Hi People,

Our last day in Budapest was really nice. We took off around 11:00am and headed out to the warf and hopped onto the day cruise. The really nice thing about the cruise was that there are three different routes and we were able to take a different route and get another set of sites to see on the water. This tour took us around Margaret Island and under a couple of different bridges. Now, before you ask, I will confirm. Most of the stories still revolved around death and suicide. Bizarre fascination they seem to hold...

So next we ran off to the nearest Hop On Hop Off station (near the Synagogue) and caught the bus up to the Fisherman's Bastion. I was starting to get a touch grumpy because people kept giving us vague directions to an ATM. Note to self: If you say "near the Hotel" stop yourself and specify WHICH hotel. If there's one, you're golden. Otherwise you're just a jerk.

So we got some water and took in the sites from the Fisherman's Bastion. It's up on the mountain and looks out onto the Danube. You have a perfect view of Parliament from there.

Lastly, we took the bus one last time to the end of the tour and got off at St. Stephen's. We were running short on time so we ran up the road to the House of Terror. It's a building that's been turned into a Museum but was originally the location of the official headquarters for the Gestapo. They've done some neat stuff with the building itself that you'll have to see. We didn't get a chance to return to Heroe's Square, but that is okay. We wanted to be sure we'd get to our train in enough time.

And now the train! It was a nice 13 hour ride through the countryside. Got two stamps in our Passports which was nice considering we have only had the one since we got here. There were three bunks in our room. Mine was up on the ceiling, there was a Romanian woman in the middle and Jocelyn on the bottom. There was no staggering affect and I'm pretty sure Jocelyn may have had one or two nightmares of me falling to my death from a rocky lurch or the train. However, I seem to be painfully aware of my spacial limitations in my sleep and experienced no issue.

We arrived in Bucharest this morning. After being here for a couple of hours we have decided to make some changes to our trip. We originally were going to stay here a night, then go to Brasov for the day and stay the night in Bran (Vampire Camping) before returning to Bucharest for our final two days. Neither Jocelyn nor I have any desire to stay here in Bucharest AT ALL so we will stay one night to say we've done it and then find a place to stay in Brasov after camping in Bran. Worst case, we'll camp in Bran for three nights and then come back our final day, go to the airport and crash overnight there. Before anyone freaks out, that was the original plan for our final night. Our flight is at 6:00am and we knew it would be difficult and not a very wise idea to try and find a cabbie at 3:30 in the morning.

We got ripped off (and not minorly) but a guy trying to help us because (as we ended up finding out), we had booked our hostel in "Gypsy Town" which is to say, a not so nice area. In the course of finding a new place (we are in an actual hotel for one night- the concierge is a lovely lady) our "Helper" (aka Lying Albert) and his sidekick, Thief (the cabbie), ripped us off by utilizing the fact that in a week their currency changes to a new one. Having mixed currency enabled them to get a lot more than they probably earn in a week. As far as I'm concerned, that money isn't good for where they're headed if that's the kind of life they choose to live.

On the GOOD side, we did meet Consular Gray. He is an AMAZINGLY nice and generous person. He is currently the acting Ambassador and still took time out of his schedule to meet us and has actually invited us out tonight to an Irish Pub to listen to some good music and relax a little. He was pretty impressed by our braving the city streets and commended us for sticking here in Romania after everything we went through this morning. He also supports our idea to spend the next three days in Transylvania. He gave us wonderful recommendations for places to go, both here in Bucharest as well as in Transylvania, and gave us a lot of extremely helpful advice for the remainder of our stay. He also recommended a fantastic German beer hole that was around the corner where Jocelyn and I immedately went for lunch. I know, we're not really getting in with the "locals" but after our morning, can you blame us?

We ate at the Caru' Cu Bere. The food was fantastic. The service was great. Their food was extremely well priced and it is the first time this entire trip we have eaten something other than sandwiches, hungarian chinese or pasta. If you ever find yourself in the unfortunate circumstances to be staying in this country, you can go here.

Well, it's getting close to 8:00pm here and we need to head out if we're going to meet with Mr. Gray and his wife. We hope this blog has been enlightening, if nothing else, and at least we are safe and watching each other's backs.

We'll try and update our blog at least one more time. I understand Transylvania gets a lot of American tourists so it might not be hard to find an internet cafe.

Talk to you soon!

J&J