We decided to spend an extra day in Craiova last week to explore the city, peruse the plethora of second hand shops, eat some delicious food, and have a cup (or four) of coffee as a team, seeing as our time together is coming to an end with team changes coming up in the next few weeks. This month our ministry has us bopping between Dragane?ti-Olt, Bal?, and Craiova for a few days at a time to do all sorts of work in each city. Our main base is Dragane?ti-Olt though and because we chose to stay and extra day in Craiova it was on us to find our way back to Dragane?ti-Olt.
All seemed well and easy when we looked online and found that 32 trains ran from Craiova to Dragane?ti-Olt every day, so we thought that getting to the station by 9:00 am would be more than sufficient. Well Tuesday morning rolled around and we made the trek from our mission house to the station, only to find that the soonest train leaving from Dragane?ti-Olt wasn’t until 12:45pm…but was delayed and may not arrive at that time…but that there was a 1:00 pm option that had us take a bus to a train and then that train would take us to Dragane?ti-Olt. Easy peasy, we’ll take seven tickets for the bus/train option then!
Now the adventure really begins here!
We spend the morning reading, editing photos and video, and so on until fifteen minutes shy of 1:00 pm. We go in search of this bus, only to have every driver ‘shoo’ us away and every local confuse us just a bit more than we initially were before we asked them where our bus was. Suddenly a massive bus pulls up and it seemed as if the entire platform filled with people began flooding into this bus like they were a dam that finally burst open! The only reason we knew we should get on this bus was because each one of us happened to find a train conductor, ask them if this was the right bus (in hand motions btw), have them nod their heads sternly to signal yes, and all of us turn back to one another saying, ‘This is the one!” The seven of us, along with half of Romania, boarded the bus to “shockingly” find there were no seats left and then have a bus full of people try to tell us that there was another bus, but us not catching onto that whatsoever. We did eventually realize what they were saying and with our bags and sweaty selves, made our way off one bus and onto the next!
The bus ride was only a short twenty minutes to a ‘station’ that was nestled behind a patch of trees and surrounded by sunflower fields that were not as sunny as they probably once were. A group of men in overalls and straw hanging from their mouths were napping under a tree by the tracks, all our friends from the first bus are already on the train, and all our new friends from the second bus walked with us on a short hike through the fields and across the tracks to the train. Here we were pushed up and into the car (This made me feel a bit like an outlaw on the run, but with a lot of help!), and made our way into what felt like a spaceship. We sat there for nearly an hour so before chugging along and eventually making it to the Dragane?ti-Olt station.
When we got off the train we realized that taxis were no option and it was going to be a 40 minute walk back to our mission house. After some confusion, discussion, and acceptance we began our walk home. When we reached the main road and turned right to head home, a white van (Already starting off spooky, I know!) pulled up. The door slid open and out poured four or five passengers, the driver called me over and in the most broken conversation, I believe I may have ever had, I came to realize that they were offering us a free ride. I turned back to my teammates and in slight chuckle I said, “Is this a good idea?” and before I knew it we were all in a strangers’ van with about fifteen people, all our bags, and quite the story. We ended up being let off right in front of our place about five minutes later and in a medley of voices we thanked the driver and other passengers before the door slid shut and they drove off into the distance.
Shocked (but not really) I walked into the mission house, set down my bags, freshened up, and then got into our host’s car to visit his brother’s bee farm. It was a doozy of a day, but I’m not sure if I really am all that surprised by days like this anymore! The video below is made by one of my teammates (Shelby) and it will be sure to give you a few chuckles, and insight into a day in the life of a racer on the move.
