All hail the cab.

We had quite the adventure yesterday.

We had spent a lovely weekend in Târgu Mureş, reconnecting with friends and a city we hadn't seen in quite a while, and Monday morning it was time to make the 8-hour bus trip back home to Lupeni.  Our bus was leaving at 7:30, so we woke up around 6:30 to pack, eat breakfast, and say goodbye to Otilia, our delightful host mom who generously let us stay with her again.  Of course, she made us breakfast (eggs, fried potatoes, and salty sheep cheese, paired with sweet fruit tea and slices of white bread), and we stayed and chatted a little too long.  We left the house at about 7:20, walking briskly to the stop to catch our bus to Turda.  The Rocada bus company has had a little stop in Otilia's neighborhood for years, and it's only a 7-minute walk, so we weren't too worried... until we arrived and saw the sign posted, saying that it had moved.

With only about 4 minutes until our bus was supposed to leave, we frantically skimmed the sign in Romanian, noting that the stop had stopped being used a month earlier and was now located at the bigger bus station on the other side of town.  Jack and I looked at each other and took off running, diving into a nearby taxi.  "Do you know where the new Rocada station is?" we asked him in garbled, rushed Romanian.  He did, and we asked him to take us there as fast as possible.

The taxi driver nodded and took off, skirting the edge of town to get us there as directly as possible.  As 7:30 flashed on to the clock, I held my breath and looked out the window for the big white-and-blue Rocada bus.  We were just a few blocks from the station when we saw it, already moving.  We'd missed it.  But the sign said the bus also made one final stop in the city, at a nearby grocery store.  "To Kaufland!" we cried. "The bus also stops there!"  The taxi driver looked at us, confused, and I explained -- "We just passed our bus. We missed it.  It's already moving."

He nodded again and sped up, speeding past the now-unhelpful bus station and onto a busy main street.  We could see Kaufland in the distance, but we were in the wrong lane.  As we watched, the Rocada bus pulled up to the stop.  We held our breath as the taxi driver whizzed through a roundabout to get us turned around.  But the bus pulled away just as we pulled in behind it.  We were too late.

I sighed -- but that taxi driver wasn't done.  He gunned it and pulled up beside the bus as it sped along, honking and waving at the driver.  And miraculously, the bus pulled over.  The taxi came to a stop and our driver jumped out, gesturing to the bus driver that we wanted to get on.  And so we piled out of the taxi, stuffed our fare into the hands of that amazing cabbie, and got on the bus, relieved and a little giddy. 

Whew.