Bucuresti - the anti-climax

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The last couple days were very frustrating on a personal note, not associated with Romania itself. I set aside an evening for one friend and she was two and a half hours late and even then I had to go to her. A second evening was set aside for another friend. After going back to my sleeping room to shower and dress a bit better for cafe-life in the old city I absolutely could not find the club we were to meet at. The first couple I asked said "it's too complicated to explain" and then wandered off without even giving me a vague area to head towards. All the other people, including waiters I asked, said they never heard of Cafe Amsterdam. Even with my accent I couldn't mangle that up too badly. I wandered the alleys looking and then a half hour after we were supposed to meet she texted me to say she wasn't coming because mom was sick. Some people don't seem to realize that a stranger in town might not be comfortable to just sit alone here or there and sip suc. I blocked-out these evenings to spend with them to the exclusion of others.

Since it was "time to go" I went to find a Lufthansa office to re-book my flight. I had always planned to cut the trip short of my 90-day ticket, but it seems there is no Luftahansa office in Romania anymore and I had to change my booking over the counter at the airport. So, after a wasted morning vainly looking for the office I trekked out to the airport only to be told that since these counter clerks were only acting as an agent of Lufthansa they were not empowered to change the date. I had to call the US office. Luckily I found that Yahoo Voice allows free 1-800 calls. Unfortunately, Lufthansa told me that the ticket was part of a special pricing structure and only my travel agent in St. Louis can re-book it.

Feeling incredibly stressed, but determined not to explode, I noted the time difference for calling them and went about my day, which entailed having a juice with an old friend and her son. His school is obviously a less-demanding one, as with 5 years of English (grades 1-5) he couldn't make heads or tails of almost anything I said. I perhaps unfairly compared him to the 5th graders in Sibiu, but the difference was astounding. After a walk in the park she put me back on a ratb bus and I went to a net cafe to try to determine what I could do about my travel dilemma. With only a few dollars on my mobile, I called St. Louis. I could seem to make the girl that answered the phone realize I had no idea when I would be cut off and I desperately needed her to take my information quickly and get the gears rolling on helping me get out of Romania. First she was insisting to know which of their four agents I wanted (ANYBODY! I JUST NEED HELP FAST!!!) and then suggested that I go to the airport to change the booking (I really didn't want to call her an idiot). I assured her I went through all that and after taking my details she said to call back in a few hours. In the meantime, I decided that if I would be stuck here another week or so I'd drop my extra bag off with M and make a side-trip or two out of Bucuresti.

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Comments

[Steve]

Alternative
Hey John, If all else fails, there's are trains several times daily from Bucuresti to Vienna, where damn near everyone has an office. In the mean time, you might consider setting up an account with Couchsurfing dot com. They seem to be quite active in Romania. Steve

[anonymous]

Sounded like a great trip! I have enjoyed reading all about it. Hope you made it back to to the states, but if not, yes, take some side trips, enjoy it while you're there.

[Ana :)]

lesson to learn :)
all this "adventure" should be a lesson to learn, John, in some areas: - to make all the preparations for your return long before the day you want to go and not get all stressed out without reason :) - get all the return changing details from your american travel agent, get his contacts (email is free :) - not to hurry and be so distracted that much when you prepare a vacation, but be more careful on details sorry to hear abt those "friends" in Bucharest that were so not serious and keep their word... they do not deserve to talk to them again if they are not reliable whatsoever :)

[Me]

That's an excellent idea.

[JohnUSA]

yeah, I know
Hey, hey, lighten up. The agency told me (and I have seen... and I had always read) that the technique was simply to go to the airport and pay-up the fee. Nobody said that Lufthansa closed their offices here and their partner company claimed to be on a different ticketing system. And having a travel agent's e-mail isn't much good if they don't read them and respond in a timely fashion. Even when I was talking they weren't helpful right off. Indeed, I should have checked this out when I first got back to town, but the results would have been the same, just resolved a little sooner.