Bucharest, Romania

Full Album.

Romania is a country that you need to break into. I say this, because at first impression I was going to award it the "shit-hole of eastern Europe" award.
I'll grant you, my overall experience in Romania was pleasant, but the introduction was as bad as one can get in these parts. The journey starts with a train ride from Belgrade to Bucharest. The travel time is roughly twice as long as it rightfully should be. Throughout this journey, I begin to understand why. We begin by travelling at a speed akin to a brisk jog, and stop at every random nowhere location in the surrounding area. Eventually the driver gets his head on straight and starts heading east at a reasonable pace.

We arrive at the Romanian border crossing. The train stops and the passport is taken, not to be seen again for some time. In the meantime, officials board the train with power tools and proceed to disassemble the train; removing walls, seats, and heating fixtures. After these pleasantries, my passport is returned and we are on our way at great speed in the dead of night. Just when I begin to think I might freeze to death, the heating is turned on to "blistering" and I resort to switching from seat to seat to sleep on the cooler of the two for an hour or two before switching.

Sometime during one of these switches, I am situated across from my bad, opposed to under it. Despite being locked and positioned in a relatively inconvenient way, a gipsy manages to burn a hole through one of the compartments and relieve me of my Swiss army knife, and 130 euro stashed within it's leather case. I wake up part way through but do not catch him doing this. My bag appears unmolested at a glance so I give this man the benefit of the doubt and regard him as a fellow traveller. After having robbed me in my sleep, he proceeds to steer the conversation towards asking me for money and cigarettes. It is only after I bid this man farewell that I discover my missing belongings and begin to fantasize about stabbing the man in the eye with my pen.

Having finally arrived, I leave the train to wonder through the streets of Bucharest with a somewhat lighter backpack. It is 6am, cold, dark, and covered with graffiti and dog shit. I begin to question ever coming to this god forsaken hole.

After an hour's worth of aimless wondering I arrive at my hostel and am greeted by a girl absent-mindedly blowing bubbles in the court-yard. My disposition improves as I check in, have breakfast, and borrow a sewing-kit and some super-glue to fix my bag.

A few days later the weather improves and I begin to tour the city in earnest. I begin by travelling a couple hours north to go to a mountain top to gaze at a natural monument dubbed Babele. It is a formation of rocks etched by the wind. It's pretty, but very cold.

Next day in the main city, I visit an outdoor museum of old Romanian houses, which makes for a pleasant walk, but little else. We leave and head down the central Parisian board-walk where we stumble across a local organic market where we browse the goods, sample the local delicacies and have lunch with a few locals. It is at this market that I discover Bucharest is hosting several film festivals over the weekend and decide to see a series of animated shorts that evening. They exceed all expectations. The strangest of these films is "The External World". It is a depiction of the most horrible screwed up things, yet you cannot help but laugh. There was also a nice children's story called "The Gruffalo", a silly animated short called "Mobile", a touching story about "The Little Boy and the Beast", and a twisted short called "Pivot".

Upon my return the the hostel, I find one of my hostel-mates is going to head out to see some Dutch DJ who's performing tonight. With a little convincing, I head out with him. On the way he tells me the DJ's name is Armin Van Buuren, and that he has been recently crowned the number 1 DJ in the world. We get to the venue and pay the laughable sum of $25 to get in. We buy drink tickets and proceed to have the most amazing time listening to music till dawn. I arrive back at the hostel around 7am and sleep.

Next day, I randomly decide to go to Tirnovo Bulgaria on a random recommendation from the hostel manager. Her mother is travelling to Istanbul on the same bus as me that day, and so, we ride together.