Welcome to Bucarest, baby

Well I arrived in Bucarest last night and what a difference from the small mountain towns I was in before. The buldings are huge! MASSIVE! I've never felt so small in all my life! I've also had a shocking first taste of Bucarest and Romania and realize what people were warning me about -- I went to the Canadian embassy to ask about getting a visa for Macedonia and saw a girl there crying. I asked what had happened to her and she told me her back pack got stolen on the night train while she was sleeping...I guess I won't be taking the night train then. After getting all the info I needed to get the visa for Macedonia (now I have to find the Macedonian embassy!) I decided to walk arround in the centre a little bit. So as I was taking a picture of a building, two street kids came up and asked me for money. Of course I said I had none, and of course they kept asking. Since I needed an internet cafe i decided I would give them each 1 lei (like 40 cents or something) if they could show me where an internet cafe was. They did, but I think they were taking me for a ride, cause I never acutally found one. So they kept following me and pointing "that way, that way" and all I wanted was to get away from them but they kept lurking. I figured they were up to something -- I mean, I had seen them checking out my pockets earlier and stuff. Low and behold they both walk up to me, one on each side and ask for money and tell me that they are hungry, and one guy grabs inside my pocket for my camera. So I hit him, told him to fuck off and walked away. While walking away I kept wishing I had decked the shit out of them (you know, adrenalin and all) but I think I traumatized them a bit! I don't think they saw that one comming...little #@$%@%^#%^. Needless to say they stopped following me. Nonetheless, I am happy that I was at least AWARE I was being pickpocketed, and was able to catch them. But I am also kinda freaked out and am glad Tim is going to meet up with me in Sofia so I will at least have a travel buddy. I am in a bit of a weird head space right now, so I am gonna go find me some eats and take some more pictures, figure out where the hell I am in this city and try to enjoy it.