No, it doesn't stand for a form of 'to be', nor is a conjugation of the verb 'to have' in Romanian. Quite simply, it is an acronym for Authentic Romanian Experience.
My friend Jenni is visiting this week and I wanted to have her travel outside of Bucharest to see the beauty of Romania and to have some 'authentic' experiences. Never did I have this in mind...
It all started Friday morning. I always plan to arrive 20 min or so before my train to buy my tickets and have never had a problem with this method, but walking in the doors that morning, I knew there would be trouble. The waiting area (with 14 windows open selling tickets was PACKED!!). I hadn't taken into account the holiday weekend, but this felt completely different.
I had Jenni stand in line while I went to meet the person helping me submit my visa documents to stage one. When I returned 10 minutes later, she hadn't moved...
This is when I started getting the feeling we weren't going to make our 9:42 train. It was taking 10-15 minutes/ticketing process which I just didn't understand. There were news cameras all over doing interviews. I still wasn't figuring out what was taking so long. As I got close and could actually witness the transactions, I saw there was no money being exchanged... strange and there was a lot more data entry going on than normal for ticket purchases.
Just as I was nearing the front of the line, they closed window 7 and opened window 8, so the whole line reconfigured and shifted--with much pushing because it wasn't really a line to begin with, but more of a pushing mass. So, I finally made it to the window, bought, my ticket, and then shoved my way back out of the mass. As I was walking away, I heard the teller ask if there was anyone else in line who wanted to pay with money. All this, three hours after we started standing in line. No, we didn't make the 9:42 train, but instead left one the 13:00 train (which left 20 minutes late).
After buying tickets in Brasov, and thinking back to things I had seen in Bucharest, I think I finally put the pieces together. Not only was it a holiday weekend (Unirii Day on Monday), but is also an election weekend (elections are always held on Sundays). So, CFR (the train company) was 'offering' free tickets for students (under the age of 25) to return home to vote. Thus the extra data entry--name, address, reason for free ticket, etc... Had I known all this at 9:30, I might have been able to go to the front of the line and we might have caught the 9:42 train.
But, Jenni certainly got an ARE out of the deal.
The rest of our time away was nice, although also 'laced' with more authentic experiences...late trains, closed castles, and humorous tour incidents.
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