Tickets to Draniţă

And so, we have to tell you about buying tickets and taking the bus to Draniţă. Vitale was worried that would couldn’t figure out the difficult trip to Draniţă so, he devised a good plan to get us there by bus, but without trouble. He doesn’t undersstand that language is only a part of the life we lead! So, in his remarkable kindness, he gave Steph a note saying something about helping us get to Draniţă in Russian. The first trial of the note came at the bus station. I asked the woman working there if she spoke Romanian – BUT she didn’t. So, I said Bus and Chisinau. The route to Chisinau leads right by Draniţă, she gives me a paper with the numbers 33 rph (that’s the cost in Ukrainian money). I’m thinking this is expensive, but Steph holds up the cute little Russian sign Vitale made us. The lady smiled and held up a paper saying 11 rph. And we bought tickets. This was almost a wordless deal. It worked, now we had tickets and could find the bus, but that was the first try on the paper deal. We found the correct bus (praise the Lord, its sign was in Romanian and Russian. We walk up to the driver and he says something in Russian. We ask if he speaks Romainian. . . you guessed again, he didn’t. But Steph pulled out her little note! He smiles and motions us to wait. We waited in the cold rain for 20 minutes and then his helper man helped us find seats in the back of the almost full bus and motioned for us to stay there. Then he took our tickets. Okay, we are on a bus bound for Moldova, a country we are temporarily exiled from, and we are at the mercy of a little magic piece of paper. About an hour later the little helper man came to back of the bus and motioned for the magic note, looked at it and motioned that we could get our stuff, the bus stopped and we got off. . . in Draniţă! It was so exciting to have arrived with the help of a cute Russian sign. And we didn’t get stuck at the Moldovan border being kicked out once again! God is Good!