5am ...

The alarm worked!

We were ready to go! Breakfast with our last rupees at the 24 hour caf'.

Short walk. Bag rearrangement and we checked in at the desk.

First flight to Abu Dhabi - done! We needed to pass immigration to change airline. All went well.

Next stop - Bucharest. Smooth check in, good flight and an over night at the airport. Sleep? We watched an opera playing in a lounge and snoozed.

When the sun came up we found a shop and bought some bananas and baguette to fill our tummies.

At 8am we headed out to find a bus into the center of Bucharest.  We found the bus stop and a ticket machine.  Purchased 2 tickets and we were on our way.  It was a little chilly but the sun was shining. 

We hoped off in the centre of the city and first headed to the parliament building, which is huge!  We wander d though a little park and went in search of coffee.  We were surprised to find that coffee as quite expensive, on a par with the UK which we hadn't expected.  However, we found one chain called 5 to Go which did a reasonably priced coffee but unfortunately nowhere to sit inside.  So we found a bench in the sun and sat and enjoyed out coconut latte!

We are not sure where all the little eateries are in the city and all we could find were expensive restaurants.  We wandered some.l back streets but found nothing.  We ended up in McDnalds!  It was warm, had seats, food and WiFi so we were happy.

Bus back to airport was interesting. We had a ticket left from the morning journey because we checked at a manned kiosk. The lady in the kiosk couldn't only sell one ticket but she explained you could by one ticket on the bus.

We got on the airport bus and tried to buy a ticket at the machine. It made a few beebing sounds but didn't appear to work. The driver was out of bounds behind a huge perspex shield so we just sat down. A short while later 3 conductors climbed in. The first person they spoke to didn't have a ticket, nor did the second. They prepared to fine them. Next they came to us and we showed them our ticket and our card that we had paid with that didn't work. They shook there heads and said we had to pay a fine too. We explained what had happened but they didn't care, we were going to be fined. They were distracted for a while so at the next stop we left the bus quickly. We purchased 2 tickets at a machine and jumped on the next bus that passed. We validated the first ticket and tried to do the 2nd but it didn't seem to work. Would you believe it but 5 minutes later, a new set of 3 ticket inspectors climbed on. Once again we showed both of our tickets. They said only one had been validated. We explained we had tried to do the 2nd but maybe it didn't work. They said we had to pay a fine. We said no way, we tried and it didn't work. We will be getting off at the airport to fly home. They didn't care.

They came all the way to the airport with us and called over the big bruiser ticket conductor. He was huge and looked like a bulldog chewing a wasp. A force to be reckoned with. They all insisted we hand over our passports and pay the fine. We said no way. They explained they would call the police and the fine would be 10 times more. We said no way but they were getting rather upset. 

We showed our passport but still insisted we had bought 2 tickets. We had been to their ticket kiosk and had been told we could also pay on the bus. Nothing worked! Eventually, Christine spoke to the man in her damsel in distress look, he handed back the passport and told her to be on her way. She was OK. He pointed at Darryl and said, he is not! Nightmare, unreasonable people!

Airport was all good, coach too. And, local bus. We arrived home in one piece.

Next, prepare for our next trip and try to get French visas from London. A mission in itself!