by I’m back in Timișoara after a few days in the UK, and I’m happy to be here. The city is green all of a sudden, and temperatures have rocketed into the mid-20s.
Just before I left for the UK I made a trip to the Easter market. I bought some colourful wooden eggs and hand-painted fridge magnets showing the name of my home town, for my aunt’s benefit in particular. I also bought a plate of hot mămăligă with sausages and cheese. I asked for 300 grams but got (and paid for) a lot more, and had nothing but my bare hands to eat it with. With my bus to the airport imminent, this was a challenge.
My experience at Timișoara airport was quite stressful. I hadn’t printed my boarding pass, despite doing the online check-in business, because I couldn’t figure out how. The only way I could avoid a €42 charge was to bring up the boarding pass on my phone somehow. I got there in the end, after farting around with the WizzAir app. I thought I’d been careful to ensure I had no liquids over 100 ml, but that damn bottle of pumpkin seed oil, five times the limit, totally slipped my mind. When I told them it was oil they dropped it into a hole which I thought would lead to oblivion, but in fact it was some kind of scanner. My precious oil was given the all-clear. (At the UK airport I’m sure it would have gone straight in the bin.)
After an uneventful three-hour flight, I touched down in wet, miserable Luton. My plan had been to take a taxi the few miles to Hitchin and then catch a train to Cambridge. Getting a taxi wasn’t as simple as hopping in: I had to enter a black and yellow cabin or shed, and order from there. “Could you tell me the postcode?” I hadn’t a clue. They looked it up on their system. “That’ll be thirty-three pounds and…” What? They said the traffic was so bad that my ride would take an estimated 51 minutes. I could just about have walked it in that time. Instead I bought a National Express bus ticket from an extremely helpful woman, after attempting to buy one from an overly fussy machine that wouldn’t take my £20 notes because they weren’t smooth enough.
I arrived at my parents’ flat in St Ives just before ten in the evening and went almost straight to bed because I’d be meeting my university friend in London in a matter of hours. The next morning I got amazing customer service once more, this time from the bloke at the ticket desk at Cambridge railway station. (After 18 months in Romania, all British customer service suddenly seems bloody awesome.) By not catching the next available train I saved £16. My friend and I met at the British Museum, where we spent some time chatting while browsing the Chinese section and the exhibition of coins and medals. The British Museum is a remarkable trove and it costs absolutely nothing to visit. From the museum we meandered over to a nearby pub, where I found out my friend had been vegetarian for eight years. I had my first fish and chips since 2016 and it was wonderful. From there we made our way to Regent’s Park via a board game shop. He seemed impressed that I knew the difference between Ameritrash and Euro games. We chatted some more in Regent’s Park, grabbed something to eat (a Thai green curry in my case) and then it was time to go home. We were extremely lucky with the weather, but my “run” of blue skies was to end after just one day.
