First off- I forgot to mention about the train story, I managed to put an eight inch rip in my second-favorite jeans while being hustled off the train at 4am. So I'm down to just my favorite pair for the rest of the trip.

Bucharest though.

Maybe it's because we're staying in a hostel, but Bucharest today was much more of the standard tourist thing.

We hooked up with a cool visual artist from Vancouver, and started hitting a few of the big sights.

First up was the Palace of the Parliament, the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon). The tour was kind of strange and rushed, but I got to have my balcony speech moment, so I was happy. (Can you tell photos were technically forbidden inside? Many places in Bucharest want an extra $10 or so to allow you to take pictures.)

Next we found a pretty down-home little diner, where I had tripe soup, some sort of pork cutlet, and a nice cucumber and tomato salad.

Then we went over to the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, which is like a breath of fresh air compared to most museums- unpretentious, welcoming, even unprofessional in spots. Photos were again extra inside, but we found a little church out back that we could freely photograph. We also did some meta-photography, because who wants to be serious all the time?

I spent a few hours looking into options for the next day, and called it an early night- gotta rest sometime!

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