We’ve given up a lot of things out here on the Race. We’re used to being uncomfortable. I no longer know what personal space is. My knees are permanently sore because there’s never room to stretch out my legs when we travel…even for me! We’ve traveled with chickens, cows, 832 people on an African bus, in sweltering heat, day and night. Can’t is not a word you hear very often out here!
So when a minivan showed up with 8 passenger seats and a tiny bench in the trunk, we wanted to believe that all 14 people, plus 14 back packs the size of not-that-small children, 14 day packs, 10 purses, 8 extra bags and 2 guitars could all fit in to travel 6 hours to the nearest airport. I don’t think we’ve admitted defeat before tonight. We stuffed bags in every nook, squeezed bottoms in small crannies, prayed for the car to expand and our hips to shrink. We had bags at our feet, our heads and on our laps. But after 45 minutes of solid effort, with 13 people inside, we crammed the 14th person on a lap in the front…just in time for our driver to look at us and tell us we couldn’t sit a person there ‘on account of the police.’ Now just in case you missed it, we have 14 people in 8 seats, 14 back packs, 14 day packs, 10 purses, 8 food bags, 2 guitars and a partridge in a pear tree crammed into said minivan. We were ready to claim success! And the problem is the one extra person in the front seat.
And so tonight, we gave up. We called another van, piled 7 in each and even had 2 extra seats. We traveled in luxury. And now we’re camped out at the airport in Cluj, Romania awaiting our 6 am flight to Dortmund, Germany. I believe this is my 15th airport of the race, having visited 5 of them multiple times. I’ll be spending next month with the Banditz working with a youth ministry near Cologne, Germany. I even get to go to summer camp! It feels so normal! (Although, summer camp in Belgium might be a little out of the ordinary.) This is our longest month in Eastern Europe before we make our final continent switch to Central America the end of June!
