Train Rides and Romanian Friends...

We were all a little leery about riding the train with no one who spoke English, and no idea what was going on, but those feelings were definitely overwhelmed by the excitement of the adventure we were about to take. Gabi and Miheala, the missionaries that we work with in Oradea took us the station.

This is us on the platform, waiting for the train.

Gabi put us right on the train, and helped us find our compartment. Which was helpful because none of us had any idea what he was looking for. Each compartment had 6 seats, and then a door to the hallway. Our trainride was about 9 hours, and we saw a lot of beautiful scenery.

I love mountains. I always have. I’ve lived in the Appalachians my entire life. We passed tons of Romanian mountains during the 9 hours, and it was absolutely breathtaking. Unfortunately, I don’t have many clear pictures, because this is what the train window looked like:

Romania is in the height of fall, my favorite time of year, so the mountains were all brilliantly colored. As the sun set, they took on a purple hue, which was also beautiful. Here are a few pictures that came out ok…

The other 3 seats in our compartment were taken by a Romanian family – Father, Mother, and Son. They were very nice and proved to be extremely helpful at the end. Everyone kept trying to talk to us in Romanian, and then they must have figured out that we were clueless Americans because we started to hear "trei americani" up and down the train car. And then we turned into celebrities.

The father checked our tickets to see where we were getting off. At first I wasn’t so sure we should show him, but there wasn’t much else to do. Then he started talking to us about Suceava, which we have no idea what he said, but oh well.

It was so much fun.  At the end of the trip, the father asked if he could get a picture with us on his sons phone. We weren’t going to, but then we figured, why not. So he’s probably showing all of his friends the picture of him with the 3 crazy American girls that rode the train from Oradea to Suceava and didn’t speak any Romanian.

Making friends with our Romanian train-mates proved helpful, however, as we had no idea what stop to get off at, and which end of the train to exit, and all that kind of stuff. And so when it was time, the father and son helped us get our bags down, and carried them out to where we needed to wait to leave the train. Which was SO nice of them. Especially since the stop in Suceava wasn’t actually called Suceava.

None of us slept much during the trip, we all just read, and listened to music, and talked some. It was definitely a bonding experience, and an experience that I am so glad to have been able to be a part of.

And then there was the bathroom. We had been warned about how sketchy the train could be, but God protected us and we didn’t experience anything like that. Except the bathroom. Tiffany and Addie had to go first, and after they came back and gave a report, I vowed to try make it the whole 9 hour trip without using the bathroom. I made it til about 2 hours away from the destination. We weren’t sure how far the house we were staying at was, so I had to make the venture. Let me just tell you, this bathroom made the squatty-potties in Cambodia seem like the Ritz. It was quite the experience, and one that definitely bonded the three of us more.

Melissa, our contact in Suceava was there waiting for us. She was told to look for the 3 blonde girls that speak English. Hahaha. With all three of us being blonde, we stick out more so than we already normally would.

It was nice to be on land again, and not to be in constant motion, with the lurching starting and stopping at every station. We tried to take pictures of every station we stopped through, but it was to no avail.

Thankful for the helpful Romanians,

Ali