Items found on Romania's most mystifying English menu

Chicken breast breast
Chicken breast calf
Garf saddle

In which we see Bucharest, get lost, get lost again, find ourselves homeless, and sweat. A lot.

I vowed we would not set foot in a taxi at any point during our trip. We would hoof it, take public transportation, or die trying. Which is how we found ourselves on an express bus crammed full of sweating Romanians, jockeying for elbow room the 18 km from the airport to the city. The bus started out full and got fuller at every stop. By the time we finally got off, I was bathed in sweat and fervently regretting the morning's wardrobe decision. We arrived at the hostel hot, tired, and grumpy.

The next morning, after a walk through what we were to discover was only one of Bucharest's many beautiful parks, we set out with all our luggage to find the next night's hostel (it was apparently a popular travel weekend). A quick bus ride took us to the metro, which took us to another park, where we would catch a final bus to the hostel. I consulted my directions and then steered us across the street so I could change my shoes

I felt pretty good. I knew where we were, I knew where we were going, and we hadn't gotten lost once. Flip-flops on and blister-inducing Chacos stowed away, I went to check the directions one more time. Directions which were now nowhere to be found. Frantic and thorough searching. Still no directions. Retracing of steps to where I last checked them. Still no directions. Shamefaced admission that missing piece of paper contained directions to every hostel we were staying at in Romania. Still no directions.

No matter. I remembered the bus number and I was certain I would recognize the stop and street names when I saw them. We boarded bus 104 and I watched as each stop was announced on the handy scrolling sign. I recognized none of them. When we reached a metro stop I knew something was wrong. There was no metro stop anywhere near the hostel.

We got off, and I consulted the world's worst map of Bucharest, courtesy of Let's Go. We had been on the right bus, just heading in the wrong direction. I took this opportunity to study the much larger map hanging at the metro station. I identified the correct stop, as well as the probable route to the hostel, based on what I remembered. I should note that the part of the city where we were headed is not actually on Let's Go's useless and poorly labeled map.

Back on the 104, this time in the right direction. When we reached our stop, I started to feel reassured. I found the street I remembered from the directions and we started down it, looking for the street the hostel was on. The neighborhood looked less promising with every block. The buildings were either empty, under construction, or only just met the definition of "building". I finally noticed that we were no longer on the right street. Retreat.

On the way back, walking down the other side of the street, I found a street sign that looked familiar. I had a vague recollection that the house number was 74. Sure enough, this street had a number 74. It would have been perfect, if only house number 74 had been a hostel and not some sort of ad agency. It also would have been nice if the surrounding houses had looked a bit more reputable and a bit less like semi-permanent gypsy camps.

My feet hurt. My back hurt. Alice looked like she was about to tip over from the weight of her top-heavy pack. And now it appeared that our hostel did not actually exist.

We walked around a bit more, giving the blisters time to really set in. After an only marginally refreshing lukewarm 7up, we found ourselves by a bus stop and I made an executive decision (something I had been doing the entire trip). We would take the bus to the train station (where I was pretty sure it was headed), where we would buy a phone card and call around to other hostels. Sure, they had almost all been full when I'd tried to book a room weeks ago, but something was bound to have opened up, right? And if that didn't work out, the train station would give us a central point from which to make new plans.

On the bus, we miraculously found seats, and by the time we were nearing the metro stop where all the confusion had begun a few hours earlier, the bus was even fairly empty, a rare occurrence on one of Bucharest's 122 (yes, 122) bus lines.

At this juncture, I should mention that at no point during the day had we actually purchased a bus ticket. It wasn't that we were cheap, it was just that we didn't know how. The hostel had run out and our attempt the previous day had resulted in magnetized tickets good for the express bus but useless on the other buses, which took little strips that looked something like generic raffle tickets. We were schwarzfahring, as they say in German.

So it's a good thing I was feeling particularly eagle-eyed, because I noticed right away when a man in a blue collared shirt with an electronic pad at his hip edged his way into the crowd waiting to board the bus by the middle door. I've never actually been controlled on an Austrian bus, but this guy had the look of a train conductor. Fortunately, we were sitting right by the back exit.

"Alice, we're getting off here," I said, grabbing her pack. As I sometimes make executive decisions without warning, she was prepared for this one. We hopped right off, and I like to think we didn't even look suspicious.

We had avoided getting controlled, but now we were lost, without housing, weighted down with luggage, and very sweaty. Naturally, Let's Go's map was no help at all. I steered us in the direction where I thought the train station should be and was relieved to discover a sign for the station but nonplussed when I realized it pointed to a street that positively could not be right, as it led right back where we'd come from. I paused to consult and subsequently curse Let's Go's map.

Plan B was to find a phone card and pay phone. The first part was easy; a nice woman at a nearby kiosk sold me one, but shook her head when I asked about a phone. In desperation, I asked after the train station and she pointed down the street. Not the street the sign pointed to, I'd like to add.

A block later we found a pay phone and the train tracks. I called the closest hostel and was informed that they did indeed have beds free and we could show up whenever we wanted. We hightailed it over, passing the train station and getting lost only once.

Checking in, the receptionist asked for our passports. When I pulled them out, the directions to the non-existent hostel fluttered to the ground. It's okay, we didn't really want to stay there anyway.