On Sunday, we headed over to the Princes' Islands in the morning, then over to the train station in the evening to catch a sleeper.

Arriving early, we had a good veggie dinner, then walked around the area around the Blue Mosque. It being just after sundown during Ramazan, things were crazy and crowded. We stopped behind some stalls for turkish coffee and a nargileh (water pipe).

Then we jumped on the train and the real adventures began.

The compartment was nice, the beds comfortable, so we watched some TV on laptops, did some work, played some cards, and went to sleep around 3 or 4.

As we were going to bed, the conductor came around knocking and announcing the name of the city, which happened to be the last one in Turkey. I'm not sure if we were supposed to open the door or what, but we just ignored it (since we weren't getting off there).

A while later, passport control came around, and we woke and scrambled for our passports. After examining them, he called for the conductor, and said something about Turkish Police. Nobody spoke English, but they made it clear they wanted us to leave the train and go talk to the police.

They hustled us out, lacking various underharments, and directed us to jump down and walk across several train tracks. There was an underpass, but when I pointed at it, the passport control just kept pointing to a gap in the fence.

The exit visa was simple once we got there, but it was impossible not to think about all of our stuff being on a train that we probably couldn't get to in time if it chose to leave.

We made it back on board, and shortly after, the train headed into Bulgaria. We were woken again to get our Bulgarian entrance stamp. This time the sent around a guy with a stamp- much more logical.

Bulgaria was pretty, the cyrillac writing on all the trains and powerplants we passed made me feel like I was in James Bond or something. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. The passport control guys who came on board the train were so stereotypically Bulgarian/Eastern European thugs that I'd believe they were picked on looks.

The border into Romania was easy also, and we arrived at Bucharest. After checking into the hostel, we spent some time planning things, then the hostel owner took us out for way too many beers and a shot of something on fire, taken on a bar that several women were dancing on top of.

Ah Romania.

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