Crazy travel day part II

6:50 AM, July 9th: Over the past 24 hours, I've taken a 5 and a half hour train from Brasov to Cluj, and used a minibus from Cluj to Budapest Airport (8 hours) and I am about to take a 3 hour flight to London. As I sit on a bench outside the terminal 2A building, watching the sun rise, I realize what a crazy ride this has been already. First, the train ride with mama, papa, kid #1, kid #2, uncle and grandma invading my 6-seat compartment (you do the math). But the typical Romanian is all smiles and giggles except for the occasional temper-tantrum by kid # 2, followed by a good old-fashion beating to shut the kid up but I did notice him being violent with his brother, mama and papa... ummm, No comment.

Then, minibus adventure. Sitting next to a Moroccan student studying in Cluj and not speaking a word of Romanian... Huh? He explains that Romania is where you come if you can't make it into schools in your own country. Redefining last chance university. What's scary is that lots of students come and get medical degrees in Romania (without speaking a word of Romanian). Mental note: advise citizenship and immigration Canada to crack down on Romanian doctor applications. This would explain the incorrect prescription given to me while in Romania four years ago.

Next adventure: the border crossing! An entire Moldavian village (not kidding) decided they would work clandestinely in Europe. But first, they need to pass the border. Realizing they will get stopped in their three minivans caravan, they decide to make deals for empty seats in our tourist bus. This is where we come in. Without fear of the long prison sentence if caught, our bus driver decides to make a few quick bucks. It gets surreal when just before we pass the border, the bus driver turns around and says we all were picked up in Cluj... got it! While he smokes his cigarettes nerviously. ALl ends up going well though as the under-paid border officials wave us through. We stop at the nearest pit stop and exchange our human cargo. The 3 minivan caravan is back together and a small drinking and dancing party starts in the parking lot. I didn't want to spoil their fun by asking who was the designated driver. Hungarian border officials should really put up security cameras in this spot as this must happen pretty often. On the road again, and our driver realizes that he lost time with his profiteering venture. He decides to see if he can make up the time by trying to break the sound barrier on land with a 5-tonne minibus. My ears do pop a few times but unsure if he actually succeeded. We did arrive 5-minutes before our scheduled arrival time which makes the average speed... well, don't want to scare mom.

12:55 (greenwich time): After circulating (0r hovering) over London for more than 20 minutes, I realize now that Heathrow is one of the busiest hubs at busiest time of the year: summer. It doesn't chagne the fact that London is cloudy, windy and relatively cool. I also realize Heathrow is one of the most badly designed airports I've been too. They seem to have added blocks when traffic increased without any concern for the whole. But I'm here, as I frantically try to find Internet access to see if I've received any messages from Instituto Hemingway or more importantly from Jessica. Good news: message from Jessica about her fun adventures at the Bluesfest! I frantically type a message back to her to let her know I'm okay but the public Internet keyboard makes this very difficult. My time runs out before I can write anything meaningful but I have a feeling she'll understand.