Stuff

Hi all, hope this finds you happy and well. It's overcast and kind of cool here in Costinesti... so perfect time to write another blog. I thought I would just write some observations and tidbits. There are not alot of sights here in Costinesti, just the beach and BOOBIES!! yeah for boobies!  Seriously it is sort of like one big carnival on the beach, it has everything, fast food, tattoos, carnival rides, cheap beer, casinos, the whole deal AND... BOOBIES. OK moving on.
   I've noticed this everywhere we've been, sidewalks are not for walking on, they are for parking on, I've looked for signs saying no parking or green P signs, nope not a thing. On the other hand I have seen cars getting tickets for what I'm guessing is being illegally parked...HUH?! WHAT? I have no idea. OK gather round people, settle down, settle down, take your seats, today we are going to ticket all the green cars, got that? the green ones, not the blue ones, that was yesterday. Hold on, hold on! remember be safe out there!  ( thank you hill street blues)
  So in my last post I was wondering if people would be more friendly once we got back into Romania. First a little detour, so we had hired a taxi to take us from Cahul, Moldova to Galati, Romania, about a half an hour over the border. So we call the guy in the morning and he says I'll be there in 3 minutes, honk, honk there is some dude in a late model Mercedes waving at us, not a little yellow subcompact, but a black Mercedes, Hmmmm. We get in, no talking, put your seat belt on and away we go. Pretty much silence until we get over the border and about 20 minutes into Romania, when he looks at me and smiles, points out the window and says Romania, I smile back and say Da, it's not really any less weird, but I don't think he's going to kill us now and dump our bodies on the side of the road.
  OK this is where it gets fun, KGB guy drops us off at the bus station and the 1pm bus is full, so we have 3 hours till the next bus at 315pm. OK I'm not sure if we had signs on us saying we just came from Moldova or what, but these next few things happened over the next couple of days. While waiting for the bus, the guy next to us starts talking to me in romanian, which means he's talking and I'm nodding my head... something about are you north Korean, do you work here? and we are going to Mangalia. The conversation lasts alot longer with more nodding. We are at the bus station, but actually it's all locked up and everything around it looks pretty much shut down. So looking for a toilet, Carrie asks the woman who seems to be in charge of the Constanta bus and is just sitting in a car on the side of the road, where the toilet is. She gets out of the car, waves Carrie to follow her, takes her around the corner to a local bar, gets her to pay the bartender to use the toilet, checks to make sure there is no one is in there, there is, gives him the romanian what for and then tells Carrie to go ahead. This happened the next day, we were walking down a side street in Constanta, when we came upon a small store, so I went in to buy a coke zero, I couldn't find a cold one, but wasn't really worried, we had a fridge in the room. So I'm lined up at the counter, and the woman behind the counter comes around, puts her hand on my coke, and proceeds to a back fridge to get me a cold one, I almost cried. So yes people have been very friendly here...well except for Mama here in Costinesti, we used her kitchen this morning, that didn't seem to make her a happy girl! I can hardly wait till I use it this afternoon to make a salad...I might wait till tomorrow.
  That's all I got for now, we have to sit down and figure out where we're going next. Love and warm thoughts from Costinesti.

Carrie and Glen