Strike

Cipri from Suceava will be in Oradea tonight/tomorrow and will come visit me in Timisoara before he heads home on Tuesday night.

I am excited.

He was our guide when Melissa and I went to see the Bucovina monasteries last April. We decided to tour around on our own, but met up with an American, Jason, who had booked his tour, and just tagged along. We ended up spending the day together, and he kept in touch with us during the rest of the trip.

Melissa's in Ghana studying African drumming and dance (with a bunch of hairy armpitted West Coast womyn, according to her email) but Cipri and I have stayed in touch and he said he'll come stay with me in Timisoara.

!@#$

Apparently there is a train strike.

Lovely.

I am now changing the title of this post from "Guest" to "Strike".

I was in France two years ago during the huge SNCF train strike. Mom and I were stuck in Avignon (not such a bad thing as Avignon is one of my favourite cities) but Mom was panicking about getting back to Paris. Normally there are something like eighteen trains a day between Paris and Avignon. This got reduced to six.

We went to the station every day (sometimes many times) to ask about tickets. And I became the unofficial translator for all the hysterical American tourists. I relished my important job.

Anyways, back to Romania.

There is a train strike. And it seems there are now no direct trains from Timisoara to Suceava. The website is hillarious though, and it's the only thing that is keeping me from losing my temper right now. I love the overuse of the "blink" tag, not to mention the Flash train running all over the place.

!@#$%^& (now you know I'm really upset)

So they put all the information on the Romanian site, but not the English site. Yes, I can read the Romanian and understand it, but it's the foreigners who also ened to know this information, as we can't always understand everything. Whine whine whine. Ok, I'll try to stop now.

I feel bad for the poor people of Suceava. Only one train from Bucharest. Suceava has to be one of the most isolated cities in Romania. And one of the ugliest too (Lonely Planet be damned, it is *not* "funky and happening").

Hmm...wonder if there's a train from Timisoara to Iasi. In a perfect world, there should be a train between Romania's second largest and fourth largest cities.

I guess not.

Everything is to or from Bucharest (and most people know my thoughts about Bucharest [sorry Bodgan and Dragos!]), with a few trains randomly headed to Mangalia (pop: 40,000). Gotta make sure the vacationers get their Black Sea coast fix.

This sucks.

No trains from Oradea to Timisoara, no trains from Timisoara to Suceava. Cipri said earlier that he will hitchhike, but still...

I know there are maxi taxis from Oradea to here, but I don't know the price or how to get one. I've never even been to Oradea. Strangely enough, Arad has a much larger maxi taxi culture than Timisoara. Last time I was in Arad, I was inundated with requests at the train station to take me to Belgrade, Cluj and Bucharest. In Timisoara, I very rarely see maxi taxis.

Makes me want to go to Arad next time I go to Belgrade...I'm sure a maxi taxi won't take five hours!

I really really hope he can come. I didn't clean my apartment for nothing!