Early Morning Bucharest

Arriving in the a.m. ready to catch my flight after getting little sleep in my first class wagon from Sighisoara to Bucharest I found some taxi drivers waiting. ¨To the airport, how much?¨ I asked. 100 lei was the response. I had only intended to spend 20 lei, 50 maximium. I then said that it was the closer of the two airports and the cost was halved. Still not good enough to me, I offered 20 and got no takers, so I walked away. This time the younger of the 3 drivers said ok, put my stuff in the trunk and when he reached traffic changed his mind and acted like he didn´t understand the arrangement. I was stuck. We were in traffic and I´d have no chance of finding a cab where I was. The train had arrived 45 minutes later than I had expected (Ukraine has everyone on that score--trains usually run on time and you can sleep on them comfortably) so I had even less time to change course.

This however did not sit well with me and I yelled at him and he kept saying I wasn´t clear, he didn´t understand, blah blah blah.

I started yelling in Russian because he was pissing me off so much and used some colorful English words that caught his attention. When I told him ¨you are ripping me off¨ he actually smiled. I thought maybe tears would change his mind and forced myself to cry a bit--but he only asked what the problem was, like he didn´t know.

When I did get to the airport, thankfully everything did go smoothly, but I have never been so happy to leave a place as I was that morning.