GLOBETROTTERS WRITING PROMPT
Robbed and Stranded in Romania
Curious incident of the train in the night-time
In 2004, when I was but a little spring chicken (if spring chickens are 19 years old), my best friend and I decided to travel from our native Estonia all the way to Romania. We had visited the Christian community of Taize (France) a few months earlier and she had gotten rather attached to a certain curly-haired Romanian guy she met there.
Back in those days, neither of us had much income, being college students and scraping by on the salaries of the part-time jobs we had at the time, therefore travelling to another corner of Europe had to be done with minimal costs and during the Christmas break.
We were thinking of hitching a ride with a long-distance truck and visited the depot where they are stationed near Estonia’s capital city of Tallinn. Unfortunately, that plan did not work, due to the one suitable vehicle being delayed somewhere in Latvia. It had sadly slid right into a ditch on the slippery ice that covered the roads there.
So, we did have to open the velcro flaps of our rather thin wallets, and pay for a long bus journey to Paris, France and then a train to Bucharest, Romania. This plan appeased our parents, who were worried — and rightly so — of us…
