Lesson 1 – Romania

Just before I left, an American friend of mine from Texas called me up and said, “Hey man, I’m coming to the UK in about a week’s time. You gonna be there?”. And I said, “Oh, sorry Jay, I’m gonna be in Romania”. And I went on to tell him about Romania and he says, “Oh man, that sounds like a bit of me. I’m there, man”. Initially I was reluctant because I hadn’t met, I hadn’t seen Jay for about 14 years. We knew each other from when we both lived in Seoul and we would hit the bars in the clubs together. And I often travel alone as well. But you know what? I thought *the more the merrier, some company might be nice, and what’s the worst that could happen? So, I said, OK, sounds good.  

The plan was to meet Jeff at the airport, jump in the hire car and drive out into Dracula country. But then of course I get another phone call a couple of days later. “Hey man, I booked but I’m arriving the next day. Sorry man, that’s the only day I could get a ticket for”. You know, I thought about telling him to meet me in Transylvania but I decided to do the nice thing and wait for him in Bucharest. Pick him up in the hire car the next day – we were going to drive out into the countryside. I thought, yeah, that’ll work. So, I booked a hotel in the historic downtown part of the city and I thought it’d be quiet and beautiful and would keep me entertained and out of trouble for the next, you know, for the day. How wrong could I be?  

Old town in Bucharest is a *debauched party area full of bars, restaurants, nightclubs and seedy entertainment venues. You know, I’d taken one of those horrendous early morning flights that I always swear never to take again. I arrived absolutely *shattered and checked into the hotel early. So bored, sitting in the room, *twiddling my thumbs, I decided to take a walk around the old town. I had a beer with lunch and then I had another beer. And no surprise, the day and night turned into a bit of *a drinking session. And the alcohol coupled with me being *knackered…somewhere in the madness of it all, I lost my phone.  

As it happens, losing your phone is actually a much bigger pain than I thought. Due to a two-step verification process, without your phone, you are locked out of social media, email accounts, banking. So, I was completely *cut off from everything and everyone. And this meant I couldn’t communicate with Jay, or even get the details for the hire car that I needed to pick up. So, the nightmare begins. I got to the airport early to ensure I met Jay off the plane. Sitting there hungover, *mumbling to myself that I should have been in the mountains, hiking and it was a disastrous start to the holiday. I was feeling hungover and pretty sorry for myself. But you know, hands up, I was completely to blame. Finally, a very worried Jay made an appearance. “Hey man! I’ve been trying to contact you, what happened?” So, I explained the situation to him and then we had to spend another day in Bucharest because I had to fill out a police report for insurance. So, that was all done. We headed back to the airport to pick up the rental car and eventually they found my booking. So, I give them my driving license. Everything’s fine. And then Jay hands over his driving license and the woman looks at it, a little bit *bemused. And she says, “Oh, this driving license went out of date about two years ago. And not only that, it’s not international”. And Jay says, “Oh man, nobody in Texas cares about that”. I’m like, “Oh my God, Jay, we’re not in Texas”. So, from that point on, it was clear that I was gonna be doing all the driving.  

You know, for me, the holiday was supposed to be about getting out into the mountains, hiking, eating good food, sort of just healing a little bit. and allowing the mountains to re-energise me. But *unbeknownst to me, Jay had a completely different idea of what the holiday was going to be about. He was *laser-focused on chatting up women, going out to clubs and getting wasted. We had two completely different agendas that had to be meshed together to create this sort of *Frankenstein of a holiday. And it ended up with me driving this very drunk American. around Dracula country. I was pretty much his chauffeur. So, there I was, I’d be going to bed early, you know, we were in mountain towns after all, and he’d be coming in about 4am, waking me up, “Hey man, you got any money for the taxi?” Or sometimes he was just so drunk he couldn’t get into the apartment. I’d be getting up early, putting money in the parking meter, buying food for the hike, getting back, dragging his arse out of bed, and *plonking him in the passenger seat, trying to make him navigate. And I thought, okay, I’ve got a co-pilot at least, but he was useless, bless him. I’ll give you a couple of examples. I said to him, “Okay, Jay, find me a hike that we could both do for the day”. And he did. And he said, “Yeah, I found one, I found one, man, it’s got good reviews”. So, I said, “Okay, let’s have a look”. and I had a look and said, “Jay, what does this say? It says cave”. It was a cave route. And this is how the day would go. We’d be driving around and I’d say, “Jay, where’s the turning?” And he’d say, “Oh man, it’s about six miles back that way”. So, in the end, I ended up doing all the navigating and driving. And because he was so hungover all the time, he kept needing to go for a piss. So, one time he stopped to take a piss. So, I went off and I was taking some photos of the beautiful Carpathian Mountains and I turned around and he’s *relieving himself by the driver’s door with the door open just next to my foot well. And I said, “Jay, what are you doing? I have to walk through your piss to get into the car”. And he says, “Oh man, you’re such a *ballbuster. I can’t piss over my side because people can see me. I just can’t piss like that”. So, I was like, Oh my God. OK. And because we’d lost two days, Jay arriving a day late and admittedly me being an idiot and losing my phone, the holiday had been *concertinaed into a shorter period of time and it all just became a bit rushed. We were tired, tempers started to fray and inevitably a bit of an argument ensued. It wasn’t a big *ding-dong or *fisticuffs but nonetheless it was an argument. 

We continued to drive around the countryside. We saw Dracula’s Castle. We went to a food festival. Hey, he dragged me to a few clubs. He didn’t actually have to *twist my arm that much. And we even got some hiking in. So, one of the highlights of the trip was this breathtaking drive along the Transfargaarasan Highway. I think that’s how you pronounce it, a long windy mountain pass over the Carpathian Mountains. It was absolutely stunning. And it was snowing, which kind of added to the adventure. Jay spent a lot of time in the footwell because he was terrified of heights, but he still said he had a good time. So, we came out of the mountain pass, and by this point, I’d already been driving probably about six hours that day. I said, “Okay, Jay, I am absolutely knackered. My brain is fried. My *concentration is shot, can you please do the navigating?” Because by this point, you know, I’d been doing all of it. And, you know, apparently it made Jay dizzy trying to navigate, but I think it was just because he was so hungover all the time. But to his credit, he said, “Okay, man, I’ll give it a go. What do I put in?” So, I just said, “Put in the car rental address”. And he says, “Oh man, I don’t know it”. I said, “Okay, fair enough, just put in Bucharest Airport”. 

So, he’s like, “Okay, I got this”. So, he puts in Bucharest Airport and off we go. So, we’re driving for about an hour and I just get this really bad feeling. So, I said, “Jay, give me the phone”. And he says, “No man, it’s all good”. I said, “Jay, give me the phone2. So, I have a look at the phone and I say, “Jay, what does this say? It says Budapest, we’re going to Budapest Airport”. And he’s like, “Oh man”. 

So, we put in Budapest Airport instead and we were driving to a completely different country. Somehow, we did manage to get back to Budapest after a very long day of driving. And then from there the holiday goes from bad to worse.