Tessa and I look like we've exploded "vagabond" all over the clean.
Which usually happens whenever we open our backpacks.
Smell of unwashed clothes, past picnics, wet grass (and things picked up on wet grass), a dozen different soaps and detergents from god knows where.
Peanuts. Our bags smell strongly of peanuts. Especially since mine now houses a jar of peanut butter remains and bagged peanut leftovers.
We ate a lot of peanuts yesterday.
Post-traumatic peanut eating. It's a thing.
Yesterday was traumatic.
For me, anyway.
"I don't know if I'm really scared and am just suppressing it, or if that wasn't such a bad situation," Tessa mused over a milkshake after our situation.
"I was afraid," I looked at my hot chocolate and then at her. "I was afraid," I looked at her and then at my hot chocolate.
Our Sibiu host had set the table with coffee cups, cheese, fruit and bread before he'd gone off into the forest to make maps and measure trees.
"Isn't this amazing? The fact that we get to travel around the world and stay in stranger's homes and that they feed us cheese and coffee and..." I looked around Ovidiu's apartment in appreciation. It was decorated with souvenirs he'd picked up on his own travels to South America, Asia and Africa.
He'd told us all of their stories the night before.
There were many stories.
We finished breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, dropped the key in the mailbox and left our host's souvenir bedecked apartment at nine thirty.
"I'm ready for an adventure," I exclaimed as I nearly got knocked over by a car because I'd forgotten to check whether or not the light was red.
"Mmm, I think the light was red," Tessa walk-jogged to escape the honking cars.
Drivers in Romania are much more mindful of red lights and zebra stripes and much less tolerant of j-walkers. I put this down to the German influence.
"Mmm," I acknowledged but ignored this and immediately asked, "What kind of host do you think that was?"
Tessa and I have a theory.
There are three different kinds of couchsurfing hosts.
1) The adventurous, curious traveling type who can't afford to be traveling at the moment, but still wants to support that community. And still wants to feel like he/she is traveling by having foreigners speaking French and Chinese and Mongolian in the kitchen while making the house smell like Thailand.
2) The lonely type who just needs to have people at home. Someone to talk with other than the cat, the kettle and all their video game characters. The lonely type is sweet because they seem genuinely happy to see you/take care of you, but frustrating because they tend to be overbearing (which makes Tessa CRAZY) and to monologue. On and on and ON. Perhaps lonely people forget how to listen. This type can be subdivided into --
- Awkward boys with very few friends who haven't spoken/touched girls in months/years
- Middle-aged men whose children have moved out and are divorced. These people are used to sharing space and don't like the quiet of an empty house. There's definitely a strong paternal quality to this type.
3) The sexual predator type. Yes, these do exist. My first host in Munich was one of these and my host in Morocco transformed into this over the course of my two month stay. However, it's fortunate that most of type three are upfront and honest about their intentions. Tessa once saw a host's profile from Amsterdam that read, "prefer young males with shaved chests who like to cuddle."
We decided that our Sibiu host was one of the lonely types.
We decided that our Sibiu host was one of the lonely types.
We walked two km out of town and stood by a McDonald's with our sign --
DEVA
-- our smiles and another hitchhiker right in front of us.
I wonder who'll get picked up first, I thought, half of me feeling scientific and experimental and the other half just competitive. Am I becoming an aggressive vagabond?
I pondered.
We're unthreatening girls, so that's going in our favor. But there's only one of him and his bag doesn't look like it could swallow your whole car...I wonder...
He got picked up first. The scientific part of me took notes. The competitive part of me got annoyed.
I didn't have much time to indulge in either note-taking or annoyance though, because the next car pulled over to pick us up.
"Deva?" we showed the driver our sign.
"No, 25 km," he motioned in the direction in which we wanted to go.
"Great!" we shoved our bags into the backseat and climbed in next to the chubby, genial Romanian.
"And we're off!" Tessa smiled.
Only 25 km, but at least we're moving.
I clapped my hands and the Romanian laughed.
He picked up another hitchhiker about five minutes into our trek. Tessa climbed into the backseat with me and I threw my elephant behind us. We oohed and ahed over the fields of sunflowers and the verdant, bushy Transylvanian hills.
The other hitchhiker passed the driver a five lei note and hopped out about twenty km down the road.
Did we accidentally flag down a taxi?
Our confusion intensified as the driver passed his aforementioned 25 km. Then 50 km.
"Where you go?" he asked in broken English.
"We go to Deva -- then Timisoara," I replied, showing him both sides of the sign Ovidiu had made for us.
"Where are you going?" Tessa asked, also feeling somewhat confused by his taxi-like behavior.
He motioned ahead and said something about Deva.
"I don't even know," I sat back and decided that life would work itself out.
Our ride dropped us off just outside of Deva. Tessa and I scratched our heads.
"Maybe he was just nice?"
"That was a strange one. Hard to figure out what was going on."
"Look!" Tessa pointed to two hairy hobos walking towards us. "Competition."
The newcomers were a couple from Switzerland, wielding a sign that bore the word "Wien" and a mangey (but beautiful) grey and black dog.
"What do you think?" I asked Tessa after they'd introduced themselves and then boldly walked in front of us, vigorously waving their sign to solicit a ride.
"Well, we're still two girls... and they have a dog," her logical brain did the calculations.
"But no one can see the dog. They're making it hide behind their bags."
A truck grumbled to a stop.
I love trucks! Trucks and their electric kettles and teddy bears and bouncy seats and --
I motioned to Tessa and myself and then to the truck, making sure that he'd stopped for us and not the Swiss hippies with a stowaway pup. The driver confirmed that he had indeed stopped for us and climbed out to help us with our bags. We started to load them into the front seat, but he said, "no, no, no" and opened the back of the truck.
I hesitated.
Tessa froze.
He looks nice. We've only had good experiences with truck drivers. Do we break our rules and load our bags in the back?
Maybe I've grown careless. Maybe it was the other hitchhikers looking on. Maybe it was the foreboding clouds looming overhead. Maybe it was the fact that he'd already opened the back and was motioning for us to load our bags. Maybe it's just because I have a personality that loves to trust.
I put my bag in the back.
Tessa handed hers over in suit.
And we're off, my thoughts had grim undertones as they echoed around my nervous brain.
"Thank-you so much for taking us," is all that I said.
He propped a pillow up behind me and smiled.
I noticed that he was missing part of his middle finger. Mostly because he grabbed my thigh with that hand and gave it a juicy "you're welcome" squeeze.
I wanted to shout, "Hey! You. Romanian guy. Not okay. Just because you picked us up doesn't give you access to my thighs."
But "thanks for the pillow," is all I said.
When things get uncomfortable for me, I assume that I'm in the wrong. That I need to adjust to make things right. That I'm just being too sensitive (which is a problem for me) and that I should just calm the f*ck down.
Sometimes this mentality is destructive.
His English was terrible, at best. But he still asked us if we'd like to stay at his place, and/or meet for drinks the next day.
I tried to play it off by saying that we were staying with a friend and had plans. But his English was so poor (and my Romanian is nonexistent) that he probably just heard, "englishenglishenglishenlglish, but thank-you."
Tessa tells me I need to stop apologizing and to be more assertive.
This is where my irrational fear of anger comes up to bat. It's been a hard hitter for years, but has been extra efficient since my PTSD and my traumatic Couchsurfing experience in Morocco.
These days, it hits a freakin' home run nearly every time.
I am so afraid of making people angry that I make myself appear more vulnerable.
"I'm so sorry."
"-- thank-you, but --"
"That's so nice of you, maybe some other --"
He reached out and held my hand. I didn't yank my hand away like I should have.
I looked outside and found a pretty building.
"Look at those eyeballs, Tessa!" I crowed, twisting my hand away and pointing at the conveniently placed house. "We love Romanian windows," I turned to our sulking driver to explain away my abrupt behavior.
I wish I had my bag with me. I'm afraid to demand to get out because my life is in my bag and my bag is in the back of his truck. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. My laptop. My passport. My debit card. All I have with me is what's on me, and all I have on me are my yoga pants and my OM shirt from Kristina. Shit, shit, shit.
At least I had more on me than Tessa had on her. My blonde, tan friend was wearing her floral shorts and a T-shirt.
Our driver was quite taken with Tessa's bronze legs and blonde hair.
She made a joke about Dracula living in the haunted looking forest we were driving through.
Our driver reached across me and slapped her on the leg.
I wish I had my bag. But what would I do if I did have my bag? Would I tell him to stop driving so that I could get out and walk. Would he stop the truck? Would he let us out and then drive off with our bags? And walk where?
There was no road shoulder. There were few towns. It was violently tipping down rain and the forests were definitely full of bears and vampires.
I don't know what I would do. But I still want my bag.
He grabbed my thigh again.
I moved closer to Tessa.
He placed his right hand on the seat, creeping, crawling it closer and closer to my legs when he thought I was looking at the mist.
Or perhaps he didn't care.
I should have looked at the hand and said, "I don't like it when you touch me. Please don't do it again."
But "do you like Timisoara?" is all I said.
Christ. I think I'm in survival mode.
He pulled over later and told us to take pictures of each other in front of the mist. I told Tessa to show her vampire teeth.
'Cos girl's got some fangs. Proper ones.
Then he asked me to take a picture of himself and Tessa in the truck.
Yes! Evidence. Rapist truck drivers don't want pictures with victims. At least, it seems like they wouldn't.
He pounced on the opportunity to fondle Tessa a bit. I snapped the photos as quickly as possible so that she wouldn't have to stay in this position very long and then climbed back into the middle seat.
The truck driver said, "no, no, no" and motioned for Tessa to stay where she was beside him. But she smiled and scooted over and I firmly sat down in the middle and let my yoga pants provide some sort of barrier between his fingerless hand and Tessa's bare skin.
Thank god for my unsexy yoga pants the color of poo.
I've never watched km markers crawl by the way these crawled.
Timisoara
130 km
Just over two hours... right?
Timisoara
125 km
Okay... that's about two hours.
Timisoara
120 km
Damn. It feels like it's already been two hours. This is the longest ride in the world.
He patted my leg. With that extra second that turns friendly into uncomfortable.
Manipulative jerk.
Manipulative jerk.
He stretched himself across my body to look at google maps on Tessa's phone.
I did what I always do in situations like these. I sent myself outside of my body.
If I'm not inside my body, perhaps I can be light enough to tip-toe across the eggshells without cracking a single one.
Tip
toe
tip
toe
tip
From outside of my body, I watched myself nervously smiling and apologizing and scooting further and further away from his upturned hand resting on the pillow beside me.
Timosoara
115 km
The tipping rain let up.
Finally.
Our touchy-feely-extra smiley driver stopped the truck on the shoulder of the road next to an impenetrable forest.
"You want take picture?"
"No, we're okay."
"No want picture?"
"No, we have pictures."
"But thank-you."
"Why not take picture?" he waved his arm at the misty, deserted Transylvanian forests. "We go."
"Dracula!" we motioned to the spooky trees, trying to maintain a somewhat neutral attitude even though our skin was creeping crawling in nervous apprehension of what this wacko Romanian had in mind for forest times.
Does he really expect us to go off into the forest with him?
"Come, come!"
"No, we're okay."
"Why?"
"Dracula!"
He finally went off into the trees and had himself a pee.
"We should never break that rule. We keep our bags with us. Always," Tessa stated as soon as Mr. Handsy had left.
"I'm sorry I was so willing to put my bag in the back," I apologized. Again. Like I do. "We've just had such good experiences so far... I don't know."
We were less than pleased to see our Romanian bounding back through the tall grass, but we were looking forward to seeing the diminishing numbers on the signs.
Timisoara
115 km
touched my leg.
Timisoara
110 km
held my hand.
Timisoara
105 km
105 km
asked us to stay with him in his apartment. For the 17th time.
Timisoara
100 km
Down came the rain and washed the hitchhikers out
And the scary f*cking Romanian
Tried to see Tessa naked again.
"Baggage? Pantalons?" he waved his hand at Tessa's bare legs and then at the rain spattering the window.
He wants to get Tessa to change into her jeans... and is using the weather as an excuse.
He wants to get Tessa to change into her jeans... and is using the weather as an excuse.
"No, pantalons in Timisoara."
"In Timisoara, no parking," he insisted with a exasperated shoulder shrug.
"No parking?"
"No."
"No parking?"
"No."
Maybe this would be a good time to get our bags back.
"Okay, we get our bags now. Baggage. Now."
The driver pulled over and stepped out of the truck. Tessa and I both climbed out after he'd shut the door. We didn't much like the idea of him driving off with our bags whilst we waited helplessly on the roadside in the forest. With Dracula and werewolves and all sorts of magical, shapeshifting, cannibalistic creatures hungry for New Zealand and American blood.
Anyway.
He motioned for Tessa to join him. He told me to stay put. In the cab. While he helped Tessa change into her pants. In the back of the truck.
Umm... does this ever work on ANYONE?
I did not stay in the cab. Tessa did not get into the back of the truck with the increasingly frustrated Romanian.
Instead, she adopted her zero bullsh*t stance and told him to hand over our bags.
Firmly.
I hugged my elephant close to my legs as the km continued to crawl.
An elephant on my legs was markedly better than my neighbor's fingerless hand.
Timisoara
1 km
We erupted from the truck at three o'clock. In Timisoara. Where there was, in fact, plenty of parking.
The sky was clear. All the clouds had settled themselves in our driver's thwarted face.
Which I found immensely satisfying.
We walked in the direction of the city center and discussed what we had learned from that situation.
a) don't be stupid and always stick together.
b) don't be stupid and always keep our bags.
c) don't be stupid and never follow strange men into the forest.
d) don't be stupid.
We bought our post-traumatic peanuts and had a picnic in a park.
Why do we hitchhike?
We don't hitch because we're broke (although we are kind of poor).
We hitch because we want to meet good people, have crazy adventures and share wonderful stories.
We hitch because it makes the journey more meaningful.
We've traveled with all sorts of people during the course of the last month. All sorts of people over a distance of around two thousand km.
Today was the first journey that stole the joy from hitching.
But that's life. You win some, you lose some.
Just try not to be stupid, hold onto your bags, stick together and maybe you'll reach your destination without being molested on the roadside in Transylvania.
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