Zak Attack

I was as surprised as anyone to
 discover that eastern Europe receives
receives snow in March.

Finally, it appeared that my push towards the Steppes was going to pay off and that I would be in the Ukraine, or at least the historical polyglot of Zakarpattia, by nightfall.  I left Sanislau at a fairly late hour but I was so close to Ukraine that I could practically taste the starch-heavy culinary delights within.  The train took me directly to the border, and I assumed it was wholly reasonable for me to expect to be able to just walk across and into Ukraine—after alerting the appropriate authorities, of course—and receiving a coveted bright orange stamp.  At Halmeu, I was such a gathering force and things were going so smoothly that it seemed like nothing could stop me.  Until I was stopped.  Alas, it would appear that unlike Hitler and Napoleon before me, my invasion of Russia was thwarted by Romanian border control, and not the usual case of inadequate, non-season-appropriate clothing.   

Les Roumains told me quite pointedly that despite the wishes of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada on behalf of Her Royal Majesty QE2 to let me pass freely and without hindrance, they would not let me pass and instead would hinder me.  As for the section that asks them to provide assistance to me, they shrugged and said, “I don’t know.  Maybe wait.  Maybe try to catch bus.”  Far from the ceremonious greeting I was expecting from the local consul—“our man in Zakarpattia”—providing me with the finest in accommodation and hospitality that the British Empire afforded, I instead ended up wondering why we had signed up for this whole Commonwealth thing in the first place if I wasn’t being directly helped in a backwater border crossing in eastern Europe.  But nevertheless, I learned that walking across the Halmeu border is not okay, and I tucked that little nugget of information away for next time.  

Not to let anything get me down, I decided to go back to Satu Mare to see if there was a night train I could take across Romania and enter Ukraine from another point.  Of course, I had to be certain I was able to go back to Satu Mare at this point, as it was late and I wasn’t in a particularly renowned transit hub.  I caught the last train to Satu Mare and was heartbroken to find, upon return, 1) no trains to anywhere of use to me, and 2) to my gumbootless delight, a blizzard, awaiting me.  Naturally these are the things I live for: after briefing the Plecări (departures) board, consulting my weather-beaten Europe map, and looking really intense while talking to myself and molding my face into expressions that indicate to curious onlookers that I’m up to some pretty serious business, and that now was the time to not bother me (—or, alternately, to bother me and ask me if I needed a place to sleep for the night.  I was hoping my body language and facial consternation conveyed both messages.  I did take acting in high school, after all, and had starred as Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web in a very indie, underground 1995 production), it appeared that Satu Mare would play host to me for the night—a mere 50 km from my starting point in Sanislau.  

I could barely make it away from the station to find wifi to alert my father and sister of my inevitable tardiness due to the flurry of fresh falling snowflakes.  In March!  Three days earlier I had been wearing a t-shirt in Croatia and now it would appear I was going in wholly the wrong direction.  Through the whirling snow and fog, I saw a light for the Casanova Hotel—either a one star or a no star—and decided to see what the rate would be.  Surprisingly cheap, as it turned out.  A single was 60 lei, or $20.  The receptionist was excited by my evidently Russian name, and then they directed me to where my room was—just through the large lounge, around a couple of the tables, past the stage with the pole with the dancing, scantily-clad young lady on it, then through the door and up the staircase.  Everything sort of clicked together for me retrospectively why they had expressed surprise when I said I needed a room for the entire night.  

But no worries!  Vice and establishments of ill-repute are no stranger to me; in fact, one of my friends in Point Grey lives in a home that was formerly a brothel in the 1920s.  My environmental circumstances had little or no effect on me, except for a couple trying to key into my room at 4am and the pulsing club music that played throughout the evening.  Aside from that, I had a warm, dry bed, a shower, and I was right across the street from the train station so I could rise early and take the train to Moldavia, the other region that makes up the trifecta of Romania (along with Wallachia and Transylvania, of course!) at 6am.  

Surprise! –I didn’t.   I slept until 7 or so and then caught the 8am train.  Something about not being able to see anything out the window except whirling snow has that effect on me.  I opted for the later train which had a transfer in Dej Călători lasting three hours, connecting with the Timişoara–Iaşi  Express which did a formidable arc covering much of the country.  We crawled through the thoroughly snowed in Carpathians mountains, the landscape asserting to me exactly why there were no border crossings between Halmeu and at Suceava, and arrived in Suceava just after 7 at night.  Stepping off the train, a woman walked right up to me and said my name.  I was taken aback.  She had written down on a piece of paper my name, and the hostel I had completely forgotten that I had booked.  

Nothing could indicate more clearly my
eventual destination of the Ukraine
quite like the interior of this bus.

Evidently, in Dej I had managed to find some wifi and inquire about hostels in Suceava.  Not many, but the one I stayed at was definitely the right choice.  The lady picked me up at the station, drove me to the hostel which was considerably out of town, and had dinner prepared for me (soup, salad, cabbage rolls, a non-alcoholic beer, bread, and dessert).  I also got my own room, a large breakfast in the morning (including coffee that I drank out of the enormous Friends-style cappuccino cup that I was informed was meant for the cereal but “Americans always make that mistake”) and was driven to the bus depot in the morning.  Unaccustomed to this level of pampering, it was nevertheless exactly what I needed to get back on track and to the Ukraine on time to meet one half of my family.  I think the tab was $25, which at the end of the day is money very well spent considering I would have probably wandered around Suceava desperately and inevitably slept in the train station with still no clear plan for finding the way to the Ukraine.  Instead I got all the aforementioned and still had time to buy gogosi before boarding a bus for the motherland.  At the appointed hour, we were off, and the die was cast.  I was about to, quite literally, meet my maker.