Stepping from the train from Constanța felt like disembarking in a war zone, near the final battle against alien invaders. Over the Black Sea a thunderstorm was raging, illuminating the towering night clouds every few minutes with flashing lightning, like artillery fire in the distance. Papers lanterns carrying candles were drifting across the sky like flaming pieces of debris, and the rotating bright green and red floodlights and thudding bass sounds of the beachfront clubs reminded me of searchlights and autocannons. We shouldered our bags and started walking towards our apartment, together with the throng of the other party recruits. We had arrived in Costineşti.