PART VI – The Romanian Money Machine Paradigm
As I had bought a two way ticket in Ploiesti, I had just the ticket to board the train but I didn’t have the ticket for a seat so in Arad I had to go to the ticket vendors and request one, which cost me around 20.000 Lei (2 Ron) at the time.
While I was at the platform waiting for the train a gypsy couple arrived at the platform carrying 2 huge bags each. The lady stayed at the platform and the man went back and forth inside the station and out and brought several more huge bags, probably full of Hungarian products to be sold at the open market in Romania.
As the train stopped I realized they were going to board the same car as I was supposed to board. The lady run to one of the car entrances and yelled at her husband to run to the other one and the two of them proceeded to load their cargo in the car, preventing other people from boarding. The lady kept screaming in Roma language to her husband at the other extremity of the car all the time. I was trying to board the car and she kept pushing me aside with her big bags. I finally snapped at her “What the fuck, lady! Let other people board the train!” She looked at me with her wild eyes. Then she started screaming at me in Roma language and reapeating “Ei waddafack! Ei waddafack!”
When I finally boarded there was a French girl in the compartment where I had my seat. She said she was travelling from Paris to Bucharest.
A few minutes after the train left Arad the conductor came in to check the tickets. He checked mine and everything was in order. He checked hers and explained to her that she had to buy the ticket for the seat as she had only the ticket to board the train. She asked him how much and he typed some numbers in his pocket calculator and showed it to her and whispered: “In Euro”.
After he left I asked her how much did he charge her and she said 50 euro.
That’s 108 times what I paid for exactly the same ticket. Don’t you just love the Romanian money machine?
I finally got home and in the next day I called the Consul in Budapest. He picked the phone and asked me “why didn’t you come? I was expecting you!”
I told him I ended up going to Szeged, to which he said sarcastically: “Ahaaaa… You went to Szeged, eh? And tell me, did you get your visa?”
When I told him that I didn’t, he said: “I knew you wouldn’t get it because I know the consul from Szeged. He thinks that Romanian immigration laws are the same as US laws and he has to protect Romanian borders from the “Mexicans” trying to enter the country.”
I told him about the consul’s definition of minimum salary per economy and he laughed saying “He’s crazy…”
Anyway, he told me to go over to Budapest next week and he will give me the visa.
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