Arrival

I arrive in the city that will be my home for the next year on a Sunday morning. I have the phone numbers of the senior teacher who interviewed me and the school director – who I am to call to pick me up – but no working mobile phone, phone card, or local currency.

My first stop is the ATM. I take out a chunk of money and in my distraction nearly leave the card in the machine. It beeps at me for some time before the man behind me prompts me to retrieve my card. Disaster averted. Now it’s time to get a phone card, find a phone, and figure out how to use it. It takes me a few tries but I finally manage to get the phone to read my card and I reach the director. He’ll be there in ten minutes, he says, so I go back into the station to get a coffee.

This also proves to be more challenging than it looks.

Only one of four coffee machines takes bills, but it won’t accept my note. I have to go buy a Coca Cola Light to get some change. I save that for my daily cola fix and finally get my coffee. Nescafe Chocolate Cappuccino.

I wait at the curbside for the director, and when he arrives I see he is a formal-looking man with a little mustache, and not much older than me. He speaks English well and asks about my journey, which I report was long but fine. I landed in a city in Western Europe, waited seven hours at a train station, and got on an overnight train, changed at Vienna, and then arrived here.

My apartment, which the school is including as part of my employment package, is only a short distance from the train station, and a twenty minute walk to the center in the other direction. It’s spacious and bright with a balcony, and most of the furnishings that usually accompany an Eastern European apartment. It is unfortunately lacking kitchen utensils, sheets, and towels, which are normally included. My new boss is a go-getter and tells me we will solve this problem today and go to Ikea. I’m getting a bit tired from all my traveling, but I’m happy not only because it’s good to have a boss who wants to get things sorted out quickly, but also because he has a car, speaks the language, and knows where to find things.