24 June 2011
7:03am– I am awakened loudly by my former teammates Jeannie and Theresa who just arrived in town and are staying the night at our house, Casa Shalom. They both give me a hugs. I’ve missed them.
7:10am– I greet the rest of their team and my own team who were all woke up by team Zion.
7:50am– I lay in bed trying to decide if I should get up or not . I’m wide awake now but still tired. I could finish packing but that doesnt sound fun.
9:45am– I eat, shower, and get dressed for the day. I really want some cute Romanian boots I think to myself.
(Part of town)
10:30am– The team and I get in a taxi to do some last minute shoe shopping. Don’t laugh. I’m not all the way packed , but I tell my self I have all afternoon.
12:45pm– Finally in a taxi on our way home…Exausted somehow. But I bought a really cute pair of pink flats.
1pm– Other teams have arrived at our house. They are all meeting here before leaving to Ukraine.
2pm– Lunch time.
3:30pm– I try to write a blog about Romania but it’s going nowhere. The Romanian boys that help out at the house keep coming up the stairs yelling over each other for our attention. They’re so loud and obnoxious but they’ve grown on me. They have yet another chocolate bar for each of us. ( They always buy us chocolate and ice tea)
5pm– The taxis arrive to take us to the train station. I interrupt a soccer game to get Cornell,one of the boys to help carry my outrageously heavy bag to the car. We say our goodbyes to Becky our contact, the girls we’ve lived with and the boys. We also say goodbye to the other teams, give hugs to all our Romanian friends and take some last minute photos.
(Niko and I before leaving)
5:40pm– We make it the train station . Four girls with four 50 pound bags, purses, pillows, and huge groccery bags of food from our contact. We are travelling on our own for the first time as an all girls team and already we have drunks trying to offer to help. I begin praying.
6pm– We make our way with numerous trips to our train lane after inquiring from a number of people if we have the right spot because nothing is in English. We say a prayer for safe travels.
6:15pm – Leyna realizes she has forgotten her phone charger and the phone is dead. She and Emily take off to find a place to buy a new one and possible charge the phone. Shan and I are left with the bags and while sitting there passing the time, we realize that we both forgot to grab our laundry off the drying racks. Now we have half the amount of underwear we had before
6:37pm– Our train arrives, Leyna, Emily and I take some of the bags and go to find our car, it takes us forever. Walking back and forth trying to find numbers, or someone to tell us which one to get on. They all look the same. No one speaks English.
6:50pm– I stay in the car Emily and Leyna return to Shan, out of breath, to let her know we are the furthest wagon away. At this point we still have 3 big bags to move and only 5 minutes before the train leaves
7pm– Everyone makes it on, no thanks to any of the train workers who just sternly told the girls to hurry as they all struggled by with the bags. We are all out of breath and sweating as though we are back in India!
(Em and I sweating buckets)
7:20pm– The train starts moving. With much difficulty we have managed to organize our bags and now desperately try to open our window. We discover that ours is the only one on the whole wagon that doesn't open. Shan and I make our way to another window to cool off . It helps the sweating a bit and I put my arms out the window.
(Shans sweaty leg)
8:30pm– We meet our neighbors, they are a youth group from Ireland heading to Moldova on a mission trip, their leader is actually Canadian but lives in Ireland with his family, what a lovely surprise.
10pm– I eat some snack mix for dinner. Somewhat cooled off we decide to put on a movie. I pass out somewhere in the middle
25 June 2011
3:30am– The Irish/Canadian youth pastor is standing at our door with a man in uniform translating that they are asking for our passports. Groggy and tired from lack of sleep and travel we search for them and give them to him, he checks them stamps them and hands them back.
3:45am– The pastor comes back to our little cabin and says he's not sure if he got his translation right, but either we are going to be stopped for 3hrs or we need to show our passports 3 times. We thank him. What would we do without his help.
4am– Leyna sits up in her bunk and tells me that Michael had called her a few hours ago. Cornell and Vali had put a salamander in my purse before I left. I hear her wrong, and say in shock – "There's a sound chip in my purse? They're recording everything I say? Why would anyone do that?" Leyna tells me, "No, a salamander" I finally calm down and says "oh" I continue to eat crackers . A sound chip would bother me more then a Salamader. Yes at 4a.m. I’m awake and there nothing else to do.
8:30am– Shannons alarm goes off, its time to get ready to get off the train. We struggle to get all the bags in a place where we can grab them and wait. I wish I only had my little back pack.
9:15am– We get off the train and look around. We are in Moldova, and its freezeing. We thank the youth group from Ireland for their help carrying our bags off the train and dig for our fleece jackets in our pile of bags.I put on a few extra layers. Its cold and rainy out.
9:30am– Leyna and Shan leave me and Emily to watch the bags, as they go try to figure out our next train. They told us afterwards that as they arrived at the information desk, they were rudely informed that the lady only speaks Romanian, Russian and French and there is no one who speaks English so no she cannot help us. They come back to Em and I to get Ley’s pad of paper with what we thought our train schedule was. With Gods help they find a girl that speaks English and Romanian, she agrees to help us.
( I travel light)
10:45am– After a very painful process including withdrawing Moldovian Lei to pay again for tickets that we had already purchased before we left Romania and a lot of eye rolling by the information lady we finally have it all figured out.
11am– The train arrives, Emily and Shan, tickets in hand and big bags on our shoulders go to find our wagon because we cannot read our ticket. They get sent back and forth, back and forth not really sure where we should go.F inally someone decides on wagon 9, so Leyna and I make our way over. Only to have 3 or more people (including the information lady) arguing over what we are actually suppossed to be doing. Theres a lot of yelling and pointing going on. I just smile because everyone is being rude but we cant undersand any of it.Our English speaking friend has left and all we have is a girl who just keeps saying our tickets are bus ticket
.
11:35am– The train is about to leave and we have still not found our wagon or got on the train .The train workers are still arguing. After waving them off we decide just to get on the train before it leaves without us. We pile onto wagon 9 with no help form the 10 or more onlookers. Just in time! As the train is pulling off and we are sandwiched between the wagons we find out we should be in wagon 25!!! We sigh Ley, Em and I take all the small bags and start walking to number 25 as Shan stay with the big bags. It doesnt sound like that many, but trying to fit through small isles with numerous bags in impossible. It Takes forever to get through all the doors leading into each train while getting stuck and hitting people in the head with purses.
12pm– I sit with our stuff exhausted and frustrated at this point in a random empty bunk while Emily and Leyna return to shan. We only made it to wagon number 16 and we all think we should just take our stuff to empty spot to a closerwagon. 25 is still 9 cars away. Leyna stays with the stuff in wagon 11 and Emily and Shan walk to 16 to find me and the small bags. At this point I’m talking to some guy who's telling us to go with him to other Americans who will help. Shan follow this guy all the way to wagon 25! We arrive and there are two younger guys one is American, and thank the Lord, he can speak Russian really well. We explain our situation for him to interpret and that we would really rather just stay where we are because our bags are so big and there is an empty spot. They kindly inform us that we absolutely have to come all the way to wagon 25 as the train separates and if we are not on the right wagon we will go to the wrong place.
12:05pm We discover the not so nice lady at the information booth in Moldova sold us tickets to POLAND! The two english speaking guys kindly offer to help us with our bags, we readily accept their offer. It’s like carrying dead bodies.
1pm– And hour and a half later we are finally settled in our compartment in car 25 – we are all so tired and upset with the mornings events! We take time to pray and thank God that we have made it onto the train and for all the people that helped us. We spend the rest of our afternoon reading, sleeping, eating and just trying to relax. The train stops at the border crossing we get another stamp in our passports as we enter Ukraine.
9pm– we begin to get ready to get off the train, dreading what this transfer will look like, its pouring rain and its dark outside
9:55pm– the conductor on our wagon has been super nice and helpful, and he points us in the right direction as we got off the train. We have managed to organize our stuff now that we can carry it all in one heavy trip.
10:15pm– We find ourselves in the same dilemma as the last train station – no one speaks any English at all and there is a crowd at the info/ticket window. But thankfully the lady at the window is very sweet and really trying to help us. Then a lady with very limited english appears next to us. With alot of hand and body motions we finally straighten out what we need. Only to discover they need more money from us, there are no ATMs or exchange places in sight, we are stuck! The lady with the limited English kindly offers to exchange our USD from her own purse. What a blessing. We think we are all set until we see that it doesn't tell us what lane the train is going to be on, they inform us we just have to listen to the speaker, they will announce it over the PA 30min before it leaves, this is a huge problem as we know no Russian or Ukranian, so our kind limited english lady attempts to teach us #1-5 in both languages to try help us.
( Creepy night time)
10:40pm– we have found some shelter from the rain right in front of the staff lounge as we pray we will be able to understand when they call for our train. We get quiet and listen everytime we hear a voice on the PA.
(Shan and I goofing off to pass the time)
11:10pm– We think that we haven't heard them announce our train yet until a man in uniform indicates for us to follow him, he takes us through an underground tunnel to a track that I am sure we wouldn't have found on our own. Thank you Jesus. We wait for a couple minutes in the damp weather. As soon as it pulls up our helpful train worker takes us right to the wagon we need to be on.
11:47pm– The train is leaving, and there is confusion as to where our beds are, after more yelling and pointing on their parts, they finally they put us in 3 different compartments with strangers and all on top bunks that you can't do anything but lay down in. A really kind gentleman helps us all put our huge, heavy bags on the top shelves, and then he made our beds.
26 June 2011
12:30am– I curl up on my bed in a compartment full of strangers and Ley.
(Squished in my bunk)
8am– I wake up to realize I cant do anything most of the day because I have a top bunk. You can only lay down. I listen to my ipod, Ems Ipod, and Leynas. I nap a bunch trying to pass the time. We have a scary man and an ocd lady in our bunk. Ley is across from me on the top also.
12pm– My neck and back are begining to cramp up in my tiny bunk . Shan visits us and so does Em. We get down and walk a little. I decide to finally use the disgusting bathroom that dumps all the sewage straight onto the tracks because I cant hold it any longer.
(Leyna trying to get up into her bunk)
3:30pm– Anxiously we get ready to get off of the train and to have this journey over with.
4:10pm– I have a random guy help me with my bag. He could just run away with it but I decide to trust Jesus. My team and I walk the platform looking for our contact. I over hear someone say "Americans? English?" and turn to see the friendly face of the man who is our contact for the month. We pile into his van and drive through a storm to get home.
(Home sweet home this month)
7pm– YAYYYY! A few days later we arrive at the house that will be home for the next month and are greeted warmly by the family and warm bowl of borsch and our travel days are finally over.
( The Fam)
