Greeting from Romania,

I am afraid to say that Serbia (well Belgrade) failed to fully win me over. However, the place did grow on me and there are some good things such as the citadel that has some amazing views of the city. I also managed to get my laundry done and so I left a much happier man. I am now here in Romania – one of Europe’s largest but poorest countries. I caught the night train from Belgrade to Bucherest which was a long 14 hours with very little sleep. However, there were only three of us on the whole carridge and the other two were very friendly. In fact all the Romanians I’ve met so far have been great. I spent a few nights in a great hostel called ‘Villa Helga’ and spent Saturday night in a live rock club, where the band played a string of excellent English covers. Bucherest is a facinating city and has a very Indian feel to it. I managed to see most of the center includimg the balcony where Ceausescu made his last speach – before being lynched! I also took a tour around the Peoples Parliment which is a stupidly huge (second largest building in the world) palace Ceausescu built as his seat of power. The place took 20,000 workers, working in shifts 24 hours a day, 5 years to complete. Unluckily for Ceausescu they executed him and his wife on Christmas day 1 week before he planned to celebrate its opening – superb. Anyway, as a building it is pretty spectacular and I wan’t one. On Sunday I met up with 3 Romanians who were all really nice and they took me for a drink and a walk around the city (thanks guys). I am now in Brassov in Transylvania and have spent the day on tour of Draculars castles etc they are nice – but not all they are hyped up to be …and full of tourists.

I have also managed to get loads more photos uploaded so you can check them out under the photos section. Unfortunately they may be slow at loading since I’ve been using my camera on it’s highest setting. When I get time i’ll change it so they get compressed before you have to load them – but for now, I am off for a pint of Romanian Best!

Hope you are all well. x

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