9 July 2018 - Week 66
Along with our regular duties helping the missionaries this week, we also got the car we are renting from the church repaired. One day in May when we were picking up the sisters at their apartment, we had a little encounter with some wicked rebar. The streets are so narrow here and there is hardly any parking, so people just stop whereever they want. They will turn on their flashers and run into a building leaving the car right in the middle of the road. Additionally, many Romanian drivers are very aggressive, bully drivers. They expect you to get out of their way.
Brent pulled to the side of the road that was never meant for two cars. He was trying to get out of the way of an oncoming car. When he pulled back into the traffic, our front bumper caught on the rebar, which he did not see, and popped off a slice by the wheel, sending it flying high into the air. The sisters couldn't believe it. We were amazed. He just kept driving, telling them "Well, there isn't anything we can do about it now!"
We sheepishly notified the mission office and received approval to get it repaired. Now the hard part - how do you find a body shop in Romania? We went to the Hyundai dealer in Timisoara thinking that would work, but they sent us up the road to the guy they use for their repairs. Their price was pretty high. We did learn some helpful things such as the Romanian word for body shop and decided to see what we could find in Arad.
We found a shop just down the street from our apartment and got a quote. We were happy to be able to get it fixed locally rather than take it an hour away and get a rental car. We were without our car for 2 days - well really we took it in on Wednesday morning and were able to pick it up on Thursday afternoon. They did a really nice job.
A side note to the car repair is that we rode the tram vie for the first time, an experience Brent had been wanting to do. He bought a ticket and took a ride all over town. The next day we bought two tickets and we both rode to meet the sisters for an appointment.
Brent pulled to the side of the road that was never meant for two cars. He was trying to get out of the way of an oncoming car. When he pulled back into the traffic, our front bumper caught on the rebar, which he did not see, and popped off a slice by the wheel, sending it flying high into the air. The sisters couldn't believe it. We were amazed. He just kept driving, telling them "Well, there isn't anything we can do about it now!"
We sheepishly notified the mission office and received approval to get it repaired. Now the hard part - how do you find a body shop in Romania? We went to the Hyundai dealer in Timisoara thinking that would work, but they sent us up the road to the guy they use for their repairs. Their price was pretty high. We did learn some helpful things such as the Romanian word for body shop and decided to see what we could find in Arad.
We found a shop just down the street from our apartment and got a quote. We were happy to be able to get it fixed locally rather than take it an hour away and get a rental car. We were without our car for 2 days - well really we took it in on Wednesday morning and were able to pick it up on Thursday afternoon. They did a really nice job.
This week was also the second year we had been away from home for the 4th of July. We fixed potato salad and sloppy joes with chips and watermelon for lunch. The sisters brought marshmellows, chocolate and graham crackers to make s'mores on the gas stove. We listened to patriotic music and waved a little flag the sisters gave us. It was a good day!
This little patriotic celebration, however, did not measure up to the celebration held by our district leaders who took the oven rack out and put it up on the stovetop. They proceeded to grill steaks over the flames. Hmmmm....seems very messy to me.
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