After a series of very long train rides from Budapest through Romania (Timisora and Bucharest), we are finally in Sofia, Bulgaria. Unlike Romania, Bulgaria is actually quite a bit cleaner, more modern and the people are very friendly. We are currently staying in a hostel with 2 other people from Australia, who have been traveling the globe for the last 9 months. The hostel is more of a renovated house on a back street, run by a husband/wife who provide us with free food, free beer and free internet! They are probably the most accommodating managers yet! They even picked us up from the train station! They are very happy to just have us stay with them at their hostel. We are also the very first Canadians to ever stay here.

As for Timisora, we arrived in mid afternoon from Budapest, and immediately walked across the run down street to our hostel. It was kind of like walking through a mid-eastern country in Asia… at least from what I have seen! We enjoyed some cheap beers at the pub beside our hostel and were to bed early to catch our 9 hour train ride to Bucharest the next morning.

We arrived in Bucharest shortly before 3pm and got lost trying to find our hotel. After 30 minutes or so, we called the hotel and found out our Google Map directions were taking us in the completely wrong direction. The hotel was actually right across from the train station… we had just turned the wrong way. We checked in and headed to a little kebab stand for lunch, then sat outside in the beautiful weather and enjoyed a few cheap beers before heading back to the hotel (before nightfall).

Tomorrow we take a night train (our last train of our trip) into Istanbul. The last train, and longest train yet (14+ hours). We will have to get Visa’s at the border at 1am before entering Turkey. We will arrive in Istanbul shortly after 7am on September 3.

A couple picks of Bucharest are below. Nothing much to see.