Encounter with the Bucharest Police

Of note, everything ends up fine by the end of the story.

So today was one of those days. We woke up super early to make our way to the Constanta train station one last time. There were no private compartments on this train and the guys next to us kept smoking so it was a great 5 hours. Once in Bucharest, we decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for some American food while waiting for the boys. We confirmed with 2 people which bus to take and bought bus tickets. Now most buses have a little electronic thing that you put your ticket in and it stamps it. There weren't any on this bus. There was a thing for cards but we didn't have cards and a metal thing that I couldn't figure out what it did. Of course, the day we can't figure out how to stamp our tickets a controller came by. They asked for our tickets which we had but weren't stamped. They started yelling at us in Romanian and demanded a 50 lei fine. We know other people that this has happened to and they said if you say you didn't know how to stamp it, the controller people will stamp your ticket and leave you alone. That didn't happen to us. I kept trying to explain that we didn't have 50 lei. The controller told me he was the police and asked for my passport. Since I thought he was the police, I gave him my passport.
This was a mistake.

Now the controllers have our passports and are refusing to give them back without 50 lei and I find out they aren't police. Luckily, a very nice Romanian who speaks amazing English comes up to help. She explains and the controllers continue to be mean. They keep yelling at us and lots of arguing in Romanian continues. Apparently, this got to some of the people on the bus because an elderly gentleman and middle aged women also started yelling at the controllers. The younger one that started helping us said that they shouldn't have taken our passports and to call the police. Which I do, but they speak Romanian so she talked on the phone to them and they said they would meet us at the bus station. By now we are at the end of the line and the crowd staring at us has dispersed except for teh 3 helpful Romanian's who seemed to take personal offense that they were causing us problems and said they weren't leaving until it was worked out. I'm feeling ok at this point, because it's 5 on 2, except they still have my passport. I finally asked the girl to translate that if they weren't planning on stealing my passport I didn't understand why I couldn't have it back. It's not like I was going to run away with all my bags. I think this offended the controller, but I got my passport back.

After waiting for 15 to 20 minutes, the cops aren't there and the controllers are getting bored so they decide to let us go. I'm feeling great at this point but of course the cops arrive. At first I was concerned that we would end up paying a fine but oh no. The cops were extremely mad at the controllers. They got lectured quite a bit. My Romanian is rusty but they said something about taking the ticket and teaching people how to stamp it instead of harassing them. And to make it up to us they decided to give us a ride to the Hard Rock Cafe, despite at this point both of us loosing our desire to eat. So we ended up in the back of a police car, that they cleaned out for us, going lights and sirens and all the 3 blocks to the Hard Rock Cafe. They even offered us snacks along the way.

To top it all off, the cops decided to walk us to the door of the restaurant and tell the people working there the story. Our misfortune spread through the entire cafe because everyone that worked there made and excuse to come and talk to us at least once and make some sort of bus comment. I got a martini.

We made it back to the train station, on the bus, with stamped tickets thank you very much. Scott and Micah arrived around the same time we did so that worked out well. The train to Brasov was really crowded, but we are here now and ready to crash for the night. More later.

becca