Well we’re already into month two of Eastern Europe, month seven of the race (!!!) [ <<< I think I do one of those brackets with exclamation marks every time I announce what month of the race I’ve entered, but it honestly does surprise me every time].
We left Şiştarovăţ on Tuesday evening at about 6.45 and, save for our taxi breaking down and the driver having to call another one to take us the second half of the way, we headed unhindered to the train station.
Mihai saw us off and we all gave goodbyes & thank yous and loaded up all of our stuff onto our first train. Slightly nicer quality than the train we had taken to that station at the beginning of the month we had our section of the carriage to ourselves until the last hour or so. Having watched one film on my laptop I settled down to try and sleep, as everyone else was doing. I took after Dusty and lay on the floor, my head below one set of seats, my feet under the opposite set (I had my coat under me and an airplane pillow, with my hoodie as a blanket).
Not the most uncomfortable but either way I didn’t really sleep. In the last hour of our seven hour journey people started joining us on the train and I moved. We even had one man start talking to us who teaches at a martial arts school up in some Romanian mountains – it’s a preventative martial arts (i.e. self-defence and how to stop fights) and it’s based on a Christian spirituality so it was really interesting to hear about.
Having reached our station (except for one false stop when we thought we were there and Michelle threw her pack out, only to have to jump out and haul it back in quickly) we piled out, headed through the biting cold and into the train station where we had about 5 hours until our connection. Cue packs piled in a corner and all of us lined up next to each other trying to get some more sleep and keep each other warm.
At 8.30am we arose, kitted up and headed to the next train which would take about 3 hours, and resumed curling up on chairs, or sitting around listening to music. This was followed by a fifteen minute walk to the port in Calafat, where we passed border control then had about an hour’s wait before our ferry arrived. The ferry was itself only about a twenty minute ride across the Danube River and then there we were – in Bulgaria. A ten minute walk down the road (the ferry usually only takes lorries [that’s semis for my American readership] so it’s set up for vehicles) and we were at the second border control and through to our contact. (Details of ministry to follow…)
P.S. My hair is getting long as you can tell from above photos, so I'm hiding it under a hat 😛
