Bucuresti (Bucharest)

My short stay started with a nasty scare. I decided to brave the dark streets and the estimated 20 min. walk to my booked "Best Flat Apartment". I successfully found the address, near downtown, but it was a tall concrete apartment building with no sign, and locked with no way in. My cell phone stop working the day before, some roaming issue. I was convinced that I could still get calls though.

I found a renegade wifi signal with my iPod and sent a snarky email to the "hotel", then called Dharlene with Skype which accomplished nothing more than sharing my stress and freaking her out. The "hotel" wrote back immediately and said they tried to call me but got some message in Hungarian. Apparently I can't even receive calls anymore either. They said they'd pick me up in 25 min.

George arrived in about 25 min. and drove me to the actual apartment, since I was at an office which was closed so late at night on Christmas eve. At the other tall apartment building, another guy, the key master apparently, arrived simultaneously by bicycle and handed me some keys after inspecting several different sets from various pockets.

My flat was huge and very nice. Too bad I wasn't sharing it with a few others since it had two bedrooms and two double beds. I dumped my stuff, cleaned up a bit, and went out near midnight to see this giant city.

First I walked back to the train station and purchased my ticket for my next day train to Sofia Bulgaria. Then I found the majestically lit parliament building, with an extremely bright glowing white fake Christmas tree in front. I only had about 7 Romanian lei left, and was pacing myself to avoid exchanging more and being stuck with a useless surplus.

I happily found an open corner store but it was in a shady area. I grabbed some fruits and yoghurt for breakfast before getting on the 9 hour train ride. The total came to almost exactly 7 lei, and I then realized I needed one more lei for the trolleybus to the train station in the morning. The clerk was a long black-haired, dark eyed Romanian girl who spoke English with an awesome deep exotic accent. I said I needed to put something back. She said it's not allowed and gave me back one lei and said: Merry Christmas, we have to be good today!