Many people told me to blog and take pictures so they could "travel with me" around the world. On Tuesday, we left our first month's home in Vidin to travel to our new town of Targu Mures, Romania. To avoid boredom on long train rides and waiting at the ferry stop I have written down a pretty detailed list of what we did all day. Read until you get bored, I included all day…for it was a pretty long day 🙂 But it was a good day…
Travel Day to Targu Mures, Romania: 8/16/11
8:20am – Wake up and finish packing
9:10 – Last minute trip to the corner store for granola bars and a Cappy juice box
9:50 – Everyone’s ready and waiting on some friends to say goodbye. "Mmmbop" by
Hanson on the radio and Steve gets excited.
10:10 – Madlan, Afghani and Pollie come to help us with taxis and the ferry. Madlan
gives us some amazing apple cinnamon awesome cake for our travels!
10:30 – Leave apartment for the last time. Go to ferry.
10:45 – Arrive at ferry. Final farewells and hugs.
10:55 – Going through Customs. Border policeman inquires about Kelly’s guitar
then asks if he can play it! The result – a Bulgarian border patrol playing and singing “La Bamba”.
11:00 – ½ kilometer walk with packs and luggage to the ferry.
11:10 – Buy ferry tickets and begin to wait (the ferry doesn’t run until it’s full).
- First bites of Madlan’s cake – wonderful! (it was way more tasty than this picture depicts!)
11:15 – Try to find a spot to sit in the shade.
- First attempt: move a big rock to sit on, hear rustling behind a nearby fence, see a fat striped snake slither by, freak out, relinquish the rock and shade to the monster.
- Second attempt: Sit by a wet spot that I soon find out is not water.
- Third attempt: Find partial shade in an open area with no snakes or urine.
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At this point Steve is working out in the hot sun by lifting our 3L water bottles.
11:30 – Ferry arrives from other side of the river but our side still isn't full.
12:55pm – Load the ferry.
1:20 – Arrive in Calafat, Romania!
1:47 – Get our passport stamped and walk toward the train station.
2:00 – Lunch – PB & J with some chips, apple and other leftover snacks.
2:35 – Blake and I seek out the sketchy toilet behind the train station.
2:45 – Get on train, use my handy multi-tool to open the windows. Train was quite hot at this time of day.
3:10 – 6:38pm – Train from Calafat to Craiova.
7:00 – PB & J for dinner, an orange Fanta, banana, leftovers of Madlan’s cake. Play cards, explore a bit of the city, use 1 lei each to pay for the bathroom.
8:40 – meet Ion (who says it’s pronounced like “yawn”) at the train platform. I tell him we’re from Canada because I’m tired and don’t know who he is (sometimes Canadians are better received than Americans…)
9:15 – Sweet train ride! Air condition (we actually get cold at night…praise God!), car to ourselves.
9:45 – 10:30 – Ion comes to visit and we get a Romanian lesson. The Lord convicts me and I confess that Frank is in fact the only Canadian on our team. Oops…
10:45pm – 3:15am – attempts at sleep. Success in 15-30 minute increments.
3:20am – 4:18am – Everyone awake. Train supposed to stop at 3:50, actually reaches our destination at 4:18am.
4:21am – catch the next train to Targu Mures. More snacking, sleeping.
6:24am – Targu Mures! Waiting in the train station for Pastor Szombor.
7:11am – Meet Pastor Szombor and his son, Christoph
7:19 – 8:14 – Kelly, Steve, Jill and I walk with them to the grocery store and buy food for meals through Saturday.
8:21 – meet back up with Frank, Sarah and Blake who are watching our bags. Wait for the bus to pick us up.
9:18 – Bus arrives, heading to our house in the village!
9:54am – Finally home for the month and unloading our things!
11:10 – Pastor Szombor’s wife makes us lots of food and we eat some Sardine salad.
1:30pm – Nap time!
Thank you to everyone for your many prayers for my team. We had a truly blessed travel day with no bumps at all. The Lord is good 🙂 Stay tuned for more blogs…they're all in my head I just have to find time to write!
For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you,
Do not fear; I will help you. – Isaiah 41:13
(Thanks, Heather for the encouraging scripture for the month!) 
