I kept looking through his book looking for 'thank-you' and 'I hope I'm not imposing'. When John eventually worked out what was going on he was over- whelmed. George gave us a leather bag too. (Until my luggage was stolen I always carried my stuff around in the day in a polythene carrier bag, leaving my rucksack in a locker. I had thought that this would show how poor I was but in Eastern Europe they don't have polythene so it actually showed that I was wealthy.) He folded up our dirty clothes in computer paper and put them in the bag. It transpired than Goby was a bookkeeper and this paper had figures on it. He unfolded the sofa which became a bed and told John and me to go to sleep. It was only 19:00 but Goby would be back soon to make us a meal and we had to get the 03:00 train. We said we didn't want to get a train at night but he said we'd be OK as he'd be with us. John slept. I didn't really.
At about 21:00 he got us up. In the middle of the room they'd laid the table. They gave us some brandy-like home brew made by Goby's father. It was really strong stuff, I couldn't really drink it. Some more beans, this time looking like beans. Cheese like in the sandwich, pate, and a plate of salad each. I drank quite a bit of water too. It was all very nice. We had some very interesting conversation and watched the Olympics on telly. As they don't have satellite they only had one channel. We also saw the news. They like 'Howard's Way' (something we didn't guess when they were trying to talk about boats as a form of travel on the train) and 'Twin Peaks'. They love American stuff and are mislead into thinking its perfect in the west. But it is pretty good compared to the way they live. But still they took it a bit too far in their understanding of the amount of goods we could afford and the level of employment in Britain. Goby showed us her wedding photos. They were married on 12.04.91. She was very happy with us. Whenever they came across Goby's sister George would make a noise and hunch his shoulders implying that she was a monster. We saw all their family and they gave us a picture each of the pair of them. Whenever we said 'are we imposing' he said 'no you are my friends I like you'. (Whenever he said 'I like' he actually said 'I like you' eg 'I like you Beatles'. John tried to correct him once but it was quite endearing.) When Roxette sang 'Joyride' he picked up on the line 'hello you fool I love you' and said 'yes, I love you' to us. Three of us went to bed in their double sofabed, and when Goby had finished clearing up she got in too. He set the alarm. I'd set my watch alarm. I felt quite safe and slept.
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03:30 Brasov to Bucharest
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When my alarm woke me up at 2 am I remembered that their alarm had gone off but no-one had woken up. I lay there looking around. Next to me George appeared to be fully dressed. When I went to sleep he was not dressed. What had he been doing? Did I want to wake him up? Did I want him to take us into the darkness in the night? If I left him we could sleep until sunrise. I lay and thought until just gone 02:10. I woke up George. John woke up. The light came on. He wasn't properly fully dressed, it was a track suit. He gave me some packed sandwiches. Goby had stayed up last night making them from the left- overs. Surely he wouldn't have given me these if we were being lead to our death. There were three cups of cold coffee also laid out for us by Goby the previous night. We said good-bye to Goby and set off into the darkness.
The streets were dark. There was no street light. We didn't go along the road. We took a short cut across waste ground. My socks kept falling down. George's feet are much smaller than mine. I walked in the middle of the backstreet. Dogs kept going wild, throwing them- selves at gates as we passed. They were barking all around. We walked alongside the railway line. We walked across it. We walked along the platform and into the station. All around there were unsavoury characters. George was obviously not totally comfortable. I asked if he was going to buy a ticket. He said 'no'. My hypoth- esis was the following: Goby had a heart condition and would probably die without money. George wasn't in the mob but knew that there would be a reward if he handed us over to them. He knew that they were to be found on the trains at night, so he kept us until then and now he would hand us over. He wasn't strong or confident enough to get us, especially on his own doorstep, but here there would be a big gang. It sounds neurotic to mistrust the nicest person I've ever met but it was night, dangerous
and we'd seen enough wild stuff. George walked straight through the station and out through the entrance. Within the double set of doors was a newspaper salesman. George had a quick glance at the papers. (Obviously a ploy to show he was Romanian). He walked past all the street sales people to an off-license kiosk. He bought a bottle of coke, which he didn't really want. They gave him the wrong change. He com- plained. They gave him some more change. He complained again. They counted out more money until he was happy. We went back in, looking at the papers on the way. We walked around, and then sat on an empty side of the hall. We hardly spoke English at all. He showed us phrases in the book. 'These are presents from me' relating to the clothes and bag that he'd given us. 'Attention' meaning be on guard looking after our money and passports. He said when the train would arrive. (03:20, leaving at 03:35.) At about 03:30 we went to the platform. At 03:35 we waited until everyone else had boarded the train then we walked down and sussed out the best place to sit. We got in. He said he would deal with the ticket man, he would do all talking in fact. We should go to sleep. He put the light off as soon as possible. John went to sleep. I still was not sure. I stayed sitting up for the whole 4 hour journey. After half an hour to an hour George left the carriage. This was it. He'd gone to get the mob and his cash. I saw a shadow come back past the compartment and then look back in on us. I'd have to speak to them in English. It was George. He came in and lay down again. At last I knew 100% that he was OK. I relaxed. George lay on his side with his arms folded on each side of his head. He looked like a soldier and he was there to protect us. I had told George I didn't have a ticket which wasn't really true but the interrail ticket would have given away that we were British. When the ticket man came George gave him, I think, 400 lei and said it was for the three of us. It was four notes anyway. I was confused that the collector didn't give him any change. I now realise he didn't buy tickets, he bribed him.
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Bucharest was the most dangerous station we've been to. There were dodgy people everywhere. Lots of people were handing out cards and saying 'Istanbul'. George tried to explain it but I didn't understand him. I thought it was something to do with wine although I'm not sure why. I think there was a picture of a decanter on the ticket. John now hypothesises that they were selling train reser- vations to Istanbul. If this is the case then we would have been in trouble getting there. George said that Istanbul was near which was annoying as that's where we wanted to go but we'd given up by now. (Our planned trip had been to go to Bulgaria, Turkey and then back via Prague.) People had all sorts of scams going. Two men were carrying a case between them and kept stopping for rests and to swap sides, it was very balletic. One woman carried a big iron bar for no particular reason. Everyone was delaying and bumping into us. We went to the toilet. I still needed to go, the dodgy food and water were taking effect, but it was too busy and the doors were virtually non-existent. The other two had a quick wash. George offered us food but as I say I couldn't really eat, and Goby's meal had filled us up anyway. We went to the railway police station. George asked them where the British Embassy was. They were no help at all. Very unfriendly. John and I imagined how we'd have fared turning up on our own. And in the inter- railing book it had recommended coming here. We'd been so impressed by the book on our experiences in western Europe but it was so wrong in the east. We wondered whether the writer had ever even been here. A taxi driver came up to us in the station and hassled us to go with him. George asked how much he'd charge. It was about 800 lei. The same price as we had been quoted as the price of a hotel room. Ridiculous. Outside the station there were no hotels at all, let alone the four big ones right in front of you that the people from Birzava had told us of. George asked a few people for directions; a couple of taxi drivers, a couple of people on the street. Each time he'd look at us and give an expression indicating whether he trusted their answer. Everyone gave us different answers so we had to assess from the collected data which was the true direction and who were trying to send us down dark alleyways. We got to a bus stop. We asked a couple more people for directions. One girl looked OK and then he noticed her zip was broken so she wasn't trustworthy after all. George looked at lots of nice looking girls too and then told himself off saying that Goby wouldn't approve. We caught a bus. We didn't buy a ticket. We asked more people. We kept intentionally going the wrong way and then doubling back. It seemed like we were lost but often we were just trying to throw off followers. My memories of the city are that it was very big, dusty, concrete, grey/white and the only real signs of 'western civilisation' were a couple of very big advertising boards, they may have been neon I can't remember, adver- tising Coca Cola and Marlborough cigarettes.
Eventually we got to the Brittanic Embassy. We'd never have found it ourselves. It was 07:30. The guard said to come back between 08:30 and 09:00. We went and sat in a park at the end of the road. There were some women sitting there. George talked to them, to show he was Romanian. They were workers at the Embassy, apparently. I don't understand why they were waiting so early. When we came back an hour later they were still there. James mentioned later that Romanians have no qualms about talking to strangers. We went to a restaurant. On the way there someone arrived at someone's gate they shook hands very close and quickly walked in closing the gate, keeping it as closed as possible for the procedure. We bought some really fatty horrible bacon and egg, some bread and some of their coffee (funny tasting water with a couple of beans at the bottom). I said I wasn't feeling well and needed to go to the toilet. George came with me. He positioned himself by the restaurant entrance such that he could watch over both John in the restaurant and me in the toilet. I was ill. I ate the bread and drank our coke. John and George had a conver- sation. George asked for us to write an invitation at the embassy to invite him and Goby to visit us in Britain. Without an invite Romanians are not allowed to leave the country, this is why some people, especially Catilin, had been so keen to swap addresses and for us to write to them. It became clear that this had been a driving force for George putting so much effort into helping us, but still no reason to think badly of him. |
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