Bucharest, Romania - 8 May

The train ride from Chisinau was very interesting. Because the tracks are different gauges in Romania they have to switch at the border. But, they don't have everyone just get off and get on a different train. Nooooo, they literally take the train apart while we are still sitting in it, seriously. They lined us up, unhooked the wheels, lifted the cars up about 15 feet, slide the old wheels out and new ones in, then lowered us back down and hooked it back up, and off we went. Took about 2 hours.

Here's the train as they are sliding new wheels underneath.

But we met a Peace Corp guy who was heading home for a wedding. He was stationed in a small village north of Chisinau. I was surprised to learn that he only made about $200 a month salary, and that there were about 140 PC people stationed in Moldova alone.

We arrived in Bucharest at about 6am. But we were only staying the day, so we washed up, stashed our bags, and began a hike through this HUGE city. First we headed down to the main palace, its the 3rd biggest building in the world.

This is the main palace, pretty massive building.

They did have fountains all over the place, they were pretty cool.

But really, Bucharest isn't too impressive, just a bunch of massive buildings that were supposed to be palaces for the old dictator, but remain unfinished covered in graffiti. Ben says the best places to go in Romania are the beaches on the coast or the mountains in Transylvania. We actually spent the afternoon at the mall and watched Mission Impossible:III. We needed a chill out day, as we caught another overnight train that night for Sofia, Bulgaria.