So. What has 17 degrees got to do with leaving Spain and arriving in Romania. Well might you ask. When we flew out of Malaga last night it was 17 degrees outside. When we landed in Bucharest (20 minutes early... we think the pilot was a Romanian cabbie in a previous life), it was MINUS 17 DEGREES! It did look a bit nippy from the plane window when we touched down and taxied past massive snow banks, so we took our cue from the locals who were shimmying into hats, gloves, scarves and coats faster than a seatbelt sign can chime. Speaking of fast... Romanians do not muck about. Usually you can expect around 50% of passengers to be surprised by landing and take their sweet time standing up... scratching their heads about the location of their cabin bags... struggling to get bags down, coats on and brains into gear simultaneously. Not in Bucharest. Pretty sure the plane still had forward momentum as we streamed off and into the two waiting buses. Luggage was out quick smart and in the time it took us to get our bags, find an ATM for cash and get to the cabs... our whole flight had cleared. Now we all know there's no business like snow business and it was pretty exciting - but also exciting is a new currency - the Romanian Lei / RON - roughly 4 lei to the €1 and 3 lei to A$1. We're certainly looking forward to some heightened spending power over the next few weeks. We got into Bucharest and met our Air BnB host at about 1 am and were finally bathed and settled before 2 am... The rest of Friday was a pretty slow day - we emerged from the apartment at 3.50 pm, just in time to visit a restaurant 2 minutes walk away - the Hanu Berarilor Casa Soare (if you google it, you'll see roughly the area of our apartment, just across the river from the Old Town). Wow. 21.90 lei special lunch price weekdays til 4 pm for a starter and a massive main course and 2 side dishes. All up a very late lunch set us back A$24... We then took a bit of a look at the old town - which is pretty darn old. The buildings were once stunning. Then got run down. Then got bombed in WWII. Then there was communism. And possibly an earthquake at some point. It's been rejuvenated over the last few years but in a fairly haphazard way - so very interesting, but also a bit sad - it was obviously 'The Paris of the East' a long, long time ago. From the Old Town, we hoofed it to the National Opera House for a performance of La Boheme - even from the last row of the cheap seats, the acoustics and view were great - so lucky to have organised the tickets a couple of weeks ago for only A$15/€10 between us for each show. We landed in our seats with barely 10 minutes to spare and immediately regretted dressing relatively warmly. We checked our coats, but melted for the whole show as Romanians apparently 'Don't Do Cold'. The opera house was exceedingly well heated and it all eventually ended up in the Gods with us. Meant our jaunt to Don Giovanni on Saturday night we dressed much, much lighter. Still hot mind you but for a great production, we managed. Sunday was more or less a day of rest and involved a bit of a potter to a couple of local supermarkets to stock our apartment fridge. Plans for Monday? Hopefully a spot of sunshine and the continuation of the dry, dry weather - we going to get our boots on the ground and join a free Walking Tour.