Transylvania 6-5000
The plane from Budapest took me to a small Transylvanian town called Târgu Mureş - which also has multiple other spellings, none of which I know how to pronounce. Immediately, Romania was a much more difficult country to get around than tourist-friendly Austria and Hungary. It took a while to find someone who spoke English to show me where the bus to the town center was. I didn't have enough Hungarian florints to pay the busfare, and the driver couldn't make change for my 10 Euro bill, and there was no ATM. Fortunately, a nice Romanian man gave me some of his florints, saying he needed to get rid of them somehow.
Târgu-Mureş
There were more obnoxious Australians on the busride - this time, a pair of girls who loved ponies so much that they would have seizures every time they saw someone driving a horse-cart out the window. The bus dropped me off someplace. None of the streets seemed to be labelled. Even the buildings I saw that looked like they ought to be clear landmarks, I couldn't identify. They were pretty, though. I headed in the direction of the rail ticket office listed on my guidebook's map. It should have been about 5 minutes away. I spent an hour and a half getting lost in this tiny little town, walking through sketchy underpasses and alleyways, circling the streets that should have had what I wanted, luggage in tow. Finally, I went inside this hotel that should have been right next to the ticket office. The guy there told me there were no tickets nearby, I had to go to the train station, and he gave me a map. I didn't know the train schedule, so I decided to head there right away to buy a ticket, and come back to the city if I had time.
My guidebook calls the journey to the train station a "fifteen minute walk." I think it took at least 45 minutes, and at some point I wasn't able to read street signs anymore, so I just searched for a train track and followed it. The next train to Braşov left in an hour and a half, so it seemed pointless to go back to the town center. I just sat around and read. A lot of Roma/Gypsy families sat there with me waiting for their trains. The station itself was pretty filthy.
The train was, however, very nice and comfortable, if a little slow - it was about a five and a half hour trip. My seat was in a compartment with just one other passenger - a pretty girl who looked roughly my age. For the first hour or so, we both just sat there reading. Then, the girl offered me some chocolate. I gladly accepted. We got to talking. She was a native Transylvanian, and her primary language was Hungarian rather than Romanian (Transylvania became part of Hungary in the 11th century.) She had learned English in high school, but hadn't spoken it in years. She was fluent in French though. I wasn't. She gave me some bread. I smiled. We went back to reading.
After a while, she asked me what I was reading. I showed her.
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.
A funny look came across her face. She held her book out to me. The title was written on the front, but in Hungarian. I opened it to the title page to figure out what the book was.
The Moon & Sixpence.
by
Her name was the Romanian equivalent of Deborah, I believe. She was twenty years old and studying medicine - plastic surgery, specifically. She told amusing stories of interning at a hospital in Budapest and having to simultaneously deal with one doctor who spoke French and another who spoke English. We talked about the landscape of our respective homelands and other stupid things. Maybe the weather came up. Who cares.
A few hours later, a 40-something woman entered the compartment. There was something very Jan-Heiteen-on-a-nice-day about her. She talked really fast in Romanian with the girl for a while. The girl told her I was American, so she switched to English. She said it was the first time in twenty years that she had spoken English. She told me about her sister who was a teacher in Los Angeles and hated the city and hated the kids because they were so rowdy. She was surprised when I told her that not all of L.A. was wealthy.
I don't remember that much more. The woman was going all the way to Bucharest and was sad when I got off at Braşov, because she hates to travel alone.
Yes, traveling with company can certainly be nice.
Târgu-Mureş
There were more obnoxious Australians on the busride - this time, a pair of girls who loved ponies so much that they would have seizures every time they saw someone driving a horse-cart out the window. The bus dropped me off someplace. None of the streets seemed to be labelled. Even the buildings I saw that looked like they ought to be clear landmarks, I couldn't identify. They were pretty, though. I headed in the direction of the rail ticket office listed on my guidebook's map. It should have been about 5 minutes away. I spent an hour and a half getting lost in this tiny little town, walking through sketchy underpasses and alleyways, circling the streets that should have had what I wanted, luggage in tow. Finally, I went inside this hotel that should have been right next to the ticket office. The guy there told me there were no tickets nearby, I had to go to the train station, and he gave me a map. I didn't know the train schedule, so I decided to head there right away to buy a ticket, and come back to the city if I had time.
My guidebook calls the journey to the train station a "fifteen minute walk." I think it took at least 45 minutes, and at some point I wasn't able to read street signs anymore, so I just searched for a train track and followed it. The next train to Braşov left in an hour and a half, so it seemed pointless to go back to the town center. I just sat around and read. A lot of Roma/Gypsy families sat there with me waiting for their trains. The station itself was pretty filthy.
The train was, however, very nice and comfortable, if a little slow - it was about a five and a half hour trip. My seat was in a compartment with just one other passenger - a pretty girl who looked roughly my age. For the first hour or so, we both just sat there reading. Then, the girl offered me some chocolate. I gladly accepted. We got to talking. She was a native Transylvanian, and her primary language was Hungarian rather than Romanian (Transylvania became part of Hungary in the 11th century.) She had learned English in high school, but hadn't spoken it in years. She was fluent in French though. I wasn't. She gave me some bread. I smiled. We went back to reading.
After a while, she asked me what I was reading. I showed her.
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.
A funny look came across her face. She held her book out to me. The title was written on the front, but in Hungarian. I opened it to the title page to figure out what the book was.
by
W. Somerset Maugham.
Her name was the Romanian equivalent of Deborah, I believe. She was twenty years old and studying medicine - plastic surgery, specifically. She told amusing stories of interning at a hospital in Budapest and having to simultaneously deal with one doctor who spoke French and another who spoke English. We talked about the landscape of our respective homelands and other stupid things. Maybe the weather came up. Who cares.
A few hours later, a 40-something woman entered the compartment. There was something very Jan-Heiteen-on-a-nice-day about her. She talked really fast in Romanian with the girl for a while. The girl told her I was American, so she switched to English. She said it was the first time in twenty years that she had spoken English. She told me about her sister who was a teacher in Los Angeles and hated the city and hated the kids because they were so rowdy. She was surprised when I told her that not all of L.A. was wealthy.
I don't remember that much more. The woman was going all the way to Bucharest and was sad when I got off at Braşov, because she hates to travel alone.
Yes, traveling with company can certainly be nice.
Die Wiener Kompilation
- Wilco - Venus Stop The Train
from the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot demos (2000) - Annette Funicello - Train of Love
from Annette Sings Anka (1960) - Tom Waits - Train Song
from Franks Wild Years (1987)
posted by Evan C. at 8:51 AM
1 Comments:
After getting more than 10000 visitors/day to my website I thought your mevienneseboyiloveyou.blogspot.com website also need unstoppable flow of traffic...
Use this BRAND NEW software and get all the traffic for your website you will ever need ...
= = > > http://get-massive-autopilot-traffic.com
In testing phase it generated 867,981 visitors and $540,340.
Then another $86,299.13 in 90 days to be exact. That's $958.88 a
day!!
And all it took was 10 minutes to set up and run.
But how does it work??
You just configure the system, click the mouse button a few
times, activate the software, copy and paste a few links and
you're done!!
Click the link BELOW as you're about to witness a software that
could be a MAJOR turning point to your success.
= = > > http://get-massive-autopilot-traffic.com
Post a Comment
<< Home