We left Sofia about 4 days ago (I think!) the train from Sofia to Bucharest was 11 hours! The train was supposed to leave at 8.20 am but it was delayed until 9.45!! Needless to say we were desparate just to get going! The train itself, was absolutely disgusting! From the outside it looked like a train that you sometimes see abandoned on the tracks with broken windows and grafitti everywhere! When we walked on, we went past the toilet - if anyone has ever seen trainspotting and remembers the worst toilet in Scotland, this was the same, but on a moving train! We had bought 2 bottles of water for the journey - we both had 2 sips the whole day so that we didnt have to use the toilet! We were sharing our cabin with a girl from Moldova who was travelling back home from Macedonia, she had a very long journey! We chatted with her most of the journey so it didnt seem as long as 11 hours. We realised though that the only reason it takes so long is because the trains go about 30 miles an hour!!! When we were alongside the roads the cars were going flying past! I think the trains will be better from now on when we get nearer to Western Europe..!

We arrived at Bucharest about 9.30pm. We managed to find the bus that went to our hostel, got off a stop too early (so we were only lost for about 5 minutes!) and found the hostel eventually. We were both expecting when we got to the train station to be hassled by beggars, and people trying to get you in to a taxi but we had none of that, it was fine. In fact, the whole time we have been in Romania we havent had any problems of begging or being ripped off - two guys that we met at our hostel just jumped into a taxi, asked the driver to take them to a hostel, he drove them round and they ended up paying him 90 euros!! Gutted!

Bucharest is very nice - it is a lot more modernised than Sofia, we both thought it would be the other way around! The centre is really nice, and it is really cheap aswell.

From Bucharest we got the train north to Brasov, Transylvania, where we are at the moment. When the train was coming in to the station at Bucharest, the platform was packed and everyone seemed to be panicking about not getting a seat. We noticed people were prying the doors open and jumping in before it even stopped at the platform! So we decided to give it a try aswell! First time for both of us jumping on to a moving train, and we got a seat no problems! Brasov is a small, ancient town and it's really nice. Last night they had an Easter parade and ceremony at midnight. We went along for a bit, but it was freezing and we couldn't understand what he was saying anyway, so we left after a while.

Today, we walked up the massive mountain next to the town (Jack whinged the whole way) but it was worth it for the view of the town. As a compromise, we got the cable car back down! We'll sleep well tonight, it took us an hour and a half to climb up there so we're pretty tired!

We're leaving Romania tomorrow, we've both really enjoyed it here, because it was much more than what we expected it to be. Definately worth a visit if anyone wants a cheap weekend away!

The train from here leaves at 9.00 tomorrow morning and we get to Budapest tomorrow evening. Planning to stay there for a couple of days then head to Bratislava, Slovakia.

Hope everyone is well!

Linsey and Jack xxx

P.S. if you are wondering about the pictures, it makes you choose a picture to represent where you are, even though it doesn't have the country you are in so you have to choose a random one - stupid!!!