June 16, 2016: Bucharest Logistics Day

We slept in a little this morning.  We had originally planned to be driving all morning.  So this is very nice already being in Bucharest.  Today is just our buffer time and time to run errands so, unless there is some disaster, we mostly just get to relax.  Tomorrow is Istanbul, but today there is no travel at all.  This is our last full day in Romania, though, and that makes us sad.  We love it here.  Our visas are nearly exhausted, though.  Time to get back to the States and let our visas and passports rest for a while.  What a spring it has been!

Our main job for the day is finding a car wash and getting the car detailed.  That was part of the deal with our three month rental at such an amazing price.  We got a great deal, but the car had to be detailed when we returned it.  A huge pain, but boy was it cheap and the car was really great.  So no real complaints there, even though putting up with this today is awful.

We tried following some Google Map directions to find a detailing place and got led on a wild goose chase into a residential area.  I really am sick of Google Maps, it is worse than useless most of the time.  We tried to take the main highway and look for a place to eat, too, and that did not go well. We eventually wasted too much time looking for a place to eat that Dominica wanted and I put my foot down and drove us back to the McDonald’s right across from the hotel.  It was the only obvious restaurant that we knew where it was and it was extremely close and easy and would let us not be starving while we worked on finding a car wash place.  Or maybe we could even ask someone.

We pulled in to the McDonald’s and the parking lot was quite busy.  While driving around looking for a spot we noticed that the back side of the restaurant parking lot was shared with…. a car wash!  Bingo.

So we got lunch and sat outside and let the girls play in the jungle gym thing that they have for a long time while we ate.  McDonald’s food in Romania is much better than in the US. I got a smoked salmon salad, for example.  And the girls each got their very first Happy Meal!

Luciana got trapped in the gym thing and Liesl had to go save her.  This seems to happen a lot with this enclosed jungle gym things.

We had a really nice, long relaxing time at McDonald’s knowing that our one major errand of the day was all figured out and solved.  We had nothing to worry about now.

After our meal, we went back and had to wait maybe twenty minutes before they could wash the car.  They did a great job and it was so cheap.  Like eight dollars for a complete detailing!  We are so glad that we found that place.  Everyone was really nice and helpful, too.

We went back to the hotel and just hung out all afternoon.  We ordered in pizza for dinner and got to bed very early.  We need our sleep, tomorrow is going to be a very, very long day.  The girls loved the hotel.  Having a room to themselves was a special treat.

Tomorrow we have to get up and return the car and catch our flight very early in the morning.  And we will be in New York by late tomorrow night.  Hard to believe.