3/27 Bucharest Airport 11 am. One hour to departure.
Romanian customs just confiscated a beautiful bottle of slivovitz (plum brandy) I’d picked up for a friend back home. Insisted it exceeded allowable limit by a few ml. They threw it in the trash! I suspect somebody(s) in Bucharest got a treat that evening.
Grey skies. It’s raining. My wheelchair pusher, Mohammed, looked about 15 years old. Told me (when I asked) that Muslims are treated fairly and equitably in Romania (a mostly strictly Orthodox Country, except for the outcast Roma). He smiled and said yes! Islam is well tolerated, no social barriers or open prejudice.
He was an attractive, rather elegant young man, very well spoken. He conducted me safely to the “facilities” which I recognized only by the sign with a lady wearing a skirt. Never managed to learn any Romanian except Good Morning and Good Evening! which sound like Italian.
Prior to this, the seemingly endless traffic jams en route to the airport (stop/start stop/wait/ start) caused some angst as to whether the bus driver would get us to the airport on time. He handled the very chaotic conditions with the grace of an acrobat or dancer, winning cheers from some of us.
Asked whether traffic is always this bad, he answered “Always”. It seems (our tour guide had told us) that everyone in Romania wants to have a car, whether they can afford one or not. And in Romania’s perpetually grim economic conditions, many simply cannot. Most cars are second-, third-, or fourth-hand. Many are unable to make the necessary regular payments for what represents a significant status symbol.
As we crawled through Bucharest’s outlying districts we passed the usual sea of depressing Soviet-era apartment blocks, shabby and crumbling for the most part. Not even one apartment in 10 boasted AC. Eventually we passed more modern-looking housing complexes, as well as unique “Roma mansions” surviving from considerably less recent times. Then a lot of large modern banks and other (industrial) installations.
Seated finally at my departure gate among dozens of others, I nursed my disappointment at being unable to bring Plum Brandy to America, and sadness at ending this great European adventure (probably my last). Wheezing some. Praying I won’t cough much during the 12–hr flight home.
Well, Lois has certainly won Fixer-Of-My-Year Award! She must have burned up the wires from Wyoming to Romania making sure some lusty young person with well-oiled wheels and a chair attached was waiting for me at every single gate. Special Needs shuttle even (at Munich)! I’ve been treated like royalty. Feel speechless (for once) with gratitude.
The very last “pusher” (in Munich), a German soldier soon bound for active duty (where?) recognized that I’m an American – my Yankee English? I never really said anything. But identifying my origin must have triggered a reaction.
There followed a nasty diatribe, polemic of polemics, over several minutes. “Your president is so smart, so tough! He is the man America has been waiting for! Ukraine has always (I tell you) been part of Russia! Germany should not be sending arms to Zelensky,” etc. On and on.
His eyes bored through me as though I really wasn’t there. Intense, rigidly resolved to instruct, to enlighten, he was wily enough to keep his voice down, the wheelchair passenger wise enough to keep her mouth firmly shut. I felt shaken.
After a surprisingly easy flight during which I ecstatically observed us via the wee toy airplane and lots of full color video footage crossing Iceland, then Greenland!
Wondering if current U.S. politics generated the latter close-up views, I simply reveled in knowing I was actually, physically flying over these two exotic nations for the first time.
Recalled learning recently that Greenland is a significant source of rubies! I’ve read several books about Greenland’s history and geography, and Iceland’s cultural history, literature and people. It was a wonderful feeling to be so close somehow!
It was literally daytime during the flight, so people (and small children) were relatively active, chatting, watching movies … I was content to watch us crawl across the little screen in front of me, noticing it was often 70 ⷪ below zero Fahrenheit outside our snug airline cabin. Mostly at 38,000 feet, 600 mph.
At last – Denver!
By now I was pretty much running on fumes. Recognize absolutely nothing about an airport I knew by heart – until now. Trying to stay awake. Trying not to cough on fellow human beings.
Wondering where Lois was. Wondering where I was. Attempts to communicate via my phone, via my sweet “pusher” whose English was halting (he turned out to be Haitian).
Lois! Lois!
Appalled at the idea that he or his Haitian brothers would eat anyone’s dog or cat!!
We parted, blessing one another.
I was home.
In a way, in all the days of my journey, I was always at home somehow!
It’s called hospitality.
It’s called Love.
If you have just come to the journey at this point, you have reached it at the end! Please start the chronicle from the beginning to learn the rest of Lyndie’s fascinating story.
Lyndie sacrificed the experience of a previous journey on the Danube, for which she spent most of her life savings, to help a blind companion who had fallen ill. You can read more about this in Chapter 3.
Friends and strangers have raised nearly $3000 to help Lyndie (re)live her ruined dream of a trip to Eastern Europe. We are still working to restore her depleted savings. To learn more and (if you can) contribute any amount, please click here.
Lyndie's Journey 