An hour and 15 minutes ride for the 40 k.m. The 3 car commuter train left at 7.12 and I was done with my business to return on the noon departure. $ 4 round trip. I managed to squeeze my folding bike through the entrance doors. The last time I spent too little time with Camelia there, when we went by car. The large town has a very nice, pedestrian only, shopping center and public market. The only reason for going was to collect a GPS antenna that I had purchased on the internet and had Lisa forward to me. I had to clear it through postal customs.

The short ride goes through rolling country side of wheat, rye, sunflowers and corn fields. The market represented the current crops, strawberries, cherries, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers in all colors. This is what I like so much about Romania. The seasonal flowers, vegetables and fruits, last fall the harvesting of the grapes, delivering the winter’s firewood, now the Linden blossoms. There is a cadence, a harmony with the land and seasons. Something that is hard to distinguish in the more “developed?” western society, where the market represents seasons from both sides of the equator, is plastic wrapped or frozen.

It is early afternoon and in the nineties. I’ll spend a couple of hours on “Fleetwood” later, I’m not a Mad Dog or an Englishman to go out in the mid day sun, as described by Rudyard Kipling. And on the subject of dogs. I show a picture of them on Zimnicea’s main street. A couple days ago I was sitting on the sidewalk cafe of the hotel and saw a lady get in her car. Another dog was sleeping right in front of her car. I figured that starting up her car would wake it up. No, there was a yelping and a terrified driver when she went right over it, but the car barely made a dent in it. Most American cars would have made mince meat out of the Romanian stray. I have become one of the locals because the stray dogs don’t chase me any longer. It is time to move on.