Part 87 - Vama Veche and Constanța

There was a couple of national holidays while I was in Romania, so Cosmin, Paula, Alex, Leia and I - along with every other person living in Bucharest - hopped on the motorway down to Vama Veche, a beach resort on the Black Sea, not far from the border with Bulgaria. 

The drive down was rather busy (what better time to do major road works than when everyone is travelling on the road) and uneventful, except for when I identified a new species of spider (Arachnid Hewittus is my humble suggestion for its name). He's either a very odd looking fellow, or some cruel bastard has superglued a small red die to its back. 

The weather in Vama Veche was lovely. Warm without being too hot, and a nice fresh breeze rolling in off the Black Sea (the exception being the last day when the fresh breeze was practically a hurricane). 

Choppy

Our accommodation was very comfortable, and I was overjoyed that I got my own room, since the last time I was here (10 years ago), due to a breakdown in communications (i.e. Cosmin wasn't around to perform translation duties), I ended up having to share the honeymoon suite (and bed) with Nick.

Not sure why, but Vama Veche has a London telephone box

We were also joined one evening by Alex's godparents, Bogan and Eveline, as well as their son, Baby Bogdan. Does that make Alex and Bogdan Jr god-brothers? Who knows. The picture below shows us all about around an hour into our one and a half hour wait for food that never arrived because reasons. 

Our smiles belie our hunger

We also had a wander around the nearest city, Constanta for the day. I've since learned that this was where Jason landed after finding the Golden Fleece. We didn't spot any golden fleeces, but it was a pleasant enough city to wander around. 

The Popa family. Richie Popa has quite a nice ring to it. 

Cranes and a derelict casino in Constanța

The weather was even cool enough to go for a run - the first in a long time. I ran along the road to the Bulgarian border, but then realised there was no way they'd let me cross without my passport, so I ran down a farm road and tried running towards the border near the coast. Next thing I know, there is a very angry and aggressive dog barking at me, and two policemen shouting at me in Foreign. I didn't understand a word, but got the general gist which was GTF.

Looking at the map of my run later, they actually had no right in stopping me there, since I was several hundred metres from the border, a salient point which I would have enjoyed debating with Angry Police Dog.

So later that day, I decided to cock a snook at Officialdom by walking along the beach to the border and doing a little jig.

Policemen and Angry Police Dog watched with interest from the cliff

However, this border foray was merely the apertif before the main course: Our road trip to Moldova and another confrontation with a surly border guard!