"Putting my hands on my head, I started to cry."

Translation: Punându-mi mâinile în cap, eu am început să plâng.

[AlexDiaconescu]

Actually both are correct in Romanian. PE CAP would be taken rather literally as putting your hands on the head and IN CAP should be treated more like a sign of desperation.

So the police will ask you to put your hands PE CAP, while your mother will put her hands IN CAP seeing the mess in your room :)

[ocalex86]

Can we say "Punându-mi mâinile pe cap, eu am început să plâng." instead of "Punându-mi mâinile în cap, eu am început să plâng."? The în sounds really strange to me.

[AlexDiaconescu]

I think both are correct. In usual conversation in is used more often than on

[Pickle1116]

It sounded very odd to me too, but if "în cap" is a colloquialism, then you can't really change it to "pe cap" just because it sounds better.