The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Here's that recap post I mentioned

I decided to split it up into 3 sections —

The good (i.e. positive and nice experiences)

The bad (i.e. negative experiences not related to our guide)

The ugly (i.e. how our guide acted)

The good

The places ⛪️ ☦️

All of the monasteries were beautiful, like jewels on the crown of the ancient Voievods. We saw how they work and how they pray, which was really inspiring. The monks and nuns were hardworking, generous, and joyful; their gracious hospitality shone like the sun. I want to visit them again, just to spend time with them at those monasteries.

The people 😁

We met and spent a whole day with the kids at the orphanage, rambling through the foothills of the mountains and visiting chapels and apple trees. They showed us where the best plums are and how to flip over the swingset bars without whacking your head. At the chapel we visited, I sang a troparion in English for them and they sang one in Romanian for us.

The food 🍲

The food we ate and the things we drank were excellent! Between the țuica, the tea, the meats and the eggs, everything we had was delicious. While we did drink a lot of absolutely terrible gas station coffee (multajn dankojn, gvidanto 🙄), there were some excellent moments with hot coffee on the trip. The general lack of processed foods made every meal feel "real", though nia gvidanto's weird political fixations colored how enjoyable it was. All that weirdness notwithstanding, the food was excellent.

The flights 🛫

I like to fly! Our experiences on the flights was excellent, especially considering that we're in the midst of a global pandemic. On every flight, the flight attendants were in high spirits and so it was really fun to fly with them. They were prompt, cheery, and the service was great. The airplane food was very good too.

The bad

Airports ✈️ 🛂 🛄

The airport experiences we had weren't *bad* in themselves; it was more like "annoyance by a thousand inconveniences". From being temporarily stopped at the beginning of the trip because we didn't have COVID-19 tests to losing my sister's bag at the end, the airport experiences were annoying. Definitely manageable though -- while they were annoying, they weren't *horrible*. Passport control definitely made us miss our connections coming back home though.

Jetlag 🛬💤

Jetlag is always awful. There's not really a good way around it, but getting a full 8hrs of rest before and after crossing a large number of timezones is a great way to mitigate it.

The ugly

Our guide

If you've looked through my previous posts about the trip, you'll know that our guide was a complete failure at, well, *guiding* us through the country. He was rude and dismissive, and probably the least pleasant travel companion. I'm going to email a student organization that he's led trips for in the past, asking that they drop him like a plutonium fuel rod. He's not capable of leading a trip like this.

Overall

I liked the trip! It was a good use of two weeks, and I'd definitely go back. I would absolutely never go back with that particular guide, but I'd go back with my family or another tour group.

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