So I'm taking my first night train tonight to Belgrade, Serbia. I've heard it's safer to reserve a bed in a sleeper car, but it cost almost $50, so I went and just booked a normal seat. Chances are I'm in for a really long night; depending on who is in my compartment or if it locks or not, I may decide to stay awake. I think I might buy a red bull at the train station just in case. I'm sure I'm just overreacting, but I always get nervous doing something I haven't done before that is potentially dangerous. I'll be on the same train as these four Aussies from this hostel though - there's some comfort in having people on the train that I know, even if they won't be in my compartment. I think I mentioned an annoying Aussie girl that was on my walking tour in both Krakow and Budapest? Well, she and the group she was with in Budapest ended up being at my hostel in Brasov, as well as here in Bucharest. They were annoying at first, but they're starting to grow on me. Today they were debating on where to go next, and I mentioned that Belgrade was a big party place, so they decided to take the train with me over there tonight. We're staying at the same hostel (again), and while they aren't people I would ever be friends with normally, it's nice to see the same faces, and I'm glad I'll have some people to go to the hostel with tomorrow. Serbia seems like a bit of an intimidating place; I think I'm dipping the farthest I've been off the beaten track with this destination. It'll be even more so if I end up with time to stop in Macedonia.

For the next week and a half I'll be puzzling over the Cyrillic alphabet, but Belgrade is a good place to start since they use the Roman alphabet as well. Whereas, Macedonia and Bulgaria are fully dedicated to Cyrillic. I made my own little chart last night and plan on doing some heavy duty memorization on the train tonight. I can already see myself standing on a street corner trying to translate some street name into the Roman alphabet . . .

I made a weak attempt to venture out in Bucharest today, but it wasn't very successful. Not only did I lose the rubber cover to one of my earpieces on my earphones yesterday, the sound randomly decided to stop working in one earpiece, so I decided to go find an electronics store. The streets of Bucharest are quite deserted, and it was making me nervous. While it's probably perfectly safe to be out during the day, it sure didn't feel like it, so when I realized I'd made a wrong turn and pretty much ended up where I started, I wasn't too bummed about just going back to the hostel. I walked back through this deserted park that smelled of dead fish and had a drained lake in the middle filled with pigeons. Oh Bucharest - your charm is irresistible. There are stray dogs everywhere in Romania; it's so sad. I read in my Lonely Planet that there are an estimated 100,000 strays in Bucharest alone. I saw one today sleeping over a manhole, and it was shivering so violently. I almost got tears in my eyes as I walked by. I keep wanting to go and wrap these dogs up in my arms, but while they all seem scared and harmless, I'm not taking any risks. Definitely do not want to deal with a dog bite in Romania.