pat loughery

Day 11: October 30, 2008

Thursday was our final day of class.

After breakfast, Robert Calvert, Gea Gort and I took a car to Bucharest for our evening flights; Jeff Lewis went to Iasi airport for an afternoon flight, and the rest of the class remained at Neamt for a short while until traveling back to Bucharest for Friday flights.

One of our bus drivers drove the three of us in a very nice Mercedes. This driver had been driving the bus aggressively, and when he got into the Mercedes he was determined to make the machine sing. We traveled quickly and arrived in Bucharest around 1pm even though we had estimated arriving around 5pm. I sat in the front seat and saw the speedometer settle in to 150kph many times.

At the airport, Gea left us to go into Bucharest and interview the lady who leads World Vision in Romania the next morning. Robert and I spent a few hours having lunch and then coffee and chatting. I really enjoyed this time. Robert is a very down to earth guy and it is thrilling to hear his experiences and plans in a multiethnic church in Rotterdam. Robert is finishing up a Ph. D. in the topic of migrant churches using the churches in Rotterdam as his subjects.

I had wheelchair help getting to my airplane on this trip. The chairs didn’t take me just to the gate, but outside onto the tarmac, into a handicap van with a lift, and up to the front steps. On arrival in Athens, a handicap van with a lift slid up to the airplane body, attached to the side opposite the main door, and I hobbled onto the lifted bed of this truck. It was all a bit overwhelming, since I could get around but just didn’t want to walk the entire way through the terminal. However I had good chats with the attendants, one of whom told me that they often work with people who aren’t hurt at all, but who request assistance because they’re unfamiliar with the airport, or just want to get to the airplane first. They were happy to work with somebody who obviously had something wrong with them, and I was happy to oblige.

I arrived in Athens around 9pm and due to a metro strike, took a bus into town and then a cab to my hostel. The taxi driver obviously overcharged me but I didn’t have the energy to negotiate with him. I found my hostel room and slept through until the morning.