Day 12 - Thursday 15th October - Still in Brasov
This chapter was actually written on Friday, so the more observant among you will notice that I've skipped a day. Yes, I noticed that too. In fact, the day wasn't so much skipped as irretrievably lost somewhere along the line. I'll fill you in on as much as I can in a minute, but first here is the Official Itinerary for Thursday (the missing day):
Official Itinerary says: "After breakfast at the hotel we will have a tour of Brasov taking in St. Nicolas' Church, school and museum. After an optional lunch at a local restaurant you will be free for the rest of the day to explore the city. You might want to visit the impressive Black Church or take the cable car to the top of Mount Timpa, which gives excellent views across the city and surrounding mountains. Alternatively Brasov is good for souvenir shopping, with a wide variety of small shops around the town square and surrounding pedestrianised streets selling decorated glass and ceramics.
In the evening, we will be dining at the famous Cerbul Carpatin (Carpathian Stag) restaurant, where there will be entertainment from musicians playing Romanian folk music. Overnight at the Hotel Aro-Palace."
So, yesterday. It was supposed to be a quiet, relaxing day where everyone could just do their own thing... go shopping, sightseeing, sleep in till midday, whatever. And then somehow it suddenly became THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF EPICS. God, I'm not even sure where to begin with this day. There's so much weird crap that happened.
I guess starting at the beginning would be as good a place as any. It didn't actually start out as an INTERNATIONAL DAY OF EPICS... in fact it started out very peacefully. Me and KT woke up late after a very nice lie in, and for practically the first time in a week and a half I didn't feel ill straight away. Every morning I'd been forcing myself up early and down to breakfast, figuring that I would feel better once I'd got some food in my stomach, but it turned out what I'd actually been missing was that extra hour or so in bed. Damn. Anyway, I throw some clothes on and stick my head out of the door with the vague intention of going downstairs and seeing if anyone's about that can tell us what time dinner is that night.
In a highly convenient way, Disorganised Mick is standing next to the lifts, about ten foot away from our door. I blink at him in sleepy surprise and he asks if we're coming along on the guided walk. Guided... walk...? Should there be a flag going up in my head about this? I suspect that it had been mentioned to me at some point last night, but my helpful mind had stored it away somewhere safe and then forgotten about it. In an attempt to look like I do actually know what I'm doing, I nod politely and tell Mick that yes, we are in fact coming on a walk with them... just give me five minutes to get KT out of bed.
Our guide for the day (as well as Nicolae) turns out to be the young lady that was dressed as a Harlequin the night before at the citadel. She looks a lot better without her face-paint on, incidentally. There are maybe half a dozen of us on the tour group, everyone else having opted to go find the cable car, the shops, or another two hours in bed. We wander around a small Orthodox church, which is completely packed (is Thursday a holy day in the Orthodox calendar? I've no idea), and its equally small graveyard. Several people coming out of the church instinctively bless themselves when they catch sight of us... I quite like that, actually. I'm happy to take blessings wherever I can get them.
The small graveyard weirds me out a little bit. Most of the plots are obviously family plots, and it must cost quite a lot to buy one, but what really disturbs me are the names on the gravestones. A lot of them obviously list the various members of a family that have died and are buried there, but some of them also have the names and dates of birth of the relatives that are still alive. Eeek, how freaky is that? What would that be like, knowing that there's a grave sat there that already has your name on it? You'd be able to come visit it, and KT also points out that you'd also have an added incentive to keep it neat and tidy. It still freaks me out though. I must remember to steal the idea and use it in a story some time.
After the Orthodox church we wander into the Black Church, which is a) regular Christian rather than Orthodox, b) almost completely deserted, and c) not black. Apparently it had been partially gutted by fire when the Austrians invaded (I forget which war that was in), and had had to be completely cleaned and restored. Most of the original paintings and gildings were lost, and the walls are now decorated with fabric wall hangings... including some Muslim prayer mats. Nice touch that. Not so nice is the fact that we can't take photos in there, and there are several security guards wandering around and actively enforcing the rule. Honestly, do we look like a security risk? Okay, don't answer that.
I sit down on one of the pews and chill out for a bit, tuning out Nicolae's voice for a while. The security guards keep a watchful eye on me until I get very tempted to start pulling faces at them. Seriously, is there any need for security guards inside a church? Something about the idea annoys me unreasonably.
Outside the church, our female guide starts telling us about the main square. Me, KT and Stella all get distracted when Becky suddenly turns up (it's great when you're walking around towns on this trip - you suddenly spot a small patch of darkness and immediately look to see which of your friends it is) (or in mine and Becky's case, a small spot of purple). We decide to ditch the tour and go get some food instead, and Becky laughs because the tour guide can't have been too impressed with her turning up and stealing half of her tour group.
I stop off in a bank and change up the last of my money, and then me and KT find a convenient pizza place while Stella and Becky get drawn in by a shoe shop. This is about the point where things start to go wrong incidentally... and as usual, it started off with something really small and inconsequential.
Stella and Becky catch up with us at the pizza place, and tell us the sorry story of how they tried to buy shoes, but failed because they didn't know the pin number for their credit cards. Like I say, it was a small thing, but it was in fact the beginning of the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF EPICS. Next we order some food and Stella has to send her salad back twice because it has tuna on it and she's vegetarian. After lunch though, things go really bad.
We go to the post-office to send some postcards, and Stella takes the opportunity to call home. Me and Becky discuss the vague plan of finding a supermarket and buying up a load of cheap booze and souvenirs, but when Stella comes off the phone it's obvious that she's had some bad news. Becky immediately takes charge and guides her expertly towards the nearest bar. I follow along close behind, and KT heads back to the hotel.
Ginger Dave jumps us in the street (literally jumps on us) and points us towards a very good bar inside a shopping centre. We explain the situation and he gets the first round in without a complaint. Lisa, Andrew and Tall Ali manage to find us as well, and we all get exceptionally drunk. I buy in some wine, and then Stella discovers a rose on the menu called 'Nymphoberg', which she promptly orders as 'Nymphomaniac rose, multsumesk'.
Me and Stella finish the wine and head back to the hotel, aiming to have a quick nap before dinner. When we get there, we go to check on Helen, who is also coincidentally having a bad day. The pair of us are pretty wasted by this point, so the best attempt at sympathy we can manage is to invite her round to Stella's room for a couple of beers. Helen actually accepts, so we go to Stella's room, empty the minibar and sit around giggling for about half an hour. For some reason that I forget, Mucky Mick also joins us... ever the opportunist, I guess.
And then things go wrong again. With about ten minutes left to go till dinner, Helen has to suddenly leave because of a problem, and she turns down our offers to go with her. She promises to catch up with us at the restaurant but unfortunately never does (we don't see her again till the early hours of the morning, when me and Stella again go banging on her door with drunken sympathy and copious alcohol).
Anyway, Stella and me go downstairs to meet up with the others for dinner. Since today has already turned into a flash-point in so many other ways, I decide to phone home and make sure everything's okay there. I speak to mum and Jenny and Jacob at some length, and it really reminds me how much I'm missing them. I break down in tears when I get off the phone and have to sit on my own on the stairs for a while. I suspect that if someone offered, right this very minute, to drive me to the airport... I probably would actually accept.
(Note from Future Rakie: I don't know why Thursday turned into the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF EPICS the way that it did for so many people... I guess it was just a combination of things. We'd been there for ten days, thirty of us all stuck on a coach in more or less constant proximity to each other... really, I'm not in the least bit surprised that tension eventually got the better of us all. I'm just amazed that it took so long. Then again, maybe the planets were just in a shitty alignment that day - I found out later that Thursday was also the day back home that Dad found out his favourite cat would have to be put down. Some days you would have been all to hell and way out in front just to stay in bed and pretend the world didn't exist.)
TO BE CONTINUED