Arriving in Constantia was the beginning leg of our *real* adventure. There were no friendly faces, we weren't sure were to go, and there was a shark of taxi drivings wanting our obviously English business. For the second time, the train personnel slammed the window in Penny's face unwilling to answer our questions. We assume because they didn't speak English. The average Romanian is friendly and helpful. Train station employees, like government employees in the states, are not your 'average' freindly native. They were rude to everyone. We were no exception, but it stung no less to hear the SLAM of wood across the little opening in the glass. Our directions were vague and hand drawn on an envelope. We were to hire a car to drive us to Vama Veche, about 30 minutes away, then walk down the one road to the beach and find the tent with the balloon. We walked around nervously and attempted to ask several people before being assured the *this* bus would take us to our final destination, La Vama Veche (pronounced vama vekay). Vama Veche was a small town on the Black Sea bordering Bulgaria. This was the Easter holiday week, and a spring break-like gathering was taking place. We had friends waiting on us there. We heard something about Mangalia, however, so we had a feeling *this* bus wouldn't actually take us to Vama Veche. Forcing ourselves to trust the direction given, we boarded the bus and nervously giggled that "we hoped we weren't going to end up in Bulgaria"....oh wait, that joke only works when you aren't actually heading for a town on the border of Bulgaria!
I was more trusting than Penny, senseing we were heading in the right direction. We finally saw signs showing Vama Veche 28 k's. We could relax for a short while. In the town of Mangalia, we became nervously again as the bus was emptying more at every stop and appeared to be turning off from the direction we needed to go. The driver was looking at us funny in the mirror. Forutunately, a kind soul, a handsome young man our age, who spoke English, instructed us we must exit and catch another bus for the remainder of our journey. I tried to tip the friendly man, and immediately felt bad for doing so, as he frowned and held up his hand. We thanked him graciously and looked around for our next ride. Somehow, I managed to �acquire� a middle age �shepard� who I found standing next to us, appearing open to help us (it was obvious we needed help...two American women with large back packs exiting a bus, trying to give a guy money, then walking around in a circle looking confused!). Without English, our shepard explained Vama Veche would be �scripto� on the van we must take. He stood with us, shaking his head �nu� at each van arriving. He lifted eye brows and shrugged his shoulders when Penny sang and when we both laughed in near hysterics at our predicament. It was getting dark and we intelligent women were on our way to �find a tent with a balloon on a beach in a town somewhere in Romania on the Black Sea�. He seemed half amused by our antics as we watched an endless stream of mini buses, none of them going our way, come and go. The sun continued to lower. Finally our ride appeared. We were thrilled, until the door opened and none of the people cram packed inside got out. We were expected to board or be left behind. The shepard watched with a half smile as we stepped up onto the side step of the van. The only problem was we weren�t actually able to get �IN� the van. We were hanging outside of it. Penny and I could not stop laughing. We had fully expected to be hanging outside of the packed van for the entire ride. I remember thinking �her mom is going to kill me if she falls off!� I reached over and held onto her by her backpack in case she fell off, ignoring the futility of my actions. I held my own life with my other hand, which had miraculously found a railing hidden somewhere in the sea of sardines. Did I mention our hysterical laughing? Now heads were turning and we seemed, so we tell ourselves now, to be causing contagious smiling of everyone around.
The travel goddess, however, collecting money and loading passengers, gave Penny a solid push and I watched, amazed, as her skinny frame was slowly sucked into the sardine pack, with only her backpack bulging out the side of the van. I blinked, looking for a sign she was still attached to the back pack. Not believing my eyes, I had little time to blink again when I too was being pushed in or sucked in (I couldn�t tell if the Vama Veche sardine ride had taken on a American-eating life force of it�s own), and the sliding door latched behind me. The giggles were nearly paralyzing as Penny and I stared at each other wide-eyed, as our noses and knuckles rubbing shoulders and elbows with our fellow sardines. Somehow, the travel goddess had managed to get inside, as well, and was now standing beside me. The luxurious Vama Vech van started rolling forward. The shepard did not wave goodbye, but his final shoulder shrug was good enough for me. Surely he had enjoyed our stimulating company?
I was introduced to the others; Vlad, Alex, Cristi, Adrian, Anna, and a few other faces of which I cannot recall names.
The first thing we realized, we were not properly dressed for the weather. I had on short old navy crop pants, sandles, and T-shirt. Thankfully I'd brought a jacket and baseball hat, but had no socks or proper shoes. The wind was biting and cold. Paul loaned me fleece socks. Penny and I dawned every peice of clothing we'd stuffed into our backpacks in the futile hope of being warm.
There was only one solution of course, sit among a crowd of people and drink alcohol and warm food!
We spent the first half of the evening at a picnic table, between the thatched roof bar and thatched umbrellas. Surrounded by young Romanians, all enjoying thier own home-made wine and good friends, we sat under the stars on the beach, serenaded by the continuous music playing in the background. Cheap wine ($2 a bottle, excellent taste) and extremely cheap beer (25 cents each) made for a decent start to a relaxing evening. Here is where I was reminded of the history of the people, as the Romanian tradition of sharing food was reinforced over and over again. Everyone shares everything with everyone else. Homemade wine, stored in used plastic water bottles, is passed around the table or camp fire. Food is passed around as well. If there is not much of it, you take a bite and pass it on. As a westerner, where we share very little and we have such strong feelings about having worked to pay for something for ourselves, it was an adjustment I surprising found difficult. By American standards I am a generous person...but that standard is based on having enough as in the states we don't usually expect generosity and then only when there is 'plenty'. Here, where college students remember their parent's standing in line for their one meal allottment of the day (communism only fell in 1989) sharing is a way of life. Survival at one time depended on people sharing, as there was never enough for one individual to have 'plenty'. That is the curse of communism, though the generousness and good hearted nature of those who lived through it is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
