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Breakfast
The usual breakfast at a youth hostel includes a few pieces of bread and some smelly cheese. It is better than buying something at the store, but it is nothing to rave over. Here at the Hotel
Black Vulture, they go one step farther: eggs. Yesterday we didn't know how to order anything, so we just got some sloppy scrambled eggs, but today we actually ordered our eggs sunny-side up. Pretty impressive. Dave was already off on the train to Cluj, but Midori and I enjoyed a quiet breakfast together. The sweet tea wasn't bad either. Afterwards Midori repacked her stuff again and I took a cold shower to tide me over till tomorrow.
The Park
Having covered the sights and sounds of Oradea yesterday, I decided just to rest in the park all afternoon. I have really
been on the move a lot for the whole two months on the road. Today was like the first time that I really took a whole day off. I bought a local newspaper and tried to guess at what the news was. Like the TV news last night, there was a bit about the Lewinsky scandal in the States. Pathetic. The rest of the time I just read my book and watched people.
Gypsies
The people walking through the park are all quite clean-cut. Some kids go by on bicycles and many people come and go from work or
shopping. The grand central fountain operated only every other hour. And without fail, some gypsies would come by about every hour. Now, I had never heard that Gypsy is an actual ethnic group that has been oppressed in Europe like the Jews or the Turks. I still haven't gotten the whole story, but I am guessing that the women and kids that were hitting us up for money were gypsies. They had darker skin and brighter clothes and were very persistent about asking for our cookies, bread, money, or anything else that was lying out. I alternated between giving something and not giving, but I didn't really have a good feeling about it either way.
Training It
After an unimpressive dinner at an un-Chinese place, we took a taxi out to the station. There were tons of people waiting for the 8:30 train to Bucharest, but our tickets assured us that we
had two seats in the third car. The train came: 14 cars. It turns out that we got window seats sharing a compartment with an older woman and her daughter. Despite the extra room, I decided to stand up in the passageway for the first hour. The countryside was beautiful. Flat corn and hay fields at first, then leading to wooded hills. It is hard to believe that this country was poor and starving not too long ago. I put my head out the window and waved at people as we rolled by. Everything seemed jolly from the perspective of a naive outsider. I don't have to worry about safety on this train. I think I will sleep well tonight.
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