Into Romania

The train ride from Belgrade to Bucharest was the longest one I've taken so far. 14 hours on a non-AC sleeper. The windows didn't open either : ( I'm glad I splurged a bit for the 2 person compartment, rather than the 3, as it gave me some more head room. Sounds terrible, but the journey was actually not that bad at all. I had the best room (?) mate possible, a Serbian music student on her way to Romania to sing at a traditional music contest. I wanted to hear what "traditional Romanian music" sounded like, but she refused to sing on the train...for obvious reasons I suppose. Her professor was traveling with her in the next compartment (they don't mix sexes in the sleepers unless you book all beds). The three of us stood around in the hallway (no dining car and too hot in the rooms) talking about a lot of different topics until bed time. Most interesting related to the changes in the former Yugoslav republics, including Serbia. Seems like Serbia took a significant hit when they gained independence, but things are slowly improving especially in the northern region. The two of them sounded pretty optimistic about where their nation was headed, even though they raised concerns about how the southern regions "just don't care about anything and are lazy".

We arrived in Bucharest at the dark, early hour of 5am. Before parting ways, the professor wanted to make sure I was at the right bus stop to the hostel. He asked around and left me at the wrong stop...oh well. After several more attempts, I found my way to the correct stop, boarded the bus, and arrived safely at the hostel. Once again, too early to check in. But they let me have some coffee and breakfast. Yaaay!

I spent most of the morning in the common room, figuring out the train schedules throughout Romania. Apparently, you cannot buy advanced tickets at the station, but need to go to the official agent. Since I needed tickets for Suceava the following morning, I decided to draw up my route/schedule and book all the tickets at once. I hate lining up for tickets...

That done, I started walking around the old part of Bucharest. Let me say that the "old town" here is NOTHING like the ones I've seen in other eastern European cities.
Bucharest is dirty and dusty. There is some sort of construction going on at every street corner, which makes me wonder if this has anything to do with meeting certain standards to be in the EU. And there are stray dogs everywhere. I don't think they're rabid, but I read about some Japanese tourist being massacred by them a couple of years ago. I thought it'd be a good idea to keep a distance...
Bottom line – Bucharest is not a very pleasant city. Not really worth the stop.

Nonetheless, it was interesting to walk around the huge, concrete, Soviet-style buildings. Many of them appear to have been built around small churches to hide their existence. I randomly walked into a beautiful wooden orthodox church, which made me really excited about my trip to Suceava! (FYI – Suceava is well-known for their painted orthodox churches/monasteries)Another highlight of the city was the Romanian Peasant Museum. You'd think they'd be able to come up with a better name for a museum.... Anyways, the museum houses a large collection of traditional Romanian textiles, religious icons, and ceramics. So colorful! They had the most beautiful winter coat – wool on the outside with some intricate stitching and fur on the inside. It looked like something I'd try on at the department store, and would buy if I had the money...
(No photos – I refused to pay the extra camera fee)