I just got back last night from another trip Romania. I think the trip was a success, but we’ll know for sure in a few days (hopefully not weeks) and ultimately in the long term over the next year or so.
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I was headed to Iaşi, my most frequent destination in Romania (I have been known to visit Timişoara from time to time and Sibiu once — so far). There are no direct flights to Iaşi from Munich or Nuremberg. But you can get to Iaşi after stopping and changing planes in Timişoara, Vienna, or Bucharest (or maybe others?).
It’s fine, as airports go, I guess. But it really gets on my nerves that that there is apparently no way to go from the domestic arrivals to international departures (or the way around) without going past the ticketing windows and through the security lines a second time — the first being when you boarded your first plane.
Am I just crazy, or don’t other airports allow you to exit one plane and get on another without an additional trip through the metal detector and x-ray machine? The infuriating thing at Bucharest is that when you’re exiting the plane, you can see a clearly labelled path intended for transfers so you to shortcut past the ticket windows, but there’s a security dude there (looking mighty bored and scowly) shooing anyone who tries to use it up the stairs and out of the secured area. So everyone taking a connecting flight has to get re-screened.
*”Ce faci?” (pronouced like [chay fahtch]) means “How are you?” or “Zup?” or “What’s going on?” as near as I can tell. I wonder if it’s a literal translation of “what does [he/she/it] make?” Romance language experts, what do you think? I like looking at Romanian words and finding their cousins in Spanish and the little bit of French I’ve gleaned from three vacations there the past couple years.
| Reminds me of | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Romanian Phrase | Spanish | French | Italian | English meaning |
| (Bună) dimineața | mañana | demain | (good) morning | |
| la revedere | arrivederci | goodbye | ||
| Nu înțeleg | I don’t understand | |||
| urgență | emergency | |||
| târziu | tarde | later | ||
| Cum te cheamă? | ¿Como te llamas? | What’s your name? | ||
| Cu plăcere | with pleasure (you’re welcome) | |||
| Atenție | Attention! | Look out! | ||
| sete | sed | thirst | ||
| Unde e toaleta? | ¿Dónde está ..? | la toilette | I’m off for a slash | |
| șăptămână | semana | semaine | week | |
Connecting through Heathrow or Frankfurt you have to go through another metal detector and the whole nine yards, drink or dump your liquids somewhere, the works.
Well, OK, is it just me then?
I thought I remembered not having to go through security again when changing in places like Dulles or Chicago or Denver or Phoenix on our way through the U.S. to destinations like Detroit, Kansas City, or Puerto Vallarta.
And it’s been a while since I changed planes in Amsterdam, so I don’t remember if there was another security checkpoint there (though I suppose there was…apart from the extra one for flights destined for the U.S.
I suppose T.Q.E. has the definitive report to offer us on this topic; perhaps he’ll share his experience with us here.
Oh yeah, and another thing — I know the display of the Romanian characters isn’t working here, yet. I am pretty sure it’s due to the fact that I’m using a UTF-8 table to display Latin1 characters or something. I’ve got a possible solution in the works, which will be much prettier. I just hope it doesn’t wreck anything else.