Bucharest

We took a night train from Chisinau, Moldova, to Bucharest, Romania. (Not to be confused with Budapest, Hungary.) and it's pronounced: Book-ah-rest. Long ooooo sound. Not like in book. Wow. This is why I don't write dictionaries.

Right. Train.

It wasn't too horrible. As soon as we stepped on, I felt as if I stepped into an Agatha Christie novel, and Hercule Poirot would be in the cabin next to ours. Everything looked uber vintage from the 40's or so, with original everything. And not in the up-kept way. And whoa, bonus, our window doesn't open. 

The train left at 4:35pm and arrived at 6am. And the driver/conductor?/(i was homeschooled) must have been Estonian because cars were almost passing us. Overall the ride didn't actually feel too long. What took forever was the border officials on both sides. For some reason they thought it was really weird that two American tourists went to Moldova for two days. You and me both, dude. No one I know at home even knew what a Moldova was until I explained. Nevermind why one would go to visit.

Side note: they say Estonia is the most recovered and prospurous country, from Soviet ruling. Yes. I can completely see that. And I would put Moldova as one of the worst. It's poor and shows immensely. But then random contrast with a huge five story shopping mall...it was strange to walk around and notice all the stores were pretty much empty. 

End side note.

But all was well, and we actually got stamps in our passports! One for exiting Moldova and one for entering Romania! This made us happy and receive yet more quizzical looks from the officers. We hadn't get one for Estonia or Belgium, and want as many as possible because they look cool filling up the pages. I mean, who wouldn't?

When our train pulled into the station 10 minutes early, we woke up pretty fast, threw everything into our bags, and motored out of there. (I've just been really wanting to use that word for a week now, sorry.) Now it's hard to adjust to yet another new country and language on a normal day. Now add: On four hours of sleep, and at 6 in the morning, AND while it's literally pouring buckets of water on your head and 30 pound pack.

Fast forward to 35 minutes later when finally some police officers (after asking three other people around the station) are able to tell us where we can buy our bus ticket.

An hour or so later we arrive at the hostel, completely soaked to the bone (which makes our packs 35 pounds with all that water weight. I love creating dramatic sympathy from you guys.) only to find the door locked. We had checked and they do have a 24 hour reception. Our dismay starts to roll off in waves.

...two minutes later I try PUSHING on the door and then feel very stupid when it opens right up. 

There is a bathroom inside the room, I'm happy to report! That just kind of made my day. And there is a shower in that same room too. *fistpump* and it's just a two bed room. Once again though, we have only seen one other guest in this four story hostel. I swear all the backpackers are avoiding us. Phineas and Ferb's grandfather (from previous hostel) is staying at another,more in the city; we had asked. He took a baxi, not a train. But we may see him around.

We did laundry: 

And the carrots at the grocery store here in Bucharest proclaiming their identity in eight different languages:

Some last cool views of Chisinau before we left:

Our train!

It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow. Hopefully. We want to explore!

Moldova

Well. We made it with fewer mishaps than normal, which was nice. We are now in Moldova's capital, Chisinau. They speak Russian here. Once again. And all Tessa can remember in Russian is "dog" and "thank you" so it's gonna be super fun.

On the other hand, when we withdrew money at the ATM, we got 500 (their money) which is only like $60. So I feel really rich now. And everything is really cheap here, which is why we picked this route to Romania.

When we finally found the bus to our hotel from the hostel, it was on this rather dingy looking thing that we dubbed a baxi.

The ride cost about 50 US cents so yay there. The other guy who was on the baxi with us happened to be going to the same hostel, and he spoke Russian! He is from Sweden and spoke really good English. He was able to communicate with the driver, where to take us. Then after we got off the stop (Tessa had vague directions from the hostel site) we wandered around using Gustav's phone GPS and finally found the place.

Our reservation was originally for a private room with only our two beds, but once we got here and thought about how we've been glampacking antisocialites...we changed the reservation (which required just telling the guy at the front desk who's our age, that we wanted to change.) and now we are in a 10 room dorm! 

*update. Everyone left this evening, so we are all alone in here...well, we tried.

Front desk:

Now the mall (Malldova...how incredibly punny) is only around the corner from our hostel, so we can shop easily! 

Here's Tessa's post upon arriving:

We only stay here two nights, and we overheard a conversation at the front desk that a bus to Bucharest is only $20 and I'm really liking that price..aaand we just heard that the bus is actually a 12 hour baxi ride...train it is then! I need a bathroom sometime in 12 hours, thank you very much.

And guys, you should google earth these places I'm mentioning, because they're even new names to me. It might give you some bearings to where in the world I am. :)

I've been gone almost an entire month now, what's up with you people at home?

Wetness

I'm going to tally up how many posts are about rain. They're sadly adding up.

So today was interesting. (Didn't end up going to Brussels yesterday, sorry.)

In the afternoon, Elizabeth dropped us off at the Mons main station. According to confusing website details, the busses stop at the same place the trains to, since it's a relatively small town. 

All of today it was absolutely pouring out, and we hadn't walked around in the rain with our packs on yet; that was a super duper fun new experience.

Our bus was a half hour late, and for that hour before, we weren't even sure it was the right place since nobody inside the station knew where EuroLines buses stop. (EuroLines is like Greyhound at home.) And once our bus finally arrived at 3pm, we walked up to it and Tessa suddenly couldn't place her passport. Much searching ensued in the two minutes the driver allowed us, while I stalled by putting my baggage on, etc...and then she found it! That was extremely stressful.

Rain, busses in traffic, rain, border control check, rain. 

Three hours later we arrive back in Paris! It's starting to feel a lot like home base now. But this station we are at, we immediately realize, is somewhere in the city, and we aren't sure where. Thankfully there was a Metro connected to it so we hopped on. But it wasn't so easy because the ticket machine thingy, that lets you through? Wasn't working. None of them were. So we, and the people around us, kind of slipped through the "out" doors in a very complicated manner that took a good five minutes. This station was so ghetto and scary we hopped on that train real fastlike.

Then our connecting line/stop was down for maintenance for the week. Of course.

Off the next stop, we look at a dozen maps and pick a direction. Hopefully to the Metro line that will take us back home.

At this point we weren't even sure what the difference between the rain and our sweat was, so that was miserable. 

We walked for a good 25 minutes, through the red light district, down some cool looking alleys, and across puddled streets, and finally made it.

Finally 30 minutes later, back on Didot street where Micheline lives, we buzz in, knock on her door, and she answers...in French, and goes on for a whole minute, in French, looking at us like, why are you staring at me silently? Tessa and I look at each other, because she knows we don't speak French. We just keep staring at her for a whole minute, dripping on her doormat, and then finally:

Pause. "Oh! You are someone else! You are backpacker girls! Come in! I completely forgot you were coming back..."

Us: ..........

"Let me think, I don't have your room anymore but we will put you downstairs and you no pay! I'm so sorry!"

We were wondering the whole way over, if she had forgotten we were coming; yes she had. But we got the downstairs mysterious rooms. This place is endless, and has about a million passageways.

So yeah, that was our crazy day. If you didn't skip to the end here, thanks for reading. ;)

Right now we finished eating and are now talking to Micheline's newest houseguest who's French, and taking our room, and he is telling us about his favorite US rappers. ....

Now I get to sleep, and hope it's sunny tomorrow so we can go up in the Eiffel Tower! *crosses all my fingers*

Mons

It was a quick train ride from Paris, and now we are in Mons, Belgium. Everything looks...mostly the same as France. And hey look, our overcast weather followed us here.

We are staying with a family friend, Elizabeth. Her husband is in the military so we are hanging out in US Military housing on the outskirts of town. Being around English and friends from home make it feel like we are cheating on our trip...but it's free!

Brussels is only two hours away and we are all probably going to take a day trip there this weekend. Now I have to do some research because I never expected to go to Brussels. I just want some waffles and chocolate while here, then I'll be good. Maybe a few old buildings.

Our 62 pence peanut butter jar is almost gone, thanks to the chocolate we bought in Paris. Update as I'm writing this: we just finished it off.

We are able to do laundry here. Like actual laundry. Elizabeth has a washer. Washer! And dryer! (Though I would be just as happy with only the former.) So our clothes will smell a little less hippie backpacker now. Hand washing only does so much with Dr Bronners.

Whoa have we really only been gone like nine days? This blog post sounds kind of desperate and pathetic now.