I was woken this morning at 5.55am by the sound of beeping. I didn't think it was the fire alarm but I got up and stood bare-footed on the balcony (quite cold at that time of morning) to try and work out what it was before concluding it was coming from further down the road, finding my earplugs and going back to bed. When I went down to have breakfast I was given a plate with food already on it. There were three slices of salami, four diagonal slices of cucumbe...

After two flights (and two lots of security) with all my luggage in my hands (9.7kg and feeling heavier by the minute) I arrived in Vilnius at about 4.00 local time. I'd been watching the landscape from the plane, drawing coastlines and rivers for looking up later and had noticed snowy patches appearing. As we were making our descent to Vilnius I spotted a river that was almost completely white, as if it had been frozen in one instant. Fields and hills were snowy...

On Friday, I went out again in the evening, down Calea Victoriei to see the tourist side of Bucharest (which is much better than the Gara de Nord area). I came across a little church stuck between the modern concrete stuff with some great frescoes in the porch and then I went down to the big park in front of the Palace of Parliament before walking back through the gardens where there was a folklore festival going on, and also old men with pipes playing chess whic...

I got to the station and mostly by sign language, managed to get a ticket back from Brasov to Bucharest, which was good because I meant I wouldn't end up stranded in Transylvania. Then I had nearly an hour to kill before my train. I sat in the little park opposite the station, wandered around the station and finally got on the train. I found a compartment of my own and was joined by some Americans or Canadians. They were glad I didn't mind English-speakers becau...

This is my second full day in Bucharest and it's really really hot. I didn't particularly like Bucharest when I first arrived and I still don't like it now very much. It's too hot, it's absolute chaos and getting out of the city is almost impossible. I've spent two mornings wandering around. I've been to the Piata Romana and seen the wolf statue, I've wandered endless streets and squares (and squares here are like massive roundabouts only they have nothing in t...