Well. I'm here.
My team and I have been out in the field for the past week now – I can't believe its been a week already. It all is a hazy, lack-of-sleep dreamlike blur. Brief outline of whats happened so far:
Monday (July 11th): Wake up early and get to the Madison airport with the fam and Mr. Benjamin John only to learn that my flight to Chi Town has been cancled. Sweet start.
Don't worry.
It gets better.
After talking to a billion different people (a billion being 5) I eventually was placed on a flight out of Cheekaaaago (which meant, yay! a family drive to O'Hare as well as an unexpected $1,000 plane ticket). Tough goodbye with the family – Ticknor water works show for the International security line. Polish airline LOT complete with Polish entertainment from the 1980's (if you thought the 80s were cheesy in America, catch
Soooooo….apparently the internet where I am doesn't have a very good connection and cut me off literally half way through my thought. Its been a busy couple of days, so I've just had a chance to sit down and finish my cut off blog. My apologies.
Where was I? Ah yes. The 80's….
catch Polish 80's cartoons). I ended up sitting next to a Romanian man (I only know this because we ended up flying to Romania together as well, not that we talked at all during the 8 1/2 hour flight) who didn't seem to understand the concept of personal space. At any rate, 8 1/2 hours whirrled bye in a blur of Big Mamma's House, the Polish Sky Mall (no joke, they advertise a vodka "designed by Bruce Willis") and many failed attempts to catch some z's.
After catching a connecting plane in Warsaw, Poland, I found myself waiting to be picked up at the airport in Bucharest, Romania. Two of my squadmates found me outide (after a poorly confused Romanian man who was convinced he was suppose to pick me up finally gave up and walked away shaking his head) led me back to the hostel the team was staying at.
Launch – as they call the first few days of the Race – was for the most part a blast. During the 4 days we were in Bucharest, we explored the capital city of Romania, had a few training sessions (which in my opinion were repeated Training Camp sessions) and made a video for our individual teams.
I'll write a blog about Bucharest later (hold me to it) but for now, I'll focus on the journey from Bucharest to Vidin, Bulgaria.
Basically the itinerary for our trip was as follows: walk to the metro and take it to the train station where we were to board a train for 4.5 hours taking us to Craiova then catch a different train for 3.5 hours from Craiova to Kalafat where we were to board a ferry to take us across the river seperating Romania and Bulgaria. Then after customs wait for our contact in Bulgaria to pick us up. Sounds like a synch, right?
Things actually worked out as well as they could traveling with 6 other people all carrying a large backpack and smaller day pack with all the possessions they need for 11 months.
Let me take a quick time out to honor mothers all across the world.
Mothers.
Love them.
Respect them.
Listen to everything they have to say.
Unless they are helping you pack your backpack for the World Race. Then, I think its only responsible to ignore their advice. Because if you don't, you'll be carrying 45 lbs more than the rest of your teammates.
Love ya Mom 😉
Anyway, trouble came on the train from Craiova to Kalafat. It started when I stepped off our air conditioned, clean, 21st century train onto the "train platform" in Craiova. This "platform" consisted of a crumbling concrete barrier and a multitude of wild grass/weeds growing every which way (it was also nice enough to give me the experience of rolling my ankle with 80lbs of gear on my back).
We looked around the "train station" (basically a pasture with a building that had seen its fair share of weather and a few train tracks drowning in weeds) and saw one other train; the Ghetto Express. This train was a small rusty and dented 4-car blue-metal. . . . death trap? And our inquisition was soon answered; it was in fact our train. As we approached the conductor lead us to the last car on the train – where he placed us. As more and more passengers boarded, the conductor kept them away from our car. We were very confused by the whole matter – especially when he left only to come back with a "reserved" sign that he placed on our door. There was only one other man in the car with us – an old short plumb man wearing an Italy hat.
The train ride was very boring – the Romanian countryside is extremely repetitive, but does boast an impressive number of sunflower fields as far as the eye can see. Throughout, the old man acted as our bouncer – stopping anyone who got on from sitting in our car. We were all very confused because our team was only taking up 1/2 the seats in the car and we thought it only fair for others to sit in the unused seats instead of have to stand in the other crowded passeger cars. Theories were exchanged and we came to the conclusion that the conductor and this man must think that the "rich Westerners" would give them a big tip for accomodating them in this way.
We learned the truth very soon when we finally asked the man (using sign language an a colorful expression of charades) why the others weren't allowed to come sit by us. He said one word as he reached into his pocket and pretended to steal something from it: "Gypsies".
We saw that man as a guardian angel of sorts. Not the sort of guardian angel you would picture, but a protector nonetheless. He and the conductor knew that a bunch of ignorant Westerners with large packs would be easy targets for pick pockets. The man would eventually try to get us to ride in his car once we arrived in Kalafat to take us to the ferry (a gesture we didn't trust and decided must have been to collect gratitude). But the man was our guardian angel. A short, plump Romanian man with the glint of greed in his eyeand a biggoted distrust of a group of people. But God works in mysterious ways. And that was our first lesson in those ways.
