Arrived in Bucharest after most expensive taxi ride ever.

Wow, this day was really intense. Last night when I was getting to bed, I just wanted to check out how I could get to the airport from the train station. I found out, that even though I arrived in Paris three hours prior to the takeoff of my plane, it would be extremely tight making the bus or train in time. It made it a little difficult for me to sleep, so only got five hours.

In the morning I said goodbye to Thomas and Kristina, before getting on the train to Paris. I had a really great time in Montpellier and was very happy to stay with them.

When I arrived in Paris I was in a serious hurry. With help from Arthur, I got on the right trains and got to the bus station in record time, but I was exactly three minutes late. The kind guy at the ticket booth informed me, that my only option to make the flight in time was by taxi to the airport. It was more an an hours drive away and costed me 140 euros!!!!!!!!!!! I had no other option so I got the best out of it. Got a photo of the taxi driver laughing with my money in his hand, so it was all worth it lol

Anyways, I made it to Bucharest and it was snowing heavily. The landing was basically all white. I couldn’t see anything out the window.

Robert and Amanda was waiting for me in the airport with a SIGN!!! How awesome is that, I’ve always wanted someone to pick me up in the airport with a home made sign :D

We drove to their apartment (which has a guard dog, awesome again!), got some food and then out the door again to the gym. I was pretty tired but I am only here for 24 hours so I wanted to go to the gym. And what a cool experience!

It was at a military facility in a huge wrestling room. Very simple, eastern Europe style place. There were tons of people in the class, i think at least 40. People were extremely friendly and their English was really good. I hadn’t been there for more than a few minutes before people came to say hi and asked for advise about BJJ. It was very easy to socialize with them and they seemed eager to learn and to hear about my trip.

Tudor, the owner of the gym, who I had met in Portugal for the Europeans was sick unfortunately, so there wasn’t really anyone to teach. They asked if I could teach a bit, so I did. We went over some one-legged x-guard and everyone learned it easily. In general, the level was really high. There were a good handful of very good blue belts.

I got two rolls before I had to call it a day. All the traveling and to little sleep was in my body. I wanted to save my energy for tomorrow, where I am teaching a seminar at 14:00. I hope there will also be time for checking out the city a bit and taking some photos. We are leaving on the bus to Moldova already at 6 in the evening.

So far, Romania has been a really good experience. It was awesome to get on a plane, land in some completely unknown country, walk directly into a Jiu jitsu gym and connect with people like that. It seems that everywhere I go, I instantly want to go back, and this is no exception.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow. Right now I am sitting in Robert and Amanda’s apartment. I can’t wait to take some photos here, it is as eastern European as I could imagine and I love it.