around town: DOG is GOD backwards

Today, we were on a major quest of epic proportions – finding the Catholic Church in Targu Neamt.  Now you might think: small town, churches look like churches obviously and Catholic translates to Catholic — easy peasy.  But alas, it was not easy.  Apparently the Catholic community here is relatively small.  We had heard from several people that the “church” (actually a house they use as a church) is near the gara (railway station).  So on our Saturday walk, off we went towards the gara.

We got to the gara; it was desserted.  Nothing church-like in sight. We asked a security guy at a beer depot about the church.  He said straight ahead and to the right.  We did exactly that and ended up at the end of town.  We backtracked and as we walked ran into a couple. They said straight ahead and at the stop sign, take a left.  It’s black and run-down, they told us.  We walked and walked and NOTHING. NIMIC.

We did find a beautiful Orthodox Church.  To the right of this church there was a group of kids playing hopscotch.  At this point, after all this effort, we were not not finding this church.  We’d asked enough people that we had the question down pat – “Incercam sa gasim casa care este biserica catholica. Stiti unde este?” (We’re trying to find the house that is the Catholic church. Do you know where it is?) A kid told us, take a right and it’s a yellow house on the right.  I have to admit that I wasn’t all that sure of this kid.  I mean, this was the third person who had given us different directions and descriptions of this place.

I was doubtful.  And then God bit me in the ass.  Well, not God really, but a dog – a mean, barking dog. The kids started hollering at him.  I didn’t know what to do.  If I ran, he’d run after me (with his friends, I’m sure).  So I just walked slowly, David in front of me. The kids were screaming and throwing rocks at the now dogs, but that just pushed the dogs closer to me.  I’m not really sure how we extricated from that situation, but we did. After we got away from it, David inspected my hindquarters (husbands are handy).  While I felt the bite, it didn’t break the skin. He did leave a hole in my clothes.  No rabies vaccines from Dr. Dan.

And as we rounded the next corner, the clouds parted, the sun shown, the dogs stopped barking at me, and lo and behold, a crucifix marking the Catholic Church.  It was black and yellow and run-down and we had passed it at least twice in our quest to find it.

Guess sometimes it really does take a bite in the ass to get headed in the right direction.