woke up to a cell phone call at 1:00 am ... who’s calling me in bucharest? ignored it, because that’s just what i tend to do with phone calls.
when the real alarm went off at 6:40am, i awoke to a gorgeous, warm morning. i wish that i had brought running shorts with me, but i had to settle for tights and a tank.
today’s run took me out east, where i was intending to loop back south to the parliament buildings, run through the park that we’d explored last night and back north to the hotel. easier planned than done – and there were three important lessons that i learned:
1. in bucharest, it’s not the cars on the road you have to look out for – it’s the cars on the sidewalk (if you’ve ever been here, you’ll know what i mean).
2. mapping the route is the easy part – locating the road name signs is not.
3. even when stray dogs are surrounded by people, they will only chase the running ones.
as it was, i navigated down unintended side streets and was distracted on various occasions by police vehicles either travelling at high speed with sirens a-blazing or escorting what looked to be romanian dignitaries flanked by their equivalent of the secret service. add in that i ran straight past my hotel without noticing, and a 10km run turned into 12.71km.
after breakfast back at the hotel, doug escorted me to the bus stop, where the airport express had just arrived – barely enough time for goodbye. the bus trip itself was reasonably uneventful , although i did discover that at unidentified stops the officials responsible for verifying tickets will board the bus and randomly ask for valid transit passes. and even though my ticket was rejected by the magnetic scanning machine situated at each of the bus doors, apparently when it was checked by the official it passed muster.
check-in at the henri coanda airport was uneventful – thankfully. they actually have two airports in town. i’m not sure that i could have handled another “oh, you’re supposed to be at the other one”.
lunch at the terminal doesn’t offer too many options , so i managed to complete the trifecta. i have now eaten at pizza hut, mcdonald’s and burger king in romania.
highlights of the flights home?
a. seeing the swiss alps from the air
b. being patted down by munich airport security ... these guys take no chances
c. lufthansa flight attendant commenting on how much she loved my outfit
d. one hour delay for the flight from boston to Toronto (actually, i’m still waiting in logan international airport even now)
so, figuring that it'll be a late arrival back home after catching the simcoe county airport shuttle, i'm posting this before wrapping up the day. but i'm definitely bringing back great memories of bacau and bucharest to barrie.
(say that 10x fast)
[post script: i've now arrived back in toronto, but my luggage didn't make it. that's two for two on international flights where my bag has gone missing. last time it was our honeymoon.]
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