"You can leave your hat on" (Joe Cocker)

Our journey through Romania continued and we arrived into Bucharest - or little Paris as they would like to call it. As it was Elaine's birthday we had cake in the afternoon before Elaine received her present of a half head of foils and a hair cut, delivered by our two resident hairdressers, Lesley and Terry. Suitably glammed up, we headed into the only restaurant that we could find that was open on Easter Monday, which turned out to be in a delightful old building ornately decorated, and the food was superb. After a couple of drinks we headed off to a club, Revenge and took over proper Brits on Tour style. There was much singing and dancing in a raucous fashion, and we all had a thoroughly good time. A couple of the girls found themselves on the bar dancing away to "You can leave your hat on". Far too much photographic (and video)evidence, of which a small selection is below.

Mike T, Andrew and myself:

C, Cheryl and our fearless leader Pete: Jo, Maura, C, Cheryl and Tim: Tim, Michael, Crofty and Elaine (the birthday girl):

After waking up surprisingly early, a group of us eventually headed into the centre of Bucharest for a look around. We wandered down the equivalent of the Champs Elysee, and then meandered through some of the old alleyways (those we hadn't discovered last night!) and arrived at the People's Palace (now the Palace of Parliament). It is an awesome building in the true sense of the word - the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon, it was commenced in 1984 and within 5 years, it was 70% complete. In order to achieve that it required 20,000 workers to work in 3 shifts around the clock. It is 9 stories above ground, and 4 below ground. There is a 5 tonne chandelier and a 4 tonne carpet within. The tour that we went on covered only 2% of the building. The amount of marble, gold leaf, crystal chandeliers and opulence is absolutely unbelievable. Originally designed to accommodate Caucescu's ego, it is now used for parliament and court functions.

Outside of the palace:

Inside one of the many opulent rooms:

An example of the chandeliers:Some of the amazing ceilings: Tomorrow we are heading off early for a day in the truck and a visit to caves in Bulgaria, before heading to a free camp towards the Turkish border.