Thursday, May 31, 2012

My birthday


This year on my birthday, the H2H staff went to the mountains to investigate a “new road” to take the boys to camp. It was a dreich day, but that didn’t dampen our spirits. We set out late morning in two vans and after stopping for a quick picnic lunch we continued our journey finally arriving at the narrow, single track, rough and sometimes crumbing at the edges road we were looking for.  We drove for what seemed like forever round bends, through potholes, sometimes stopping to let other vehicles past until we arrived at a standstill. They were still constructing the road and had to wait for the trucks to move before we could venture on.
We pulled into a makeshift passing place and turned off the engines to wait.  After a while it was time to set off, but one of the vans would not start. I should point out that I don’t like heights and so I was a bit nervous to start with. One of the guys decided it would be a good idea to jump start the van rolling it backwards down this narrow and windy road, so all the passengers got out and left him to it! After much starting and stopping and coughing and spluttering (the van, not me), it started! Relief! We decided that that van should go back down to Sinaia and only the other van should go to the top.


I spent the rest of the afternoon drinking hot tea and visiting the shops with the others from that van. The rest took a LONG time to get back to the bottom – I think they took a wrong turn! When we did, we celebrated my birthday with a  lovely international meal; Romanians, Americans , Scots (only me) ate at an Irish pub in the Romanian mountains!! A birthday I won’t forget easily!!