Yesterday's blog post got more of a response than most of them do. I think that even if we haven't had the experience, we can all relate to, and imagine ourselves, driving a 30 year old van alone through a foreign country where you don't speak the language and then breaking down on a Sunday when the mechanics are all closed. I guess it's easier for me to imagine since it just happened to me yesterday, but you know what I mean.

I thought I was giving a straight up Walter Cronkite "just the facts ma'am" news report (ok he didn't say that,) but a few friends thought I was getting a little melodramatic. "People are friendly," they said about potential murderers and psychopathic cult members, denying my lived experience! Have we learned nothing as a species? One friend who doesn't speak great English thought that I'd actually been kidnapped, which I found kind of insulting because you could argue on nitpicking technicalities that it was pretty much just like being kidnapped, except with friendly people and generosity and food and laughing children and my van being repaired. But they did take me to a cash machine at the end of the day and asked me to withdraw money for them - exactly like kidnappers will do! If you really ignored the actual facts and just use my hypersensitivity as a basis of truth, you could get there. I don't know what's wrong with the naysayers. They need to take a course or something. Work on their feelings.

Less dramatic details today: My fuel pump was taken off the van while I slept, pampered baby that I am, and reconditioned at an official Bosch service center nearby, and replaced on the van hours later by my mechanics. I had no idea how much of the engine had to be disassembled to be able to do that. Amazing. If I had any doubt, today confirmed that I was not born to be a mechanic. Those guys are amazing. When the fuel pump was installed and the engine was running again, they looked for the water leak that has plagued the car for some time. They found a cracked plastic part that had to be replaced, and fortunately found one at a shop nearby. They also discovered that one of the small water hoses was completely blocked, and he wrestled with that hose for some time to pull out a small plug of what looked like stone. It was probably just an accumulation of rust and detritus from over the years. After a nice lunch that they included me in, and refused to allow me to pay for, I paid for the repairs and we said goodbye until I come back from Turkey in the next couple months. I told him I hope the van developed many problems so I could give him some work when I came back. Gulp. I'm not sure that's the "energy" I want to send out into the universe! But I'm not the hippie, I'm the former financial analyst who's playing the role of a hippie, so those energetic rules don't apply to me. Right? Tell me I'm right.

Yay! On the road again! I drove about an hour on the highway until it was getting dark and I managed to find a dirt road going up a beautiful green mountain/hill. As I was driving up this rather steep hill, without any idea where it goes or if I'm allowed to be there, I had the thought - is this normal behavior, just after you had all this work done on your van? I ignored my feelings and kept driving. Found a nice place to park for the night, and thought I'd check the engine just to make sure it looked okay. I opened it up to see that about half the water of the coolant reservoir had leaked out since I left the shop. You are kidding me! My non-fake hippie energetic-believing friends will tell me this is proof that you don't put this stuff out in the world! As I was getting ready to leave today I had the thought, oh this is a little sad that everything's fixed, what am I going to write about? Ha!

Tomorrow I either drive back for an hour to get the leaks fixed, or (through my interpreter friend) he actually offered to drive up here with his flatbed and tow me back down so I don't have to drive. We'll see in the morning...

Love, love, non-worrying, non-leaking, non-murdering, love!

Dave

I love to see competent and talented people working on my van.

They had just washed the engine, the bottom plate is off, and the radiator is tipped forward. It never usually looks like this.

Lazar, my new best friend, who taught me a lot about Serbia and what they care about. He LOVES the Lakers and dreams about visiting the US.

Grandpa, who is 85 years old.

A meat-heavy meal, a challenge for a vegetarian. A former vegetarian would find it satisfying, and even delicious. Winky-winky.

(The End)