Bucharest, Romania - Polarsteps

Getting off the train at the Budapest Gara de Nord, the first thing I noticed was the sheer quantity of 1. Tracksuits, 2. People smoking openly on the platform. Welcome welcome! My people! We got a bus ticket, just one, with two tickets loaded on it and boarded a bus to get to the hostel. This is difficult for me to write about as I am still incensed, although not so much as Ellis. The ticketing system on the bus is complex, you purchase tickets on a single card, and then validate the journeys using a three button machine on the bus itself. Sounds easy right? There were poorly written and badly translated English instructions, and should you cock it up and validate one ticket only, you cannot validate the other for the duration of the journey. Poem for the ticket inspector on the bus from the train station in Bucharest to the Hostel. I forget the bus line precisely. Possibly the number 18. At the back he sits The ticket inspector lurks Watching idiots struggle He gets up and wanders Taps on my shoulders And issues a 15 quid fine On the spot I explain I meant to refrain From dodging fares, I have learned my lesson He was having none And far too much fun His eyes were wet with delight But it wasn’t just me! A Romanian man also failed to see You need a PhD to get on, the metro He got in a fight Decided to alight And was shortly pursued Down the street Then we started drinking almost immediately when we got in the front door. Made friends in the hostel and I went out for the only run of the trip to date. It was good actually. Ate a Jewish pizza for dinner. It was crap. Weird, herbs, weird base, and I usually love weird food! This was just awful though. We made friends in the hostel, a nice Italian and a nice Frenchman and got busy at the local bars, playing chess and talking all kinds of shit. Stayed out quite late, my memory gets a bit hazy here, but we surely end up in bed.