Tuedsay, September 12, 2006

Well, the journal for this day really starts at like midnight. In the middle of the night on Tuesday, the 7 of us got on a train to the black sea. It was 7 american girls and one Romanian man in a 2nd class, 8 seater Romanian train car. Plenty of awkward moments. Throughout the night as we exploded with laughter over awkward sleeping position after awkward sleeping position the one Romanian man watched almost silently and receded further and further into his corner. Sometimes he would drape the curtain over his face and pretend to sleep, but sometimes the curiosity was too much for the poor man. The only time he ever reached out to any of us was when, during yet another fight for comfort, Marina accidentally rested her foot upon his knees for a moment. Instead of pretending it hadn’t happened and leaving everyone to try to act as normal as possible, he instead decided to grasp her foot, bringing it up to his package and nodding to her as if to say “yeah, don’t worry, that’s ok.” He then proceeded to massage it and hold ever tighter as she, laughing nervously, tried her best to pull it back to her side of the bench. I’d like, also, to touch a little more on the aforementioned “awkward positions.” Well, what is meant is simply that we ended up with a set up something like this. Shannon’s legs on me, me spooning with Marina, her legs on the man, Megan leaning on Shannon, with her legs on Melissa and Jessica’s, Melissa leaning on Jessica and Melissa and Jessica’s legs on Jenna, and Jenna on the floor. Except more complicated. And to say that that was our position and to leave it at that would be further yet from the truth because any position, this one among them was only ever able to last for about 30 seconds because with all this intertwining, once one person became the slightest bit uncomfortable in, say, their leg, they would have to adjust it, which would lead 3 other people to be uncomfortable in their respective limbs which would lead them to adjust themselves, which would then lead to more jostling and more jostling until the entire car was in continuous movement for, at best, the next 30 minutes. Needless to say, by the end of the 9 hour ride, we were all fairly stiff and cranky. Almost immediately after we all stumbled off the train and into the sunlight, we were met by a fairly plump, middle aged woman with cigarettes and money in her bra, among other things, which were all clearly visible through her very see-through shirt, who offered us a stay at her property – 100 Lei for the lot of us. This is apparently normal in countries like Romania and is a legitimate means of attaining accommodation. She assured us constantly that she was a very “serious” woman and offered us the opportunity to pay her for a ride to the property to check it out before we agreed. The ride, as it turned out would be 20 Lei, as determined by “Mr.” as he was referred to by the lady. After discussing it for quite some time with the lady and “Mr.” watching anxiously, we finally decided it was worth looking at. So, we all crammed in the back of a big van and immediately I felt like an illegal alien being transported across the border. After having a good look around at the property we decided we’d take it. It had two rooms with two beds and was connected to another couple of rooms, that included a sitting room, a bathroom, a kitchen and a nice old lady who would be living in there. Upon acceptance, the lady asked in her best “I deserve pity” voice for $20 more for her “commission.” At first we were unwilling, feeling she should have brought it up beforehand and feeling she was being very dishonest, but we softened after coming to our sense and realizing that she probably actually really needed it and that it, shared between us would be a pittance that we were giving. After she left, a few people decided to sleep right away, but Melissa, Shannon and I thought it would be much more pleasant to sleep on the beach, so we got dressed and headed out to find the beach. It wasn’t so simple however. The road which we were told led to the beach really just led to a landfill. So we proceeded to wander around for quite some time looking for a real beach before giving up and trying our best Romanians skills to ask for directions to the “big beach.” With some difficulty (as always) we figured out that the big beach was called “Mamaia” and was “that way.” So, we walked allll the way back to our….house thing and told the other girls before taking a taxi to the beach. The topless beach J. Yeah it was topless, but I’m pretty sure they’re all topless in Europe. At least not everyone was topless and at least it wasn’t an actual “nude” beach. So we had a really fun day at the beach. We mostly just laid out, read, took a nap, talked and Shannon and I went for a walk as well. We were there for quite a long time and didn’t leave til like 6:30ish. When we got home we met up with the rest of the girls, who, we found, had gone to a different, much closer beach but with much less people. By this time, we were all pretty hungry, so we ended up walking around and asking a lady at a gas station where there was a good restaurant and eating there. Aside from the fact that Shannon was so sunburned she was about to throw up and Marina and I had to walk her home, it was a fabulous experience. I mean, I got ribs, pasta and mashed potatoes for about 6 American dollars. Love the Romanian exchange rate! Anyway, that’s about it for the rest of that night. All we did when we got home was get ready for bed and then sleep (3 people per bed with one on the floor).