about half the teams at a gas station along the way, heading in the same direction, and they we happy to see us, having not known if we survived our journey or not (they decided to fly and take no points for that leg of the game). We visited a monestary, a castle, and Dracula’s Castle. Dracula’s Castle was actually really neat. It was built in 1377 and that is hasn’t been destroyed in the interim was kind of amazing. Anyway, you can check out the pictures. By the way, if anyone interested, it is one the market for 400 million euros.

So, this leg of the trip was somewhat of a fiasco, but did have some good parts. We wasted a good third of our time on just getting from place to place, but we weren’t supposed to fly. Ask yourself, if you were the World’s Greatest Traveler, would you fly, or would you take TFH? I think Leslie and I should be crowned the World’s Stupidest Tourists for falling for the ‘no plane’ bull crap.

Well, will let you know what happens in Amsterdam.

Sandy

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Comments

[Carole]

What a trip!
Wow, you two, these blogs are the most interesting I have ever read! I can't wait to read the next one. Hope you are well and able to digest all that weird food. The pictures are wonderful. Amazing.

[Anna]

WOW!!
Yes that weekend was Greek Easter.."Xristos Anesti" is what we say. Easter is the biggest holiday of the year...But I was glad to see you did get to see some things while you were there. Hopefully you had some OUZO!! This part of your blog was very interesting. Definately won't we doing the train ride..lol