The following morning, we set out to reach our last stop. We saved this beauty of a gem for last! ORADEA!
This is the city where Katya was "born" (in missionary speak) and where she spent her first 6 months in Romania.
It is a beautiful historic city close to the border of Hungary, so it was greatly influenced by the Austro-Hungarian architectural designs. The buildings in the old town are gorgeous and it has a typical European small town feel.
Of course, the remnants of the communistic times are still there in the nearby neighborhoods too. We stayed in an apartment in a building similar to this, just for one night in Oradea.
Oh, and on the way to Oradea, we came across these golden roofed mansions that were the houses that the gypsies were building. It was a bit surreal to see them and I need to learn a bit more about this whole deal with luxurious houses.
They were everywhere on this stretch of our drive to Oradea. In clusters.
We dropped off our luggage, changed and went out into town to see where Katya spent months proselyting.
She was in Oradea during winter months, so it was wonderful to see it in August. Because this was the place where Katya started her mission, she feels super connected with it. I guess in total Katya served in four places with Pitest being her least favorite so she wanted to skip it all together. Otherwise, she was in Oradea, Iasi, and Bucharest.
Since Katya knew all the missionary habits and usual hang outs, she was convinced we would run into some missionaries on our outing. Sure enough! Not even a few minutes after we walked into the center, we saw the sister missionaries! It's kind of a cool feeling to see those who are still serving in your area after you knew them as a missionary on your mission.
How could I forget! We were also celebrating Robert's birthday in Oradea!
The best place to be on your birthday-with your family. We only wish Alex were with us...but guess what! He was actually arriving to Latvia like ON this day! We were almost traveling on the same day through Europe! Crazy!!
Oh finally--a family selfie in Oradea!
Of course...what a surprise...we ran into the elders too! We told them to meet us at 8 pm at the gelato place because Brother Watson was going to treat everyone to gelato on his birthday-haha. These elders were on splits actually, so we knew now that there was another pair wandering around somewhere.
But here is a wild part! This elder next to Mark is from New Zealand. We told him we had just visited New Zealand and stayed in Hamilton where he is from. And then we asked him if he knew Collette--the one who runs the B&B! And he said yes! She is like one of his aunties! Which auntie means friend/relative/something close but yes, she is his auntie! How fun is this!?
For dinner we drove to a mall area close to the apartment where Katya and Julia Pachev (her first companion and trainer) lived in Oradea. We had a wonderful dinner there. Katya and I secretly went inside the store and got a piece of cake, and found a candle to put on the cake to sing a Happy Birthday to Robert right there at the cafe.
Happy 45th birthday, Robert!!!
And then back to the Old Town--and all the missionaries showed up! Who could say "no" to free gelato on Robert's birthday??
Together we walked to the church building. All these places were so special to Katya and they felt very special to us too.
The following morning, we actually didn't have much time to do more sightseeing in Oradea. We felt a bit rushed because although we had bus tickets for the 13:50 Flexibus from Oradea to Budapest airport, we still had to drop off the car at the Oradea airport and then take a taxi to the bus station.
It was so hectic because although we were given the instructions by Sixt car rental company about where to drop off our car, it was actually very confusing because the terminal that we were directed to was absolutely closed! And we were supposed to park the car and drop off the key at no one knows were..it was weird and we had to communicate back and forth via What's app with Sixt, but finally we figured it out and...hoped for the best.
We took an Uber to the bus station from where we were going to ride a bus to Hungary. Let me tell you, the vibe of the bus station was seriously like a Ukrainian bus station twenty years ago. It was almost funny to me! The bus station doesn't just host Flixbuses that are long distance, it also helps people connect throughout Romania, so they are not all fancy. And neither are people who take them.
Our Flixbus was delayed actually by an hour! The whole time I was getting updates about its location and for some reason it was running late although. We did not miss it, we got our luggage on it and we found our seats just fine. The seats were really tight for tall people...
It was about a 4.5 hour drive that was sooooo peaceful and soooo nice easy. Worth every penny not to have to drive and figure out where to go and let a professional drive! The tickets were actually super inexpensive--like 20 euros a person or something. We had to stop at the border, had our passports collected, checked and brought back (who knows where they took them but I guess privacy and all that are not really a thing at the border).
We arrived at the Budapest airport around 6 pm, if I remember it correctly. And almost immediately, the host of our apartment for the night picked us up to take us to his place. It was perfect! We paid him like we would for the taxi, but it was rather reasonable and convenient for us all.
From the new apartment we walked to the restaurant and had a nice sit down dinner here. Our trip was definitely winding down... We felt relaxed and accomplished. We were also once again in a place where no one could speak the native language and we were back to communicating in English...
Our flight was leaving at 6:20 am the following morning so we were up at the crack of dawn, just kidding, it was pitch dark when we woke up....the owner of our apartment also gave us a ride to the airport which eased our burden of trying to find a taxi at 4 am! The airport was SO busy! This was August 23rd, Saturday. Thankfully, we had no checked luggage but the security line was still rather long.
Once we were through, we made our way to the lounge as we get free access with our Ritz Carlton card. We actually had to wait in line for a bit as it was opening at 4:30 am.
It was a great start to our journey home--kids loved all the variety of breakfast food they could get before getting on the plane. And I love how these lounges make traveling just a little more comfortable and luxurious. Sorry, Mark, for the closed eyes.
From Budapest we flew to Paris where once again we had a few hours of a wait. Sadly, I could only get one person into the Air France lounge with me...and Mark volunteered as tribute...since he could eat a lot. We had a good time and made sure to fill up on food-haha. Then reunited with Katya and Robert in time for our flight to RDU.
What a whirlwind of a trip that was! It was definitely a memorable trip that helped us understand Katya's missionary experience a lot more. It is not an easy place to live in at all and we could see it a lot clearer now.
Grateful for the opportunity we took to visit this country! It was never on our radar before Katya's mission and now it's part of our family history.
Lyana.
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