Bucharest City Tales: The story of the sing-along duet with a Romanian taxi driver

Columnist Eleonore af Schaumburg-Lippe writes in her weekly column about life as an expat in Romania. This week she remembers the many fun experiences she had while talking with Romanian taxi drivers and how she ended up getting invited to a wedding by a taxi driver. It is not a secret that I quite often go by taxi to get somewhere if I don’t walk, which I also often do. Many of my Romanian friends told me I should skip taxi and instead use the public transportation, metro, trams and buses. I am working on it and for sure there will be a Bucharest City Tales piece about the public transportation system here in Bucharest. But usually going by taxi ends up in a funny story, and often my friends will even ask to hear my recent funny taxi experiences. Going by taxi and chit-chatting with taxi drivers has been giving me insights into many kinds of life here in Romania. Many subjects have been discussed, either serious ones about life, politics, the economical or social situation of Romania, or the very interesting stories that taxi drivers would share about their background, their other job or their travel or knowledge about Denmark. Mostly we speak Romanian, but a few of them also wanted to practice either their English, German or French, one even spoke in Spanish and I answered in Romanian; I have yet to meet a Romanian taxi driver who speaks Danish however. Some taxi drivers recognize me, and would say “Hello, doamna din Danemarca! (this is Romanian for Hello, lady from Denmark) And we would pick up the conversation where it ended last time. Some have given me pieces of advice, if I had something puzzling my mind, others haves shown me on their phones and tablets pictures from there weddings, their children or the house on the countryside they are working on. One even showed me a whole collection of wooden furniture that he had handmade himself, huge wardrobes, beautifully done, I was very impressed because he really had a talent. That guy had tried to set up a company, but had not been able to sell anything because, as he said, people don’t want to buy quality products anymore. So he had to close his company and was now driving a taxi to make a living. Some even put on a singing tour for me. I still remember once I went into a taxi, the driver was an older man, a jolly man smiling a lot and after a little talk back and forth about life, he asked what my name was. I answered Eleonore, and he then sang to me with a really good bass voice: Ce Frumoasa, Eleonore (which means What a beauty, Eleonore). I then asked what his name was, he said Florin, I then sang back to him “Ce Simpatic, Florin”(how nice, Florin). We continued like this during the whole drive, singing in a duet, laughing highly and high five-ing each time we had made up a great lyric. He really had a good voice, and it was such a pleasure to be singing along; I can’t sing, but did my best. He had been singing for many years and besides working as a taxi driver, he would sing at weddings and gatherings, but not so much as he had done in his youth. When I had to leave the taxi, he gave me his hand and thank me many times for the great tour we have had; just to add he didn’t take a longer route and the price of the taxi was normal. This was just a fun taxi experience. And that is not the only time I got to sing along with the taxi drivers. Many of them seem to like Elvis Presley, and when one of Elvis' songs airs, for some reason both the taxi driver and I will begin to sing along. Probably I have participated in 5-6 sing-along taxi trips so far, and it has been great fun. Another fun experience happened recently, I went into a taxi and I was a little in a hurry, we were talking about life in general, when another taxi drove up on the side of my taxi. The other taxi driver opened his window and gave my taxi driver an invitation, it turned out to be a wedding invitation. I then congratulated the other taxi driver with his wedding. My taxi driver looked at the invitation and passed it on to me so I could read it, he then asked me jokingly if I wanted to attend the wedding with him. I laugh and said “Sorry I don’t have time.” But then he sped up his car, and jokingly and smilingly said to the other taxi driver: “Is it okay with you if I bring Doamna din Danemarca to the wedding ? That was ok with the other taxi driver, and we all started to laugh. So you just never know what can happen when you enter a taxi; so far I have only had three not so good incidents with a taxi driver trying to trick me, but considering how many times I go by taxi, it’s a pretty good ratio, which means a good chance that you also can end up singing along to your favorite songs, instead of being tricked.