Calgary - Amsterdam - Bucharest, Romania
We flew through the night and forwards in time 9 hours. I didn't miss the time, as a poor sleep overtook me, but those who could not sleep missed it dearly. We flew from Calgary to Amsterdam, and then from Amsterdam to Bucharest, Romania. We were tired, so tired, so we just wanted to get the car and to head to the hostel. Our plan was to rent a car and do a fly-by tour of Eastern Europe involving driving through eight different countries... that was our plan...
Reality is not always as we plan it, and this was one of those cases. We got off of the plane, headed to Avis, where we were to rent our car, and started filling out paperwork. It was when I was about to sign the last set of documents when I thought to confirm what I had been told on the phone. I asked the attendant to ensure that we could travel with our car to the eight countries on our tour (Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, and Serbia). To our surprise her answer was no! I had called to book the car, and in that call I was very careful to ask if we could take the car into the countries that we wanted. I had read that this had been an issue for some poeple, so I was extra careful to ask. The Avis employee on the phone assured me that I would not have an issue... unfortunately... the Avis employee in Bucharest had a different answer. The answer was that no we could not take the car into all the countries that we wanted, and that we had to stay within the European Union.
Crap.
Now what? Our plan, our booking, and our everything were set on that route, and now the route was no good?! Turns out we were not the only people who this has happened to, as the Avis employee informed us that we were the second set of people in a week trying to take a car out of the EU. She was final on our limitations on the car, and when we went to ask each attendant at the different car rental companies the story was the same. EU only. Exhausted and out of options we took the car from Avis and were on our way.
The Hostel was only 2 km from the airport, but it was a tricky 2 km. We ended up on a major road that seemed to have no turns off of it... in mere moments we had overshot and were looking for a way to turn around. We kept going for a while, trying to figure it out, when we finally noticed that there were bridges over nothing that we kept crossing. These bridges were actually over traffic circles that allowed people to go on and off of the highway. We took the next circle and had turned around and were on our way back to the Hostel. The GPS gave us advanced warning and we turned off onto a mainish road. We went a bit, found the street the Hostel was on and looked for the house number. It wasn't there. We parked the car to get a closer look. It still wasn't there. Sunday afternoon made the place deserted but eventually we found a few old guys wandering around. We traded them the time for directions. We gave them the time in fingers, and their directions were in points. Something like next right and next left... We followed the broken directions and hit our first stroke of luck on this trip. There was the Hostel.
The Hostel!
It did not take long to retrive the car. We pulled off the mainish road and cut into the tiny back streets. We made it to the Hostel, and were welcomed inside. I moved the car to where we were allowed to park it and for the first time since we had hit Romania we could breathe. It was then that we started trying to sort out our lives. I e-mailed and bbmed my family back home and everyone was giving us ideas and trying to figure out a solution to our problem... there was no easy solution.
A Well in Bucharest
The Otopeni Church
Stressed, and famished, we took the advice of the Hostel owner and headed to a nearby restaurant. Quatro carne pizza... amazing!
Back to the Hostel, checked my e-mail and bbm for the thousandth time, and headed to bed.
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