Late night layovers, gypsies and stray dogs

Trip Start Apr 01, 2008
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Trip End Oct 05, 2008


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Flag of Romania  ,
Saturday, September 13, 2008

I wanted to get from Varna in to Romania without going back to Sofia, but the direct trains had stopped running as the high season had already ended. So, I had to catch a train to the border town of Ruse. There I had to wait for 7 hours until 3am when the train passed through going to Bucharest. At the train station I was approached by another young guy who claimed to be going to be going to the same destination as me in Romania. He offered to watch my bags because I needed to change some money to pay for my ticket. I figured he was trying to steal my bags, so I politely declined on walked off.
At 3am I got on to the train headed for Bucharest. I started talking with some other passengers and they warned me of the all the gypsies and scams to beware of. I recounted my encounter earlier with the man I thought was trying to steal my bag. Seconds later he stormed out of the compartment next door yelling "Do i look like a gypsy?!?" Talk about putting a foot in my mouth... I was able to calm him down, but I dont think he will ever be a good friend.
Found a compartment to sleep in with a Polish engineer. We ended up playing poker all night instead of sleeping. Finally passed out with only 30 minutes left until we arrived in Bucharest. With so little sleep I ended up missing the Bucharest stop and woke up in a train yard about 2 kilometers away from the train station. I had to walk back, dodging trains and getting chased by a pack of stray dogs. Bucharest is notorious for having more than 100,000 stray dogs which can be very aggressive. I had heard from other travellers that Bucharest was not such a nice place to visit, so I immediately booked a train to Sinaia, the southernmost town of Transylvania.
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