Romania by www.born2travel.it

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05. 08. 2000 Bucharest (ROMANIA)

Bucharest, the capital of Romania, looks like a city built for a giant, so many immense buildings; suffice it to say that here is the largest civilian building in the world... "The Palace of the People" (of all things!), a classic example of communist architecture... This city amazed me a lot; it's so different from what I expected, it seems richer than Bulgaria, the teenagers dress very fashionably and in the centre not only the old "Dacias" circulate but also many very modern cars! We wandered round the centre despite the muggy heat, visited various Orthodox churches and met lots of interesting people; in the evening we set off again. [Harmony Larson from San Diego, USA]: Guys, I loved so many things about all of you. I'll carry the magic of our meeting with me to America... Locked in my heart until our next meeting...

Now we're crossing Transylvania, we're in Dracula's country: Brasov. Matthew, our Canadian/Israeli friend, has just got off and we were very tempted to go with him... But in the end we preferred not to abandon our loyal Dutch friends! Tomorrow we'll be in Budapest, who knows! [Rossho]: Let's see if I can fall asleep, though it would be better to avoid it since all these gypsies slip into the compartments and steal everything.

06. 08. 2000 Budapest (HUNGARY)

How beautiful it is to travel; every day you feed on ever more diverse experiences since "mere food" runs short... We arrived very early in this new city. In the street they were setting up the stalls for the various markets. We decide to hop down to the riverbank, the famous and much-praised Danube. The centre is very elegant: squares, churches, ancient palaces formed the backdrop of our "sightseeing tour". As I expected, here we found another culture and civilisation, very different from those we've seen so far; we knew that arriving in Hungary we'd be back in Europe! The only problem: after saying goodbye to Haasso and Anneke, who'll stay here a few more days, and while the others were out doing some shopping, a small group of Albanians started buzzing around me; I was looking after three backpacks, including documents and money...

Besides, Takx has vanished and we've just learned that we'll arrive at midnight in Zagreb, in Croatia, and we still don't know where to sleep...

07. 08. 2000 Zagreb (CROATIA)

At the Zagreb station we meet a small group of nine people from Milan who had a train to Budapest at 5:30 and so would sleep there. We join them... Takx collapses dead asleep... Rossho holds out a bit but when they start talking about music he doesn't like, he prefers to dive into Morpheus's arms... I hold out until one, then I fall asleep (gladly!) Early in the morning, sitting on an English-style little lawn eating our breakfast, we already feel strong! We enjoy a stroll in the main square, the flower and fruit market - what peace! In a few hours Rossho will leave us... [Rossho]: Dear readers, the story is about to undergo a big change. I, Rossho, am about to leave the interrail "in the middle of the journey of our life"... Destiny calls me (my gut too); after Ljubljana I'm ditching these two.

I'm sorry to abandon them because they're inexperienced and young, easy morsels for all the petty thieves of the world, but it will do them good! Damn, it was really great. And who would have imagined interrail like this? Tiring but healthy. Ten days of fire, so many precious things to remember. The places were truly different, particular, not the usual happy and smiling ones... I saw poverty as a way of life entirely accepted and lived calmly, perhaps because it's so widespread. Sleeping in stations was something really powerful! "We'll see" and "we'll manage" are two watchwords of this journey!

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