(Note from Future Rakie: I think that at the start of each day, I'll type out what was printed on our official itineraries, and then we can compare this with what actually happened. If I get bored though, I'll just drop the idea. I’ll see how it goes.)
Official Itinerary says: "Arrive at Heathrow Airport and meet up with your fellow travellers. We will be flying to Bucharest Otopeni airport. The flight takes just over three hours and will arrive in Bucharest at 17.45 local time (Romania is 2 hours behind GMT). We will be met at the airport by our Romanian tour guide, Nicolae Paderaru, driver and coach. We will then drive north to Targoviste for dinner and overnight at the Hotel Valahia."
Wow, Monday morning and we're not at work. Is there any better feeling in the whole world?
So anyway, we met up with about half a dozen of the guys last night, in a bizarre little pub in Reading called the Hobgoblin. The pub really was quite strange, and looked like it'd fallen straight out of a Terry Prachett novel. For a start, no-one we met knew where it was, or if it even existed. The taxi driver we finally found to take us there didn't have a clue where it was, and then dropped us off in the vague vicinity (i.e. about five minutes walk away) because the pub is apparently stuck in the middle of a pedestrianised area. But you're a taxi! Normal rules and pedestrianised areas don't apply to you!
We pay the driver and walk the rest of the way, not even completely sure that we're going in the right direction, and end up asking directions of a couple of people who have even less idea than us where the pub is. It turns out to be literally about twenty feet away, but it must exist in its own little sphere of reality or something that prevents people from actually realising it's there.
Inside, the Hobgoblin is covered from floor to ceiling with assorted beer mats of just about every make of beer in the world. There're hundreds of them. It's very impressive, and I kinda wish that I'd known it was going to be like this, because I would have brought a Bushy's one for them as well.
Anyway, we get spotted the moment we walk in there (in my last email to Ginger Dave, I'd told him that I'd be the one with 'plaited blue hair, the world's largest purple furry coat, and a look of lost confusion on my face', so I guess I was pretty easily recognisable). The random people spot us instantly and wave us over to their tiny table. It turns out that they're all freaks of the highest order, although I do mean that in the nicest way possible. Dave, the guy who organised the get-together, is indeed big and ginger and looks like he could be a cousin of Bill Bailey's. Actually, he looks like the result of some strange cross-breeding experiment between Bill Bailey and Simon Pegg (if that's not too disturbing a mental image for you). I suspect that no-one else would agree with me on that point though.
Also in this little part of the group (and these might not be their actual proper names – I have a problem with remembering little details like names, so I'll have to double-check these with Future Rakie later) are: Helen (pretty, tall girl with purple-red streaks in her black hair; big smile; one of the organisers of the trip); Lisa and Andrew (very much a typical goth couple... bless them); Stella (black hair with white streaks; multiple piercings; huge New Rock boots to CRUSH THOSE WHO OPPRESS HER; could maybe use eating a bit more because she's a little skinny); Tim and his girlfriend Ernestine (who has the world's coolest name, despite the face that I managed to forget it three times during the course of the evening); and... oh, actually that's it. We're also meant to be meeting up with Mick, the other organiser, but he doesn't show up till after KT and me have retired back to our hotel for the night.
All the guys seem like pretty amicable types. They're all older than us (I know this because Organising Mick said that KT and me are the youngest on the trip). If I hadn't know though I probably would have put most of their ages as mid-twenties, because they all look dead young. I guess that goths don't tend to grow up, so they always look kinda young. That's my theory anyway.
We talk a lot, and I definitely talk too much, as per damn usual. Stella and me discuss bikes, Lisa and me discuss movies, Helen and me discuss Romania. Lisa tells me that her favourite vampire movie is 'Razor Blade Smile', which I actually own (yay!), even if I didn't like it very much (it killed off my favourite character unnecessarily, dammit). It also turns out that the director of that movie, Jake West, is actually a member of the LVG, although he's not coming on this trip. Holy mackerel! Jake West! I know that most people won't be the slightest bit impressed by this, but I am.
We all drink a bit too much and then we head into town for a curry. I don't manage to eat much (I blame it on nerves... not for example the three pints of bitter I've just drunk), but KT finishes off my pilau rice, and Stella and me split a bottle of rose (a compromise, since I drink red and she drinks white). We have a very nice evening, and I don't think I embarrass myself too much, which is always a good thing.
KT and me head back to the hotel about ten because we need sleep. I then get woken up at half past five by what sound suspiciously like someone in the room above us having sex on a squeaky bed (although I try to convince myself that it's just the water pipes or something), and then I promptly can't get back to sleep. Dammit.
Anyway, we're now on a coach, heading towards Heathrow airport to meet up with everyone else. I'm feeling a lot better about things now that we've teamed up with the Reading people and they've turned out to be quite nice. I'm still nervous about the flight (I don't fly great, and KT have an adorable habit of musing aloud about how funny it'd be if we crashed), but I'll probably be fine, so long as I can find myself some Red Bull in the next hour or so to wake me up. To be updated!
So we met up with the rest of the group at the airport, and so far so good they all seem to be pretty cool. Organising Mick is apparently a retired physics teacher, and he looks like it (well, apart from the leather trousers and the multiple piercings). Everyone wears a lot of black and red and purple, and a ton of cool jewellery. I am really jealous of everyone's boots. I seriously must get myself some ULTIMATE BOOTS OF DESTRUCTION, because I feel so left out. I also can't believe that we all get through the metal detectors without having any of our stuff confiscated... surely a pair of 3lb New Rock boots qualify as a dangerous weapon? I think that only about five of us out of thirty get through the machine without beeping.
At this moment in time, I've got no idea of what we're doing when we get to Romania, since I lost my itinerary some weeks ago (Note from Future Rakie: Fortunately they gave out new ones when we got there, yay!). I'm kinda hoping that Organising Mick will hand out copies at some point (Note from Future Rakie: I just said that he did, weren't you paying attention?), because otherwise I'm going to spend the next two weeks wandering around looking permanently confused. Actually, I'll probably be doing that anyway.
I can also now add another item to my list of 'Forbidden Things I've Accidentally Smuggled Onto Planes'. Last year I got on to a plane from Blackpool with a plastic BB gun in my hand-luggage (no-one picked up on it, and I didn't realise what I'd done until we got home), and I've inadvertently gone and done it again. KT was rooting through her bag looking for her book and turned up a load of stuff that I'd bought in the Dungeons the day before... including a plastic replica knife. Oops, oops and thrice oops.
Incidentally, KT is blaming me for all the epics we're having this week. Apparently she never has epics when she goes on holiday herself (which I find a little hard to believe), so obviously all our current epics (getting on the wrong train; spilling drinks over ourselves and others; being late for our plane because I had to make a potty stop) are MY fault. I feel that this is unfair.
After the usual and expected fun and games with passport control and baggage reclaim, we meet our coach, its driver (Stephan), and our tour guide (Nicolae). I practise the one and only word of Romanian that I know by thanking everyone that I meet. We drag our bags into the coach (I've managed to break my bag twice already and am sincerely wishing that I'd brought my gaffa tape with me) and then we set off. Weeeeeee!
It’s now about half seven local time as I’m writing this, and the sun has just gone down, so I’m writing this in the half-light of the coach’s interior lights (which is why my notebook looks like it’s been scrawled on by a dyslexic spider at this point). The coach turned off the main road about fifteen minutes ago, and we’re now on what’s really little more than an unsurfaced dirt track headed north. Apparently, this is fairly standard for the roads in this country, which makes me a little nervous.
So, first impressions of Romania. The architecture here is kinda odd – all the houses seem very small, even when they’re quite obviously not. Most of them are single storey, and most have corrugated iron roofs (although I’ve also seen slates, tiles, and even a couple of asbestos roofs). Ivy and creepers are much more prolific than back home, and the overall effect is to make all the houses look very small and rustic, and almost like a shanty town in a lot of places. All the houses give this impression, even the larger ones that have PVA double-glazing and satellite dishes.
The cars are older, most of them typical of the boxy continental makes that were common in the eighties. Our coach is nice enough though; pretty much the same as you’d find back home, except that there’s a small shrine to the Virgin Mary on the dashboard. The trees along the road are painted white from the base up to a height of about two feet, and we’re not sure why. Maybe it’s to stop cars running into them… but then the ones in people’s gardens have the same thing. We’re not sure.
Oooh… we’ve just stopped. The coach has just pulled in to the side of the road, and we’re not sure why. Possibly we’re lost. Personally, I have to hope that Stephan the driver just wanted a smoke, especially since we’re only about 10 km from our hotel and I’d really quite like to be moving on…
Oh. Organising Mick has just told us that the fanbelt on the coach has broken, and Stephan had to go ask a couple of random locals in they could help him fix it. Wow, good start to the holiday – we’ve only been on the coach for an hour and already we’ve broken it. Hmm… maybe KT was right. Maybe I really do attract epics…
TO BE CONTINUED!