Day Eight. Leaving Suçeava.

Oh my God. I have never felt so foreign. Today we are leaving Suceava to head to Kiev in the Ukraine.

 The train is at 1pm and we are anxious not to get caught up in anything which may cause any delays. We have had a better night's sleep thanks to earplugs and less dog conversations. Breakfast is a very intimate affair in keeping with the personal feel of Pensiune Rhapsodia. After breakfast a bit of divide and conquer; Kev goes for cash while I finish packing (there's a theme emerging!). By 10am we have 3 hours to kill. We decide to try a walk, the temperature and humidity are suffocating, our phones say its 20 degrees but it feels much hotter. We approach the edge of a Roma area, identifiable by its rough built shacks and dark skinned children who never fail to melt my heart. There is a boy of about 10 swinging a light chain, it appears to be in a playful rather than threatening manner but we decide to take a cautious line and accept this as our cue to head back to the pensiune, its too hot for walking anyway.

Eventually it time to head to the station, we still arrive over an hour early. The station is bustling and there's a holiday feeling in the air as people carry Easter gifts and children show off new bicycles which are excitedly ridden up and down the platform without reprimand from parent or guard, parents here seem less over protective and children subsequently enjoy more freedom, another echo from British childhood of earlier decades.

We find a seat inside as its cooler. A motherly, stout Romanian lady in traditional flowing skirt and headscarf asks us a question which, helped by alot of gesture and words from randomly thrown in European languages, we discover is an enquiry about our destination. Now she has discovered we are tourists she takes us under her wing. She talks to us in long streams of Romanian, and we are amazed at how much meaning filters through. Her only English words are "I love you", and a loving character she is indeed. She tells us about an English musical she once enjoyed at the cinema (or maybe it was  Bollywood?) Then she gives us a detailed warning about thieves while we are travelling who will, given a chance, take our mobiles, our clothes and beg for money for their children then watch where we keep our wallets to come back and steal them when we are a asleep. All this when our only shared words are I love you, thank-you, with pleasure, and goodbye (the latter 3 in Romanian). When its time to go she double kisses us in the Romanian greeting reserved for valued friends, and it feels right, I feel like I just received some Romanian mothering.

I feel foreign again when neither the guards on the train, nor our cabin mates , respond to either English or my hastily accrued Romanian. The guard recruits the nearest under 25 year old who obliges. Full respect to the multi lingual Eastern European youth. We are allocated 2 beds in a cabin together, we were previously told mixed gender cabins were not allowed so this is a bonus but I hope the 2 Bulgarian males already resident don't mind, I can't ask them as there are no young people around!

The only thing I can compare the cabin to in appearance is a prison cell with its 4 bunks in very close proximity. Our companions, being here before us have of course claimed the bottom bunks so we are opposite each other in the top. At first the "other-ness" of it along with the recent breakdown in trans- national communication stresses me out a bit; but the Bulgarians are welcoming in the few words and gestures we manage to exchange, the guard brings us clean bedding and their is air-con. This may be one of the most basic nights sleep I have ever had but I am safe and warm (or rather cool) , a reminder of what's actually important.