On our way to Romania we got Lost!

I don't know how many of you use a GPS when you are traveling but they are wonderful and work great most of the time except when you think you are going to Romania and ended up in BULGARIA!  After we left Belgrade we put Bucharest into our GPS and our director told us to travel through the mountains because it would be a beautiful trip.  Well, we knew something was wrong because our trip so far in Serbia was not beautiful, it was flat farm land.  We were told that we had to buy a pass to travel on Romania roads, which most countries here require of all vehicles to pay for the roads.  When we got to the boarder and there was only us and one other car there and no official place to give anyone your passports, so Richard went up to the little building to talk to them and to buy our pass for Romania and the Police guy says we don't sell those you will have to buy one when you get to Romania.  Then Richard ask, "Well, where are we?" And he told us we were in Bulgaria.  He said if we traveled for about an hour we would get to the Romania boarder.  I can honestly tell you we have not been afraid since we have been here, but driving through Bulgaria was the scariest place we have ever been.  They had no road signs and no gas stations, it felt like we have gone back 100 years in time.  The road was very very bad too, so we were grateful there was no traffic and we prayed we would not have car trouble in this country.

We kept seeing these signs in Serbia right before we got to the boarder of Bulgaria and thought to ourselves how cute is this sign, but when we got into Bulgaria we found out the traffic would be wagons and horses or donkeys.  The people here gathered sticks and straw from the fields.  The sticks are left over stalks from the fields of Sunflowers.  We found out later that these sticks and straw are used in their roofs and for firewood.

Oh, the adventure is not over yet, so we are driving along and came to a small village and our GPS says turn right and get onto the Ferry!  We are thinking what body of water would we have to cross when we are in two landlocked countries.  This picture is of Richard asking a lady if we are going the right way and if we cross the Ferry we will end up in Romania.  Her answer was yes the Ferry would take us to Romania and eventually to Bucharest.  Our traveling from this point only became worse!

This is a typical village we went through on our way to Bucharest Romania, these two women are sitting on top of the sticks they had gathered in the fields, we saw numerous wagons filled with sticks like these.  All the homes had fences around them and a bench next to the fence where we saw little old women sitting talking and resting.  They all had scarves covering their heads.  They looked very much like you would image the peasant women dressed and looked 100 years ago.

We saw this pig on a stick also on the side of the road, but we were not tempted to eat him.

Back to our travels it was suppose to take us about 9 hours to travel from Belgrade to Bucharest and it ended up taking us 12 hours.  The road we were on the entire time was the worse road we have ever seen.  They were doing road construction, so the lane we were in was half gone and there was a drop off of about 5 feet we could fall into.  The traffic was bad and the drivers in Romania are the most daring in all of Europe and we believed that now after driving that road with them.  Drivers pass even when a car is coming, they pull out right in front of you and there were animals and people all along the sides of the road.  Richard said it was worse than anything he has every driven in all of Mexico.
I really want everyone to know that Senior couples in Eastern Europe have very difficult missions, the conference we attended was for only Eastern Europe.  The struggles and trials out here really are unbelievable.  So, you may ask, why do we all stay?  Because we love our families and want to be examples to all you that we know that this is Jesus Christ's Church and we would do anything for Him, 

My computer has not been working, that is why I haven't posted anything till now.
from carrie with love