From the outside, the World Race may appear to be the coolest and craziest adventure, ever. What can beat 50+ young people travelin’ the world and sharing their faith? Yeah… Pretty cool I know.
However, one of the less glamorous parts of the Race is travel days. In my attempt to adequately portray life on the Race, I thought I’d give you an idea of a “normal” transition from country to country. Here was our sequence from Tirana, Albania to Oradea, Romania:
Bus from Korce to Tirana, Albania 4 hours
Bus from Tirana to Bucharest, Romania 17 hours
(this was an overnight bus through Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania…border crossings at 3am are no fun, especially when you multiply them by 4)
Train from Bucharest to Oradea, Romania 13 hours
On our bus ride from Albania to Romania, I distinctly remember standing in line to use the restroom at about 4 am and asking my squad mate, “Where are we?” We stared for each other a bit, confused and tired. Then we both pulled out our passports and looked for the latest stamp- not only did it tell us we were in Bulgaria, but also it told us the date! Only on the World Race can your passport help you figure out where you are when.
After debrief in Bucharest, we boarded our first train and got excited that it was a sleeper train. It felt like we were in Harry Potter and we were headed to Hogwarts- so exciting! We became less excited when we realized we just had regular seats. Yep. Trying to cram 20 Racers and their packs into a tight space is definitely a feat. Trying to sleep is a miracle.
Need I say more…
So there you have it, the less glamorous side to the World Race!
