Trip to Romania . . . kind of

Hey guys,

So, yesterday was supposed to be the big trip to Romania.  Plan was for me to pick up the car at 8am, drive down (about 10 hours) to Bucharest.  Then stay the night in a hotel, head to the Bucharest office to pick some stuff up, and drive home.  Simple right?

The day started out great.  Some minor problems with the GPS (which I was very glad they provided me with.  My first plan, "I'm driving from one capital city to another, how hard can it be???" was woefully unrealistic) and then I was off!

The first leg of my drive took me right along the Danube:

Needless to say, gorgeous

The rest of Hungary was fairly normal.  Straight highways, light traffic.  The sun and the clouds, however, looked *super* cool.  I snapped a bunch of pictures, obviously none of them really conveyed how awesome it looked, but here was the best one:

After like two hours or so I ended up in Romania.  It's . . . pretty apparent that Romania is a poorer country than Hungary.  The roads were not as high of quality, the towns were smaller . . . ahh well

Which is not to say that Romania doesn't have its share of grandeur.  It seems like every single town I passed through had a gorgeous church right on the main street.  Here are a couple:

(I apologize for any lack of artistry with these photos.  I was, you know, driving)

Anyways, the trip was going great until I got to . . . well, almost perfectly the halfway point--maybe four hours out of Budapest, and another 6 to Bucharest.  At which point . . . well, let's just call it car troubles and leave it at that.  So yeah, to make a very long story short, I never actually made it to Bucharest--instead, someone had to come down from Budapest to fetch me home.  *sigh*

Not that it wasn't a pretty and idyllic place to wait for the tow truck . . .

So anyways, yes.  I was involved in a pretty bad accident, one that I was very lucky to walk away from unharmed (and I just got back from a doctor certifying that that is the case).  I'm not a religious person, but . . . well.  Perhaps there is a god watching over fools, lovers and madmen :)

Anyways, I'm safe and sound back in Budapest.  Les, my boss, swooped in with paperwork and lawyer and translator and all was settled far, far better than I should have had any hope of it ending up
The mission was unequivocally failed, but I suppose that's just how it goes sometimes--and I figure it wouldn't have been fair to deprive you guys of at least a few decent pics I got on the way

Noah out