10th August

Our last day in Romania. This country has been my favourite to visit, very closely followed by Croatia. We were woken by an arrogant Polish guy and the movement of a German guy making out with a Polish girl on the bed next to us. She passed out with a boob out and we got ready for the day. Our train for Budapest was at 5.45pm so we headed out to see a bit more of the city before then. Our first stop was the Parliament building. Everyone was saying how big it was so we decided to check it out ourself as most stuff doesn't live up to the hype. This place was huge. A mammoth of a building. Apparently the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. Built in the communist era it cost a whopping $3,000,000,000 to build back in the 1980s. So crazy that money was wasted here. Being a Sunday and the roads being shut off for a bike race we were unsure if it would be open today. We ventured over anyway. Luck be have it. It was open!!! As we approached the side entrance the building was equal in depth as it was in length. The English tour was an hour away so we grabbed some breakfast before the tour started. The building must be actively in use as it was like Fort Knox to get in. We needed our passport to gain entry and go through airport style scanners. They confiscated my pen knife for the tour that I forgot to take out my bag. It was 25 lei for the 1.5hr tour and a rip off 30 lei if we wanted to take photos. So we opted out the photo taking. Not wanting to succumb to their money making scam. This building was actually huge inside.

The hallways were as big as someone's entire house. Hundreds of chandeliers hung from the ceiling and every wall and floor was covered in different types of marble from Romania. Large rugs weighing tons followed the floor paths mimicking wall or ceiling patterns. The tour mentioned tales of secret tunnels and irony of Michael Jackson doing the first ever speech off the main balcony (which was meant for the dictator at the time) and saying "Hello Budapest" instead of Bucharest. Lol

We were allowed to go out onto the balcony which gave us a great view of Romania's version of the Champs de Elysee, which was actually copied from the French one. The city also has an Arc de Triumph.

We finished the tour in a room covered in religious images which were actually posters. A director wanted to film in the Vatican and was declined. Apparently the halls here are very similar so they dressed it up to mimic the Vatican. However when filming finished they couldn't take the posters down without damaging the walls so left them up.

Overall it was a really good tour and apparently after walking 2k around the building we had only seen 6%.

Both hostels we stayed in recommend that we head to Herastrau Park and bike around, it was only 2pm so we decided to get the metro up to Aviatorilor station and take up their recommendation. It was really worth it. The sun was shining, we grabbed a quick ice cream before picking up a couple of free tour bikes and taking a pleasurably bike around the 200 hectare park and the Herastrau lake. The pleasure turned a little into panic when we cycled to the other end of the park and ended up leaving the park completely. Luckily we managed to find our way back in to the park after a while.

With only half another until we needed to head to the station we returned the bikes and headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags.

We headed towards the station down Poor and Pregnant Street, dodging dirty needles in our flip flops. With time to kill and a long journey ahead we confirmed our train information and decided to fill up on Subway. Timing... As we finished and headed to the platform our train pulled in. We showed our tickets and climbed onto our carriage. I was expecting us to share a cabin with 2 other people, but when we opened the door it was a cute 2 bed cabin with a sink, mirror and table. Result... Hopefully the 15 hour train Journey is a smooth one.